AIM Diwali 2008 Celebrations

Last friday we celebrated Diwali at the Asian Institute of Management... Shailaja, Rachna, whom I fondly call Rakhans La, Lambi and lotsa variations of those words, and me stayed up till 3 AM friday morning making chottu (small) diyas to stick on all the dorm doors. At 3:15 - esque we decided to stick diyas on the professors cabins... was awesome fun... the place is so huge we actually got lost a couple of times... and all of this while the Diwali Taash (cards) session was going on in college (which we obviously missed)

Come AIM Diwali day and our entire dorm, 311, was performing 'Bollywood through the ages'... I'm not usually the dance on stage kinda person but it was a dorm-mate's walkabout and so lots of us from class performed....

Hats off to Shailaja who made sure we came for practice, casework or no casework, decoration or no decoration work. She's a fabulous dancer but she'd never choreographed before and made the Diwali performances her walkabout... After going through what she did, I realized had I been in her place, I'd have probably given up and picked another walkabout topic... getting everybody, including the exchange students, to come for practice was quite a task... the best part was that inspite of everybody's nakhras (tantrums) she kept plodding on....

I was pretty worried about performing coz the songs she was making me dance to arn't normally the kind of songs I'd dance to and so I had a drink or two before I went on... it was so much of fun... the show went off pretty well and of course Shailaja won everybody's hearts.

Sportatainment resorts

The future of hospitality development is the convergence of leisure, recreational, entertainment and sporting activities all rolled into an offering, complete with seasonility proofing through providing something, especially adventure sports, for all seasons....

What do I mean by that... indoor versions of outdoor sports like skiing, kayaking, golfing, surfing... you name it!

Sounds great for a sports marketing wannabe like me... but it got another part of me thinking... going to different places to experience the charm and the sports styles of that place is a package deal... with these indoor or man-made resort-sportatainment complexes the whole 'discovering places and their natural sporting charm' will disappear.

But then again... with most of us caught up trying to make as much money as we can to enjoy it how we want, we often miss out on going to all those places we fantasize about...

Thinking about it some more I feel these developments are fantastic... coz this way a curious mind knows where he can go, can make a weekend trip out of it (assuming the infrastructure comes up globally - which it will), try it out and if he truly wants to experience the magic of nature go and do the same without making the visit a commercial travel... why did I bring that into the picture? Today alot of people want to travel to 'exotic' locations, example Leh-Ladakh, to the extent that their travels to these places is proving hazardous to their (places') existence...

So with these resorts in place at least natural beauty can be conserved.

Another good thing is everybody will have tons of fun options to indulge in, all year round.

These resorts then make business sense by having multiple offerings. Most importently it portends good job options for people like me. :)

http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4036681.search?query=dubai+indoor+adventure+sports+complex

Quotable Quotes

This is going to be an on-going post of quotes that I find inspiring, quirky or just plain funny...

"You have to approach the world as an equal... there's no such thing as being a supplicant" - Howard Stevenson

"Bacteria is the only culture some people have" - No clue

"Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes - that way if you still feel the need to say something abrasive, you've walked a mile away and you have their shoes" - No clue

Another fillip to Sports in India

It's been a really long while since I last blogged... the weather's been too rainy to get any significant work done...

but trust sporting developments to get me to blog again...

I see that the Sports Authority of India (SAI) is going to build 20 astro turfs for hockey, to better the basketball court in Bhopal (apparently the regional center for SAI) and waiving off 30 million that sports federations owe them... sounds fantastic....

this is just what Sporting India needs... a good signal that the government is taking the business and social potential of Sports seriously...

I just hope the projects take off, middlemen or no middlemen apart

Our country needs focussed investment and sports is definitely a good way to go....

Here in Makati, I see phenomenal sports infrastructure.... they have fantastic badminton courts and more importantly people are perpetually engaged in keeping fit and playing lots of sports... its fantastic... even these regular courts I mentioned are really really good... it's basically an indoor construct with I think close to 10 courts, all occupied with waiting lists, on working days too!

We could take a leaf out of Makati's book and use sports to mobilize people and channelize their energy... for which the step taken by SAI seems to be one taken in the right direction

Reflection

4 months at AIM has taught me already that irrespective of the amount of work given, things have a knack of getting done and that most of the stress that gets generated is primarily anticipatory stress or self created stress... Once I realize this, it becomes easier to de-stress which in turn allows my head to get de-cluttered which in turn allows for opportunities of fruitful action...

so far so good... but today, during class, I had a scary thought... what if repeatedly going through the motions of getting stressed and de-stressed makes you complacent in that... you know you're gonna get stressed but still work will get done... allowing lethargy to sink in... that's scary...

which in turn brings me to the point that maybe the mind will take this direction but at that point of time, motivation needs to kick in... and that motivation could be just about anything... you don't necessarily need to subscribe to 'managerial' characteristics... you could just as well be unstructered but realize that, make the motivation kick in CONSCIOUSLY and get there...

and my ramblings continue ;)

Cheers to the Business of Sports

Alot of people are waking up to the fact that sports is a fantastic avenue to promote tourism and to add to the GDP.

I've always lived in India, except for my current studenting here at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) (Manila), and I still dint know that there was this mountain biking rally in Himachal which has been happening for the past three years! It felt so good to see this event in the news and to realize that it is a focussed, thought out event to boost tourism...big roads are crossed step by step....

Why should Sports be used?

Coz global sports is set to be a $141 billion industry by 2012 and the best part is I see it as an industry with a phenomenal 'multiplier' effect along with a crazy number of employment opportunities. And Asia has an important role to play... it's going to be a hotbed for sports with $19.4 billion expected to be its contribution. (source SportBusiness.com)

The main elements in the Sports BUSINESS are: teams or rightsholders, broadcasters, sponsors, infrastructure providers (facilities / venues), promoters, athletes, organizers. Across the board corporates are getting into becoming rightsholders, sponsors, promoters, infra providers and organizers. There's even been talk about having a sportsperson index listed on the bourses, which I think is very interesting and worth a try.

Bye-Bye Firm

We had a class on Asian Business Systems (ABS) today as part of our MBA program at Asian Institute of Management (AIM). We were discussing firms and their existence which actually was very interesting coz there are so many different perspectives on what actually constitutes a firm... even an individual can be a firm for that matter... customers themselves are called firms who buy products based on differentials in their income to obtain utility. The definition I found most interesting was by Nightingale who says very simply... firms exist because people don't necessarily know what they want, people don't necessarily know how to make something and people don't necessarily know whether want they want will be made properly or not... so the most obvious thing to do is to get together, collaborate if you may, and get the work done....thus in effect creating a firm.

However, there are people who believe that the MNC-like structure of the firm is gonna disappear to make way for more entrepreneurial structures.. personally I don't see that happening coz I feel products are sold through directive strategies... companies induce buying through suggestive ads and marketing... consumers don't buy based on utility only... these company guys (maybe I shouldn't say that coz very soon I'm gonna be one) create demand perceptions which consumers buy into... even information to an extent (I'm not specifying what extent) is controlled....

unless unbiased, untampered information is made available to consumers I personally don't see MNC's making way for entrepreneurial ventures....

Our prof. said he'd give us an article written by an IBM manager on the age of MNC's being over... as soon as I get it, I'll post either the link or the excerpt... until then keep your views pouring in!