Day 329 - 13th November 2011

Had the second session on BA today. The session was more about how the human brain functions and also how context plays an important role for the brain to process information. Another interesting fact was that the brain reconstructs and doesn't retrieve information from memory. The sessions on BA were followed by Corporate Communications and Reputation Management (CCRM). There was a visiting faculty who was conducting this course. He was with Cadburys during the worm infested chocolate controversy. He gave a brief  theoretical setting before going into discussing how Cadburys tackled the issue. An important learning was how they tackled the issue internally as well, by sharing all information with employees and keeping their morale high.  That was followed by a session on media training called media training 101. It dealt what needs to prepare for if he/she is the spokesperson for his/her company. The session also had a few mock interviews which were quite interesting and some good learnings came out of it. Classes got done by 530, didnt have much to do after that. Have been watching futurama over the past couple of days. Munched on some midnight snacks from MICARE, continued watching futurama before calling it a day.

Day 279 - 29th July 2011

The AFM sessions today dealt with 2 topics - budgeting and M&As. We had cases on both topics to be read before class. The case on budgets seemed a little difficult, although the company in question was making phenomenal growth its profit margin was quite low and the reasons for that had to be analysed. In M&As we were given a case on the HLL-TOMCO - the first merger to place post the liberalisation. Again a pretty interesting case with a lot of learning. Classes for the day were done by 12 after which had to take care of some MCSA work which took about an hour.

Could squeeze in a siesta today as well, a good hour and a half of it. Had some more MCSA work regarding certain electives for the fifth term which kept me busy in the evening. During the course of the day got to know about a book on cricket and sports marketing that was launched recentlly, used that as an excuse to venture out to Crossword. It started raining after I reached crossword so used that as an excuse to stop by at McDonalds next door and grab a bite while waiting for the rain to subside.

Got back to campus by 930. MICARE had its opening night tonight and they were distributing free coke float and souvenirs. After that we had to practice for the Palaash dance in the audi which was amazing fun. Also had a birthday celebration in Amaltas. Got back to the room by 2 and decided to start working towards clearing the backlog of books that I have to read. Started reading Pundits from Pakistan - a journalist's account of the Indian cricket team's tour of Pakistan in 2004. Read that for a bit before calling it a day.

Day 159 - 14th December 2010

For once things went according to plan and I managed to wake up a little early today to read up a bit on IMM. The quiz was pretty OK, some of the questions seemed to require only common sense while the others needed a good understanding of media terminologies and concepts. Apart from that RM and AM lectures. RM was taken by a visiting faculty member who also happens to be a MICA alumnus. He introduced the topic of research design and posed some pretty tough questions to the class :P. AM was about the Advertising Standards Council of India and its role, some pretty interesting cases were presented alongwith the ruling of the council.

Had to finish off some formalities regarding the Bangalore trip in the afternoon. Had a discussion with the prof. regarding the learnings from the meet and how things can be improved for future meets. Slept off for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Had to get cracking on the Imagining India essay, which I did in the evening, it can be no surprise that one third of my essay is based on how cricket can be seen as a metaphor for the changing aspirations of the middle class in India ;-) At Micare it was the turn of Maushi's team to takeover and they came up with the idea of serving pani puri. It turned out to be a huge success with their stock getting sold out in 20 minutes!

Its end term season as well and we have a quiz in tomorrow's AM class so decided to study a bit in the night. Have been going through the ppts, have one ppt left before calling it a day. For some strange reason the exams this time around dont seem to be as stressful as last term.

Days 153 to 158 - 8th to 13th December 2010

Been away again for quite a long time. Had a pretty hectic week and have now finally got some time to update the blog. So after staying up the entire night making the trippy tunnel made it to class on time. First two classes were IMM and the fatigue and lack of sleep set in at the beginning of the first lecture, at the end of the lecture though I thought I would be able to survive the second lecture, and how wrong was I! Never realised when I dozed off in class only to be woken up by Geeko who told me that I was snoring :-S, decided thats all I could take so came back to the room after the lecture and dozed off a couple of hours. Woke up in the afternoon as some work needed to be done for the Bangalore meet. After that had to go to Bopal with Balaji a.k.a Sir to buy some stuff for the trippy tunnel. Carried 12 feet long wooden planks on the bike, Sir was looking like a knight going in for a joust ;-) Once we came back had to get down to working on the IMM presentation for the next day. I was lucky enough to work in a good group and one of the group mates had worked in AC Nielsen so making sense of the data in the excel that was given to us became a lot more easier. Worked on the presentation till around midnight before I crashed for the day. Had only the presentation on the 9th which went of pretty well. We were playing the role of a media agency and had to pitch to Aircel with an effective media plan. We were pretty happy with what we did. After the presentation Maushi and I went to the old city to buy stuff for the alumni creatives. We also had lunch a sumptuous lunch at Upper Crust. Got back to campus in the evening after which we got back to working the tunnel and other on ground creatives. Spent most of the night in installing the tunnel and other also did a bit of the tensile structure which was shaped like a DNA (double helix). We also had to move out of our rooms on 9th since some of the alumni had already checked in. A few of us decided to sleep in the community centre, was good fun, moved our mattresses and blankets to the community centre. The next day as well was spent working on the tunnel, it was no easy task! Finally got done with all the work which included installing the UV lights at around 1030 that night. The end result was very good, people appreciated it a lot. Have posted a few pics of what went into the making the tunnel and the final result. The guy in the third pic is Kalkar - the brains behind the tunnel and in the second pic I am holding the light for Sir who was in charge of implementing the construction of the tunnel.

Had to leave for Bangalore on 11the morning for the city meet. Went to venue to check out the facilities after we landed. The meet was scheduled for Sunday so was free for rest of the day on Saturday. Met a few ex colleagues, went to SBX - where we have seen many a IPL match :-) The meet went off well on Sunday, had a decent turnout around 60-70 people turned up. Was free after the meet on Sunday evening so went to Purple Haze, was good fun to be back there as well.

Today started off early, had a 10 o 'clock flight so had to wake up quite early. Slept well on the flight. Reached campus at around 130 and caught up on more sleep. The Imagining India assignment deadline, which is a 3000 word essay got pushed to 20th from 15th, so have some time for that as well. Spent sometime with extended family after which we headed to Micare where the interns were in charge of the store today. Mallu and Bulla were handling the store from 1030 to midnight and they sold some pretty innovative stuff like bhutta, masala papad and popcorn. In the midst of all this we go to know that the first term results had been declared. the list had been put up in SH1. What ensued was a mad scramble :D Yours truly got a B+ overall and just scraped through in FA. It was also one of the rare occasions where I did exceedingly well in QT. Got back to the room after that.Have an IMM quiz tomorrow but I am feeling very very sleepy, will wake up a little early tomorrow morning and read up.

Day 126 - 12th November 2010

Half way through guest writers week and today's post is by a person who hasn't been mentioned on the blog but has been a regular reader - Atin Batra. Wanted to introduce him as the MICAVaani guy but he has taken care of that :-) So here goes -

'having read three guest writer columns over the past few days, I feel that there is one thing missing:
we must thank Mr. Siddharth Raman for giving us this opportunity to write on his blog...it is indeed an honor

apart from that, for the benefit of all those who do read this blog on a regular basis, it is highly commendable the fact that sid has continued to write it for so long. Believe me its not easy to take out time here in MICA (as a batchmate I know); and yet he has been at it all this while and to him i'd like to say, cheers man, keep up the good work....

well, now on to the meat of this piece, what happened today....well today started off as any other day with classes in the morning...though personally i failed to notice b'coz i was too busy getting my travel arrangements booked for a competition I have to go to next week....as for the classes-the three classes scheduled for today were all interesting (sid, i'm in B section, I had CMA and 2 AM, unlike you...hahaha). In CMA, we were reqd 2 read a case study which was supposed to be graded. However, the prof was too smart for us, he had apparently said that just to ensure that we read the case and came to class. Once that was over, I headed over to the MICAVAANI studio-MICA's community radio station.

Sid has never mentioned it so a little about MICAVAANI (sorry guys, couldnt help it-had to say something). MICAVAANI is the community radio station that transmits to the nearby villages.I am a part of the commitee so am working on a small programme for the coming sunday, 14th of Nov. We are planning to gou out to the villages. All those who are reading, GO AND LIKE OUR FB PAGE.

Right, so after classes and a little work in the studio, I went to the city for micavaani work-had lunch at McD's on the way-a welcome break from mess food. Returned from the trip at about 7, went to my room, sat on the computer, checked my mail and other online touchpoints and posted my weekly assignment for AM (yes, we post the assignment on Facebook). Skipped dinner and headed to the studio for work.

Before I started work, I visited MICARE, which is a killer thing. I am a sucker for Lychee Twirl juice and have ended up having 2 glasses every day-did that today itself.

It's 1:00 am right now and am writing this blog entry from the studio itself.

Well, thats all I have to tell about today as of now...thank you siddharth for this opportunity, hopefully we will be able to do this again.'

Day 122 - 8th November 2010

Its nice to be back on campus, for a change the weather is very pleasant. Had to carry my sweatshirt from home. Started off with one of the two subjects that I am looking forward to this semester - Introduction to Media Management(IMM). One of the faculty members taking the course is a MICA alumnus and is presently the VP at Jagran Prakashan. He had 3 sessions with us today and it didn't feel boring at all, we were introduced to the basic concepts of media planning and research. This subject is an extension of IMEI from the last sem which I found quite interesting, hoping this is also follows the same trend. Today's CB class revolved mainly around two different advertisements for Bajaj Pulsar and Avenger. The idea was to show us how the ads tried work on the different levels in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, some of the inputs that came in though were hilarious to say the least and unfortunately cannot be reproduced on this blog ;-)

All plans for a siesta were thwarted since there was a practice match against Navy 'Square' Cut. MCL will pick up again now that MICANVAS and the diwali break are done. It was a close match which we ended up winning by 2 runs. Yours truly got out on the first ball of the match :-P The fact that I hardly spent anytime at the crease made me feel like I had absolutely no exercise, so went to the gym and ran a bit on the treadmill :-D

The second course I am looking forward to this term is Advertising Management(AM),again taught by a very good prof, which begins tomorrow. Had a pre read for that which I did in pre and post dinner. Got done with that and went to MICARE - the retail store on campus run by students, they keep everything that we otherwise would have to make a trip to the city to go to get. Got back to the room and read a bit of IMM, we have a quiz on the subject tomorrow. Have some more quizzes and assignment submissions lined up over the next week, looks like the vacation part of the semester is coming to an end :-(