Life and first movers advantage.

Last term in economics I was taught a concept called first movers
advantage which explained how an industry which moves first
into a new market would be at an advantage in Comparison to
others by the mere fact of being the first mover.At that time I
thought that it was quite true in real life as well.Just how true
it is, was brought home by the recent election Results.
We have just had elections for professional clubs which Were
contested very keenly by everybody including some of my close
friends. In general people who had made up their minds earlier
and were deeply committed to it got selected and People who
made up their mind late suffered.
Losing leaves a very bitter taste in the mouth but is also strangely
cathartic, especially when you embark upon an Endeavour in which
the chances of a loss are much higher than Those of a win. There
are two ways to approach a target which appears unassailable:
1. Give up and don’t do anything.
2. Get up and give it your best shot.
Personally I believe that the second is the best option . I have
always thought so theoretically but in practice have chosen the
first option most of the times. This time I chose the second
option and even though it did not work out it feels much better
to have done it .
Winning would of course be the best but having a good fight is in
it selves a great amount of fun. From this I have derived a rule of life :
“ sometimes winning is the best thing sometimes it is losing but
at all times fighting for something you believe in is better”.
This sort of rhymes with my favorite song “The bug” by Dire Straits :
“sometimes you're the windshield
sometimes you're the bug
sometimes it all comes together baby
sometimes you're a fool in love
sometimes you're the louisville slugger
sometimes you're the ball
sometimes it all comes together baby
sometimes you're going to lose it all".

Makes sense doesn’t it : )

Of weathermen and global economics.

The weather has improved in Hyderabad and has become
quite cool. My Hyderabadi friends tell me that this is the
way it is going to be now. We are well and truly into the
second term and are playing a Marketing game called markstat.
In this all study groups are managing An electronics company
each and are competing in a virtual market.
The first round has just got over and everyone is threatening
to destroy The competition by slashing prices in the next round.
Quite fun but very time consuming. So much so that you long for
the week days to go back to the class and get some rest there.

One of the subjects that we are reading this term is global
economics. The subject is made extremely interesting by a
movie called “ commanding Heights “ which is screened in
class. It deals with the changing world Order in economic
terms ,and is very interesting and instructive . The Prof.
who is taking this course is one of the best I have met and
is equally Remarkable .He makes a really boring subject
very interesting and gives A lot of funny one liners.
I will try and keep a track of them here, today’s Best was :
“If the weathermen predict the economy and the economists
Predict the weather everybody will be better off “.

This is currently my favorite subject as it officially expects
me to read all the current affair magazines that I can and
I can always honestly tell my study group that I am studying.

First Impressions

It has been more than fifty days that I joined ISB , when I look back at the first term I do not understand where the time has gone . It has to be the fastest fifty days of my life . It feels like F1 racing , highly charged superfast paced.
The first two weeks were fun and not representative of what was in store, the next two were full of very strange subjects ( for me ) like managerial economics , and statistics . The first one I could understand a little bit , the second went right over my head, way way over.
Before I could grapple with the subjects it was mid-term time and I was transformed to my first professional exam days of M.B.B.S when I was struggling with human anatomy ,and remembered the promises I had made to my selves of never getting into anything of that sort again ,instead here I was twelve years later again dreading another exam.

However the things did not end there the whole period from the mid terms to the end term exams passed in a blur , it just seemed that I had become an extension of my chair and that the world around me was moving .Professors came from abroad taught in the class and there I was sitting in my chair trying to get a grip on things.

Before I knew the final exams were there and I was out of term one and into term two.

orthopaedic surgery and MBA ?

People are always asking me, An orthopedic surgeon doing an MBA? Why?
Sometimes I am at a loss to explain this decision even to my own self, especially when I come out of the exam room, totally ba ffled as to what the hell was I answering for the last two hours ,like it happened in the statistics paper this Tuesday.

Why?

I mean I was happily settled with a promising career and a happy family life, why the hell did I get back to this grind of reading again ?

The truth is that I wanted to change over or in the words of an old friend of mine. "I want to do everything in this one life ". So here I am now at ISB Hyderabad, trying to make head or tails of Multiple regression, Interactions and leverage plots and thinking how easy orthopaedics was.

Was it a wise decision? Would I recommend it to another person? The truth is I do not know, it is too early to tell .The one thing that I can tell for sure is that the choice of the Institute was the right one. Whether I get a good job at the end of this one year at ISB or not this one year would be sufficient to change my life for the good forever.

Would I recommend it to someone else?

Answer is it depends , if some level headed guy asks me I would say yes unhesitatingly , but if a guy who was not sure of what he wanted were to ask me I would say no ,again unhesitatingly.

The truth of the matter is that these kinds of decisions are always big gambles, you never know whether they will leave you rich or a pauper. I will only be able to say sometime later in my life whether it worked out or not, till then it is just a shot in the dark.