“Wikipedia” -> “Google Knol” -> “Academic Earth”

I had been a heavy duty user of wikipedia for quite some time.  It empowered a whole new generation of knowledge seekers by using the power of internet communities to enable knowledge transmission. Slowly I feel Google’s knol is entering into Wikipedia’s turf. Another interesting contender which recently entered the fray is “Academic Earth“. Although the coverage of topics might not be that exhaustive as in Wikipedia or Knol, it scores over the wikipedia and knol in terms of authenticity, coming from the real classrooms of Yale, Harvard, Stanford etc. Will be interesting to see how this initiative unfolds into the future.

BusinessWeek profile of Academic Earth’s founder can be read here

Documentary on meltdown from PBS

Gripping documentary from PBS giving some inside scoop about the the meltdown

Serves as a good history lesson for prospective finance students. 

Some earlier gems from PBS

Some current thoughts about the status of the crisis:

Swaminomics: Beware Recession may be Hayekian

The insovlency of Fed

Some good signs with respect to easing liquidity problem

For sometime now, I have been following Ajay Shah’s crisis watch

Finally VIX is showing some signs of edging down. Additionally the TED spread also seems to be coming down. I hope this trend continues and eagerly wish VIX to come down below 40 level. These are very important in terms of understanding the trail path as well as future of the current financial turmoil. Ajay Shah gives good intro about the significance of these leading indicators of financial health of the economy (Another one here). The VIX chart for the good old days is explained here.

Barton Hinkle wins 2008 Bastiat Prize for Journalism

For starters, The Bastiat Prize was established in 2002 by International Policy Network, a global think tank based in London. The Prize recognizes journalists whose writings wittily and eloquently explain, promote and defend the principles of the free society, including property rights, free markets and the rule of law.

Last year this was won by the India Uncut fame Amit Verma. Even this year, Swaminomics fame Swaminathan Aiyar was the runner up.
Other previous winners of the Bastiat Prize have included Tim Harford (Financial Times), Mary Anastasia O’Grady (Wall Street Journal) and Robert Guest (The Economist).

The 2008 finalist’s articles are available online for download here:

List of finalists and a pdf of their articles

The 2007 finalists’ articles are available online for download here:
http://www.policynetwork.net/uploaded/pdf/Bastiat-2007-web.pdf

Obama or McCain: Who is better from Indian Perspective ?

For sometime until now, I was favouring Obama for some apparent reasons of symbolizing the vanquishing of racism and the dismal Bush legacy. I somehow felt that his soft stance on issues related to war and peace would be beneficial.

But on the economic front, when we examine the emperical data (courtesy: TOI) of their past history of voting related to various issues concerned with economics of free trade, we can imply that McCain is much better when compared to Obama in terms of business opportunities for india.(Ofcourse, as various disclaimers goes “Past results doesn’t indicate future performance”). But as a student of MBA, I would definitely not disregard the past data as inconsequential. Although, McCain has a hawkish reputation for his foreign policy, i feel it should be of lesser importance in the current economic scenario.

My electives for term III & IV

Here are the electives that I have chosen for term III & IV

Term III

Entrepreneurship & new ventures

resource based strategy

marketing strategy & implementation

CAPEX

M&A and Corporate Restructuring

Commercial Banking

Software Project Management

IT Strategy

Term IV

Business 2 Business Marketing

Services Marketing & Retail Mktg Mgmt

Logistics & Supply Chain Management

Stock Analysis and Portfolio Management

Project Management

E-business

corporate Taxation

contemporary business practices

Most of my subjects are related to the conceptual skills enhancement which I think will be required to me moving forward to a senior management role. Ofcourse some hygiene factors (forexample: courses relevant to current context, professor’s reputation in terms of evaluation, subject matter, some recommendations from seniors) were also considered in selecting the same. Eventhough finance sector is going down, you can see that I kind of ended up with a finance major. This happened purely for 2 reasons. one, I believe that finance and marketing are the 2 skills that a b-school degree allows you to differentiate yourself from the crowd. They also have a lot of conceptual bent to them which helps a person when he takes up any senior position. second, I believe majoring in finance is akin to becoming a doctor where you can put your skills to use for a long time even after you retire. (Disclaimer: These are purely my personal and we can debate on these to any extent)

some “aha” moments

Today I could not keep my self silent against appreciating the fact that why XL is regarded as such a renowned place for PM & IR study. The first thing that strikes to me is the versatality of the professors in this area. To name a few, Prof. Jittu Singh who taught us OB in term I was one of the few profs that I had seen till now who amazed me with the way in which a dry subject like OB can be taught so interestingly. In term II, this aspect was reinforced my Prof. E M Rao who taught PM portion of PM&IR course. I cannot but praise him for his versatality in terms of his all round knowledge apart from the Personnel Management to aspects as diverse as vedas. 

For sometime now, I used to wonder how can something like vedic knowledge which was very old, be protected from interpolation or misinterpretation when passed on through various generations of our forefathers and being continued even now to small extent (I guess so).  I got the answer for this question today in Prof. Rao’s class wherein in praise of indian intellect, he explained the concept behind vedic chanting as designed by our forefathers in terms of samhitha,pada,krama,jata and ghana principles(more from here) to avoid misinterpretation or interpolation from various pseudo-gurus, while the knowledge was getting transmitted across generations.

If oil hits 200 USD/barrel…

Niranjan Rajadhyaksha writing for LiveMint points out to some interesting implications of high oil price with respect to the future of Globalisation. Fortunately, the poster boy of India’s growth i.e., the IT industry is somewhat insensitive to these aspects.

…..There is one other factor that most people forget to mention when they discuss the success of globalization: low transport costs. It makes sense to make components in Korea, assemble them in China, and then ship them to consumers in the US only if the costs of moving widgets across the world are a minor part of overall production costs.

…..The regular talk about the threats to globalization hovers around the usual suspects, from the Doha deadlock to the wave of rising protectionism in the West. Few have bothered about rising transport costs till now. Rubin and Tal estimate that, at current prices, transport costs are equivalent to a 9% import tariff.

Whither Goest Thou…

Oprah talks to Stanford grads at their convocation

Even though this is a convocation message, I just felt that it would be better to remember it at the start of our academic journey to better realize our goals & preferences.

Some more from steve , Narayana Murthy

How to use time you are in college

Was going through this blog entry from Neelakantan. Contains some interesting insights. Hope you will agree with me on many of them.