Reflecting on SVCO

The last week was all about "Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford". The Silicon Czars gracing the occasion included Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Biz Stone (Twitter), Meagan Marks (Wonga) et al. Pre-event a select group of students were given the opportunity to network with some of the elite visitors on Sunday morning. The day of the event, Monday, consisted of two Master classes with the VIPs, two plenary sessions and networking events. Student buddies were assigned to some of the guests to help them around the college (though most of the VIPs have been in the school before, it is always helpful to have somebody around). I was “buddying” Reid Hoffman. This meant that I ended up missing some other events, but it was satisfying to be able to contribute to the event and learn some bits from the master.

My observation is that Reid is a genuine and private person (as was commented by one of his critics in the master class). He is smart without a shade of doubt, and has very little tolerance for either nonsense or pretence (I think that is essentially because he is very busy and these things waste time). He says few words packed with lot of meaning, and it is all up to you to understand and learn.

The networking sessions were good as well. Particularly, I enjoyed my short conversation with Meagan Marks. The Harvard-Stanford super-achieving beautiful lady also has a golden heart and spends a lot of time helping budding entrepreneurs. I found her advice about hiring and product development insightful.

The Oxford debate around the death of Silicon Valley was a non-starter: Silicon Valley is still far from Detroit. It was nevertheless interesting to hear the speakers argue it out.

I did not find the plenary panels particularly useful, but they were interesting. Most speakers gave careful or glib answers, which may or may not be particularly useful. It was however interesting to see them manoeuvring about the questions.

Overall, I think the event was fantastic. The event really pushes up the importance of SBS as a centre for technology entrepreneurship. However, as part of the Technology OBN in SBS, I would like to see most of these firms coming to recruit at SBS as well. But for now I will take what we get: the experience of learning a few things from the titans of an industry where I aspire to be in.

Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford

It is that time of the year. Well, it is Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford (SVCO) time and most of us are pretty excited to be part of the event. The list of Silicon Czars gracing Oxford include Reid Hoffman and Biz Stone. The focus will be on inspiring business minds to just do it, to be an entreprenuer in the wild-wild silicon valley. Today the top technology companies are sitting on a combined cash pile of $200 billion dollars. In our Marketing class when we talk about top brands, at least three in any ranking are technology brands. So, I think it is understandable that the event is generating so much excitement.

At the same time, the end of this month is going to a heavy one with umpteen assignments due around the same time. And if you think there is going to be peace after that, the exams are not too far. The good news is that exams end on 16th December, and there shall be ample opportunity to laze and party after that in the cold British winter. But till then we roll!

Week 5!

Another week, more assignments and more fun. It is as good as it gets with so many things flying about.Me and my brilliant classmates are juggling away lectures, assignments, readings, student clubs, career events, job hunt and partying as best as we can. I can hardly believe that it is already end of week five!

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that my classmates are the best part of this MBA. Exam schedule is out, first major assignment is due this Monday and soon we start with "Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford", a star event comprising of guest lectures, networking and workshops with top shots from Silicon Valley, including Reid Hoffman and Biz Stone. Company visits are in full swing, and each one of is missing something to get to something else: it is all about priorities. Electives list for next term is out as well, and people are already meeting and discussing about their entrepreneurial project next term. Plans for events as far as Trinity term are in pipeline. It is a busy, electrifying atmosphere that you can either love or hate. So far, I am loving it!

EMBA Dinner Fiasco and Mo Bro Excitement

End of week 2. I can only say that I am loving this more with every day. Regular lectures this week, the highlights being a dinner with EMBAs and the Mo Bro meeting.

An EMBA dinner is supposed to provide an opportunity to network with executive MBAs. Unfortunately, I was a bit late for this one due to confusion about the venue. Saw the college electronic display saying "19:00 EMBA Founder's Room" to only discover that it is really in St Hughs, as originally planned. Not that bad, you say? Almost, except that St Hughs is at least 20 minutes from SBS. By the time I reached people were already on the dinner table. Damn! Nevertheless, consoled poor me with the good food. No cooking for dinner at least! It was good to listen to Dr Chambers as well and discover that the CEO of CISCO was somewhere in the room. Some more consolation there! Overall, it was a good experience, though I did not exactly enjoy the 30 minute walk to home in the freezing night.

On the fun end, a group of MBA men, including me, have decided to grow moustache for the month of November to raise money for prostate cancer, a disease that affects 1 in 10 men in Europe. Please feel free to donate at http://uk.movember.com/. I have never grown a moustache before; will post some pics when I get there. I just hope I don’t end up scaring myself (or my wife) by end of November. Who would have thought that facial hair can generate so much fun?

Besides that, I feel I have been a bit lax till now with acads and may need to tighten the belt in the coming weeks. But that would have to wait for the Arsenal Vs Manchester City match today :)

On the Race Track

I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that God has made only 24 hours in a day. Welcome to Oxford, where there are so many things to do that you are bound to miss something. Or if I wish to twist my tongue, I can say that prioritization to maximize time-value is mission critical :D.

I hope I will adapt well to this, and I am enjoying the deluge of work as much as I possibly can, as you may imagine. In my mind one thing, though, is clear: I am not seeing this course as an academic one. Academics are important to some extent. Nevertheless, I have come here for the people as much as I have come for the learning.

Last week’s activities:
• Attended lectures with awesome professors
• Attended Careers Presentation by BT and Diamond Consulting
• Met my study group for discussing the Marketing assignment. After listening to some horror stories from last year, I am glad to say that our group is managing reasonably well (in terms of team dynamics) so far!
• Prepared and discussed the first draft of the pitch for Technology OBN (a student club) along with a few fellow classmates. The pitch would help us secure recognition and funds from SBS besides setting an agenda for the activities to come
• Attended a classmate’s birthday bash
• Matriculated Oxford style, wearing a subfusc
• Went for the “Sexy-subfusc” BOP

Besides this I am spending an inordinate amount of time, some may say, catching hold of my classmates and talking to them :). So far so good!

As Days Go By!

The lectures have not even started and I can already feel the heat building up. So many things are happening in tandem that I don't know what to cover and what to leave in my blog. More importantly, I am realizing that soon I may get so lost in this mesh that I may forget to blog altogether. Lets see, what did I do in past few days?

• Attended sessions by careers on cultural awareness, networking and streamlining the job hunt
• Attended my first meeting for Entrepreneurship OBN
• Met and talked with Dr McKenna, whom I had met first when I came for the school's open day for the first time and he was the Director of the MBA
• Chalked plans for a Technology OBN along with a colleague
• Registered with my college
• Settled in my new home, which I had found earlier but got possession of only recently
• Saw two beautiful Oxford colleges with friends

Today I am reading pitches by people who wish to head a core OBN in finance, private equity or management consultancy. There is still time to decide for whom to vote for. Today will be a busy day as I attend case study preparation session, prepare for Technology OBN meeting, attend St Cross induction, buy subfusc, register with the medic and finally help in conducting the Tech OBN meeting. In coming days need to settle the amenities et al before the action begins. Loving it till I get run over by it!

Induction, Social Entrepreneurship and Impending Deluge of Work!

After some sobering messages by the Careers team over the two bootcamps, yesterday the MBA class relished some encouraging words by Dr. Stephan Chambers, the Director of MBA. Oxford, with its rich history, is a complicated and interesting place, to say the least. It feels good to be a part of its rich heritage.

Today, I attended a talk on Social Entrepreneurship. I understand that it takes passion and commitment to be an entrepreneur with a social cause, and that can come only from inspiration within. Business inspires me, and I would conduct it ethically and responsibly. Beyond that, there is nothing much of interest for me in Social Entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, I am impressed by an alumnus from Canada who is running a flourishing business in Zambia. Hats off to his passion and commitment, and several other similar champions. Even within my own class, several people aspire to use business skills to make a sustainable difference to this planet. I wish them all the best, but this nut is not for me to crack, I think.

Meanwhile, our study groups, sections and timetables are out. Excluding lunch breaks, comfort breaks, travelling et al, I think I will be doing at least 50 hours of lectures per week for next 8 weeks. Add to this the group work, assignments, exams and some extra-curricular activities. Of course some sleeping, eating, socializing/networking, job-hunting and family time. This will be fun... In the following weeks if you notice me by the virtue of my absence, please don't be surprised!

Finance Bootcamp

Two days of Finance Bootcamp, and my biggest take home is that it is not the field that I would aim for. Besides the unsocialable working hours and extra-ordinarily high stress levels, in the current climate finance is simply off-limit for experienced MBAs with a non-finance background. It is as simple as that. So, why bother and waste your time and energy.

Even then, there were many new things to learn as I listened to the sector consultants. My key take away:

• Investment banking constitutes of only 10% of finance jobs. Finance is much more than M&A and trading
• the execution time of financial deals can vary from micro-seconds (trading) to decades (project finance)
• even after 6 years of work-experience, there is much to learn about the black art of writing CVs and cover letters
• a well researched opinion can make all the difference
• networking rules
• in the current scenario, forget about finance if you do not have a finance background

Oxford Pursuit

It is amazing that even though I enjoy writing about philosophy, policy, poetry and learning experiences, I find it amazingly hard to write about events and people. For me, this is a brand new discovery that has come up while thinking about what to write about "Oxford Pursuit", an activity this Sunday that helped most of the MBAs to know a few more of their classmates, explore Oxford and have some fun. I will give it a try.

"Oxford Pursuit" is a game akin to treasure hunt and was played around the main landmarks and pubs of Oxford. I enjoyed the chase around the city, and had some really good discussions with my team-mates during and after the hunt. In a group of five, we had a US soldier who had served in Afghanistan, a successful New York trader, a German marketer, a professional with roots in Hungary and an Indian techie (yours faithfully). I had some amazing discussions on topics including entrepreneurship, capitalism, communism, politics in India, politics in Hungary and leadership, to name a few. The time spent made me realize that even though we are different from each other, there is a subtle ambition and attitude that we share at some level. In a certain unexplainable way, it makes me feel at home.

It is good to be in Oxford.

A Disappointing Career Fair by Top-Consultant

Management Consultancy Fair organised by Top-Consultant was a big disappointment, to say the least. Barely ten companies (IBM, Accenture, Ernst & Young, Pcubed, Newton, Thoughworks, BT) and ten recruitment firms! Not of much value there, and nothing worthwhile to write about it either. Anyway, moved to Oxford finally. Now next in line are "Oxford Pursuit" on Sunday and Finance Bootcamp on Monday. I think the next two weeks will go into settling in and getting into the grove. Will keep you posted!

Management Consultancy Bootcamp: Day Two & OBA Event

End of the second rigorous day of the Management Consultancy Bootcamp (MCB) with SBS in Oxford followed by a brilliant evening talk organized by the Oxford Business Alumni (OBA) in London. I am dead tired, but will summarize my take home for the day.

For MCB:

• got a perspective about hiring from the people who actually do the recruiting (from LEK, Bain, IBM, Ernst & Young and PRTM)
• got a taster of written tests, fit interviews and case interviews. Received some pointers about handling case-based questions
• listened to the experience of the students from 2009-10 batch who got an offer from top consulting firms

All the specifics, including the full video recording and presentation slides, will be made available to all students online via the careers portal. One thing is sure; the decision to pursue consulting is not to be taken lightly. Not only the process is hard, high travel times can potentially place very high demands on your personal life and health. Nevertheless, the bootcamp will enable the students to make a more sensible and well-informed choice. In fact, some students will be starting case interview practice (yes!) right from the coming Monday. Amazing speed.

For OBA event, I enjoyed the talk by an erstwhile Oxford alumnus. During drinks, I connected with four brilliant people, and not even one of them had done the MBA. And that is where I realized the reach of the University of Oxford. Anybody from Oxford with interest in business can be in your network, and I think that would really broaden the scope of networking and help all of us to leverage the Oxford brand more effectively.

Time to hit the bed. Tomorrow I am going for a Management Consultancy Career Fair in London, after which I shall finally shift to Oxford. Ciao!

Management Consultancy Bootcamp: Day One

SBS has organised a two-day Management Consultancy Bootcamp for its incoming students in order to give them a better idea about the consultancy landscape and give them a head-start for preparing for the rigorous interviews. Today was day one. This is my take from it:

• Got to meet quite a few of my future classmates, and had fun talking to a friendly, diverse group of bright people from all around the globe
• Got an idea about the consulting landscape and what it is like to be a consultant
• Got a much better idea about the application process, the things that consultants may be looking for in an ideal candidate and the pitfalls to avoid while writing a CV or a covering letter

One can read zillion books, spend hours on networking and make a herculean efforts to analyze markets; even then it may not be possible to gain such insight as was packed in this one day. At end of day one, I can simply say that it was a very useful and informative session. A productive, tiring day. Will hit the bed for another long day tomorrow at Oxford followed by an Alumni event in London. I guess it is preview of the busy days ahoy!

CloudForce 2010

Some time back I had attended an event by SalesForce.com in London, CloudForce 2010. In the CRM world, SalesForce is an awesome company that has given companies like Siebel and SAP a real run for their money. Not content to occupy the CRM space only, SalesForce is now targeting cloud computing with a difference: it is trying to marry cloud computing with content management systems and rich-internet application (RIA) development to develop and popularize an alternative application development and deployment model. A very ambitious and daring venture, I must say. In the world of IT changes can be either pretty fast or they can simply linger on (if not, we wouldn't find a single mainframe on the face of earth). Since many organizations would be haevily invested int the present status quo, it is a complex proposition at its best.

On the up side, SalesForce has built a brilliant RIA and is trying to leverage its knowledge to both help and tie in its clients. It is doing a brilliant effort to make partnerships and sell the idea on the force of its network. The marketing strategy seems to be brilliantly thought out, and the execution is marvellous. The deployed applications are said to take lesser time, are on the cloud and readily deployable to browsers, iPad, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. With lower costs, it can potentially be tempting for an entrepreneur to use the set up to launch an internet application. With "Chatter", they are also trying to present themselves as the secure facebook of the corporate world. With tools to analyse Twitter feeds and integrate it with SalesForce products AND the applications developed, the possibilities indeed seem mouth-watering. Having a functioning CRM RIA is a big plus here.

On the down side, I feel they are trying to do too many things and trying to be all things to all people. I am not sure how this hopscotch of ideas (When Azure Meets Joomla, Facebook and Twitter?) would work out without some seriously tough strategy planning and implementation: something that may turn out to be quite a mouthful even for the SalesForce marketing juggernaut. There have been systems that have promised develop once and run anywhere in different ways, but have failed when they have not given enough flexibility to developers and designers. Successful content management and application development systems like Joomla or Drupal come in handy on a typical LAMP (Lucene, Apache, MySQL and PHP) set-up with a nice net based UI to develop a simple,reasonably powerful and secure application that can run on any Windows or Linux based cloud. At any time a company can switch the cloud-operator or host themselves. With SalesForce, you are pretty much tied to them if you want the app. Another worry I have is that they have tied-up with Adobe to deliver their application development IDE. In many of my earlier blogs on RIAs, I have often complained about the lack of end-user focus in Adobe RIA applications like the erstwhile Flex. I sincerely hope SalesForce does not depend on them only for this IDE.

In conclusion, the product idea definitely has an immense potential to succeed, but the path is far from easy and there are some problems that I can already envision. It will be interesting to see how the application develops eventually, as other cloud providers are sure to counter this massive marketing blitz with moves of their own.

The Rise of PaaS

After Software as a Service (SaaS) we are now slowly entering the domain of Platform as a Service (PaaS). As the Internet speeds pickup and our hardware increasingly becomes more powerful, there is little to stop this transition. With enough competition in the domain it would possibly present benefits to a lot of people from a business point of view as it would further democratize application development.

I feel that the three key factors that need to be taken into consideration before either adopting or selling PaaS:

1. Security: Keeping proprietary code on alien servers may be hard to stomach for many businesses if they fear data-theft or data-loss. This is always going to be top-priority and reputation is everything. It would make sense only for the big and established brands to enter the arena immediately, so to say.
2. Speed: Technically proficient companies may feel that they are ceding control of the speed of application as they would no longer control many things in the server, database and application development. For many small and medium business owners, though, this may not be as big a consideration. Nevertheless, the companies attempting to enter PaaS will perhaps counter this by giving more configuration options and partnering with network accelerators.
3. Portability: This would be another major issue. With their experience with computing over the last so many years, business owners in general would hate to tie down themselves with any specific PaaS provider. This means PaaS provider would have to either leverage some existing and popular framework (aka Red Hat) or invent and popularize an entirely new one (aka SalesForce). Both challenges are not for the faint-hearted!

With respect to development of Rich Internet Applications, this would only further complicate the equation in this nascent field. Tie-ups, support, marketing and smart technical development is the way ahead, I guess, as reach somehow always wins over technology (especially when the product can be potentially commoditized). The big horses to watch include Red Hat, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Google, HP and SalesForce. I am sure many others would try as well. Lets see how this story unfolds.

Seminar With Jane Silber

I attended my first seminar at SBS today which was organized by the "Women in Business" special interest group. More specifically, Jane Silber, the CEO of Canonical Ltd and an alumna, addressed a select group of SBS students, alumni and faculty. The event was organized by two students from the 2009-2010 batch, Annika Dubrall and Emily Chew.

Overall, the seminar was well organized but the attendance was a bit muted as perhaps many students were preparing for the end of their course, arranging possible logistics of moving out of the country or otherwise. Nevertheless, the cause of women in business, I would think, could have done with a little more support. Anyway, I found Jane Silber to be humble, sharp, unpretentious, dedicated and technology focussed. Being a techie, I know that Canonical's product Ubuntu is a great operating system(OS) for PCs. It is one of the most popular and easy to install versions of the Linux, and its focus on ease of use has won it several laurels. Even though for server based system Red Hat Linux rules, as Jane Silber herself said,Ubuntu is the undisputed king of PCs running Linux. I feel that the next few years will really test her leadership and vision as Ubuntu faces intense competition from Google's new Linux based OS, increasing dominance of web (which will favour Red Hat) and a resurgent Microsoft, to name a few. Yet, with its excellent brand, a strong user community, ties with OEMs and increasing popularity, Ubuntu and Canonical will remain a force to contend with, and I wish Jane Silber all the best steering this ship.

The Human Story

Though each one is blessed by Him
Why the light in hearts is dim?
Like a poisonous serpent black
Like a deadly locust attack
Like a hunter's closing net
Like a heavy loosing bet
A darkness creeping on a name
Like winds closing on a flame
Hearts trapped in greed and hate
Humans oblivious to their fate
As far as our story goes
Goodness dies and evil grows
Are we stupid or are we naive
When we dig our own grave...

Thinking Networking

Managing an MBA application and then implementing the transition is a big project in itself. I think it is the first training that one gets at multi-tasking, prioritizing and answering some difficult questions.

The more I think, the more I feel that the most powerful thing about the MBA is the network it puts you in. To progress in this world with lesser hurdles is not only about talent and drive. The personality and initiative do matter, and so does your network: a group of intelligent, helpful and successful peers and mentors. Compared to other educational setups, I think that an MBA provides for the strongest possible settings to build a strong, worldwide, quality network for the simple reason that quite a few people come to the MBA with this motive. Your MBA group, the alumni network and your school can potentially be your biggest power base. Of course a lot will depend on your willingness to contribute back, how much you interact with people and your conviction in this belief.

I have met a few people from my senior and current batch, and my experience has been good. Perhaps I will have revised this opinion after the course, for better or for worse. But for now, I go in with a realistic understanding that even though not everybody may think alike about networking, it is highly probable that the MBA group would be a cohesive one overall. Fingers crossed!

Home Sweet Home

Unlike India or US, in UK colleges do not take that active role in helping you with accommodation or food. Moreover, letting privately is expensive. So, I will just summarize my experience of finally being able to find a place to live in Oxford.

The most reasonable option is to try and get an accommodation from your college, if they have any (you will need to check and research that). Additionally, if you are looking for college accommodation, you will need to indicate it pretty early. I missed this and applied only after I had been accepted by the college. Needless to say, it was pretty late.

Alternatively, as soon as you get accepted, you can also start looking into University Accommodation and apply. I did not know about it until a current student told me and missed this as well. Again, earlier you are, the better it is.

If all else fails and you need to hire privately, you can pursue the following channels:

1. Contact current students who are hiring privately. Perhaps something can be worked out between the two of you so as when they leave you get the place
2. Regularly follow your batch's online forums (SBS internal, Google Groups, Facebook)
3. The college welcome site has a list of letting agents. Somehow, lettings in Oxford are as expensive as London, and most of the letting agents, in general, offer a not-so-good service. I found "Scott Fraser" and "John D Wood" useful.

If you do not have a base in England, you may find it harder to get the right privately let property. I would not advise coming and looking for a place while studying. Additionally, you may need a guarantor if your spouse is not working.

I used the following resources to locate my current home:

Prime Locations
Find a Property
Rightmove
Oxford Times
Daily Info
Gumtree

Hope this helps.

Worth

A small poem that I once wrote to inspire myself :D

Life is short, it is going by
Fears and prejudices will make it a lie
Hard work and loneliness may often hurt
But keep kicking your feet in the dirt

Without an aim life is a broken star
Without an aim you will not go far
Life is not a desert, it is an ocean
So get rid of every silly notion
And feel the plenty that you get
For the worst may not have come yet

Wipe your tears and your sweat
With every sunrise and sunset
To work hard and to grow
To move forward and to know
Is the best gift that one can get
Is the blessing that I covet

Past is a shadow and a dream
And as glorious as it may seem
Work for now with the goal in sight
Let valor be your guiding light
Use your time on this earth
Life is short, make it worth

Update

The loan is finally through and, as of now, I have paid my fees :). The time for action is slipping closer day by day, and I am looking forward to it. The next important mission on hand is netting an accommodation in Oxford. Once I am able to get it, I will definitely take out some time to blog the whole nine yards as well.

My Loan Story Till Now

About my loan journey, I tried exploring loan options in the UK due to a markedly lower rate of interest here. Unfortunately, there are not many options here. As far as I know. only Natwest offers an MBA loan, and that too if you have been in the UK for at least 3 years (even 2.5 years,as in my case, does not qualify). Additionally, the repayment term must end within the time period of your visa. This may not be a big problem for EU citizens, but for me it meant that I would have to repay the loan within 2 years at most, a ridiculous option at best.

I think Oxford is one of the few top-tier schools with no loan arrangements, and I have no idea why. I also think that MBA students from top-tier institutes pose a much lower risk than all students in general, but the UK Banking establishment does not seem to be in any mood to give as they perhaps bracket MBA graduates from top B-Schools with the rest (this article further explains why I say that). They, however, do have "Graduate Loans", loans that you can take after you pass out from the college and get a job. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

I finally managed to get a loan from back home (India) and it is going almost fine. Almost fine as at the last moment the central bank decided to raise base interest rates. This not only pushed up the interest rate that I would pay but also increased the amount of margin money required to secure the loan. Which brings home another lesson: don't wait till the last moment to transfer the money. I think a 4-week gap will allow me to recover from this delay gracefully, though a lesser gap could have been potentially suicidal. So, here I am waiting for the loan to actually come through: fingers crossed!

Watch Out for Outstanding Dues

When a bank gives you a loan, it will do a complete credit check on you, and sometimes an unclosed credit card account that you forgot to close officially (even if you made all the payments and had a zero balance) can come to bother you. It is always good to close your credit cards officially and take a letter of closure with no credit from the bank. For current cards, you may need a letter from your bank saying that it is a current account. If you already have another loan on you, say a small, miserly personal loan you took 3 years ago to be repaid over 4 year period, you will be expected to present an account statement for that as well. Closing it altogether before pursuing the education loan would be even better. Again, nobody may ask for it. But if they do (and they will only in the later stages, just when you need to transfer the money), it is better to be prepared. You have been warned.

On the Capitalist Road

So, it is official. Told my work-colleagues, put in my papers, put the loan in place and ready for the exciting times that await me in Oxford. I am joining the Saïd Business School, Oxford for a one-year MBA, and now looking forward to an intense one year.

Now that I have some time to reflect, I am thinking about the challenges to come and gearing myself up for it. The general thought in the mind is "bring it on", a boyish impudence that is looking forward to the challenge and the prospect of learning and making life-long contacts. I will use this blog to chronicle my business learning and list the general problems I either faced or observed during the transition to SBS and the steps I took/ observed to solve the same. Lets see where we get!