Fwd: FW: Product-Manager Conclave

[Alok Shukla]

Sorry Guys,

In spite I having a 30 minutes session with Professor Agrawal on Sunday encouraging him not to do so, he still sent out the email. I had asked him to please work with SAC to clear his misgivings as most of them are baseless, however he chose to write his unfounded, unverified misgivings in public. We all know that apart from point number 3 which may have been a impression that might have been caused however incorrectly so, rest of them are clearly unsubstantiated statements.

Guys, I do not want any one of you to feel demoralized, because apart from him NO ONE and I say NO ONE has nothing but extremely good things to say about the team and the conclave. I think the best way to counter this argument is present facts as they are.

This is what Mr. Ram and Mr. Ravi said about the conference.

From Ravi Padaki - Yahoo - "Alok, great job on the event. Great panels. Well attended and received."

From Mr. Ram Narayanan, VP product management at Yahoo "Thanks for having all of us at the event yesterday – it was an enjoyable experience and hope to see it grow further. I am adding the others from Yahoo who were there as well to provide their inputs. I look forward to seeing this effort take wings"

Thanks,

Alok Shukla

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alok Shukla <alok.s...@iimb.ernet.in>
Date: Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 1:24 AM
Subject: FW: Product-Manager Conclave
To: alok.k...@gmail.com

-------------------------------------------
From: Agrawal N M
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 1:23:43 AM
To: @PGSEM2008; @PGSEM2009; @PGSEM2010
Cc: Ramananjappa K R; Supriya Dey
Subject: Product-Manager Conclave
Auto forwarded by a Rule

Dear All

 

I am writing to share my concerns and feedbacks with respect to Product-Manger Conclave conducted on last Sunday by PGSEM participants.

 

On the face of it, the conference was a great success with 300 participants. However, I will like you to kindly examine the following and ensure that it is not repeated in any future initiatives by PGSEM Participants or PGSEM-SAC committee:

 

1.        I was surprised to notice IIMB logo along with Adaptive Technology logo at the top of the banner in the auditorium as well as at the gate.  It creates an impression as if Adaptive Technology was an equal partner in organizing the conference. To my knowledge, Adaptive Technology was not an organizing partner. It  was only one of the sponsors for the conference. It should have been rightfully placed along with Yahoo and Macfee the other two sponsors for the conference.

2.       While the conference was organized by PGSEM participants, there was no mention about PGSEM either on the folder or on the banners.

3.       Mr. Pinkesh Shah was disproportionately give much higher coverage in a half-a-day programme which was not warranted.

4.       During my meeting with SAC members who had come to meet me, I had specifically mentioned that we should provide enough time for projecting the projects done by PGSEM participants. The coverage was minimal and literally at the end of the programme.

5.       It also looks that many of the facilities were being managed by Mr. Pinkesh and his group. While at 1.10 p.m. I came out of the conference, he told me to wait for a few minutes so that the cameraman can record my video feed back about the programme. I was taken aback. I wondered whether it was our programme or of Adaptive Technology.

 

I am writing such a detailed note because I am very pained and feel very bad about what ever happened. In my meeting with the organizing members who had met me about a month before, I had explained what should be the focus of the conference and in-spite of that it was  not managed properly.

 

I will like the PGSEM Participants and SAC committee to take lessons from the exercise and ensure that such gross mistakes are not repeated.

 

With best wishes and remembrance,

 

Narendra M Agrawal

___________________

Narendra M Agrawal

Professor, Leadership and Human Resource Management

Chairperson, Center for Software and IT Management and PGSEM

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

Bannerghatta Road, Bangalore – 560076

Phone: 00-91-80-2699 3037 (office); 2699 3161 (Residence); 974 222 1301 (Mobile)

e-mail: agr...@iimb.ernet.in

 

 

--
Alok Shukla
India

[Alok Shukla]

Another comment from Nimish Gupta of McAfee

.  " the conclave yesterday was excellent – definitely worth attending and participating in…  Thanks to Alok for dragging us in!"

From Jayant Thakre of Subex

"I must say you guys did a fabulous job in terms of organizing today's IPMC event. The event was managed very professionally. I know how much hard work organizers put into such events so I want to make sure your effort doesn't go underappreciated. Please let your team know that how much we valued their effort. 

 
Kudos to your entire team!"

Alok

--
Alok Shukla
India

[Joel Johnson]

Hey Alok,

Just to add, I think there is some validity in terms of points 1 and 2. I've raised our reasons with SAC, and they'll communicate it with the CP for the required clarifications.

Essentially, it looks like he had a different perspective on how the branding and communications for our events was to be done. While we have taken the inspiration from the Vista website, it looks like he may not be aware of how this is done. We will take care of ensuring that the CP and the team are on the same page next time onwards.

Also, I'm quite sure that our team is proud of what we've accomplished. I personally feel no pain from his reply, and I feel most of us also think the same way. I find his wording written with less criticism than he could have. What I do take away from this is that we have to ensure the awareness of the CP in the decisions we take with the reasons for them. Granted that they will add more delay in the proceedings and planning, but it will help us go a long way in understanding the view of one of the most important stakeholders in the PGSEM programme. He is, after all, amongst the one permanent pillars in the PGSEM programme with a long term view and experience in the ways of the institute.

I must say that I'm proud to have worked on such an event with you and the team. For the most higlighted parts, the mistakes made were unintentional, and we'll make sure this doesnt happen again.

Thanx,

Joel.

[Parashar Shah]

Hi Alok,

No doubt, we have done a great job. I too agree with #1, #2 and #3 and that there is scope for improvement. Whether the email should have gone to all - I don't know about it.

Aside, the news articles in thehindu and TOI did not have 'PGSEM' in them. It was mentioned in a different manner. And the articles could have mentioned our PGSEM and IIMB-PMConclave websites to bring in more awareness. That too could have been a slip from our side.

Kaizen! 

Regards,

Parashar

--
Parashar Shah
PGSEM and Research Associate, IIM Bangalore  

Co-founder, vRideAlong.com
Lead Engineer, Alcatel-Lucent
Mobile:- +91-9945607432

[Alok Shukla]

I completely agree that he is completely empowered to point out that, however I think he should have first talked to student committee before writing to all of the students. The praise should have gone out in public and criticism in private.

Alok

On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 8:09 AM, Joel Johnson <joe...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
Alok Shukla
India

[Alok Shukla]

I think TOI had PGSEM in it.

--
Alok Shukla
India

[Amol Bhore]

There are two factors, one is he thinks branding of PGSEM was lacking & other is Pinkesh was more aggressive.

On top of it Pinkesh stopped him (5'th point) & may be it is the main trigger.

Actually few participants said to me that more than product management you guys are selling PGSEM here.

One important lesson is dont ignore important stakeholders :-)

Secondly when he is talking so much about PGSEM, my question is where was the PGSEM crowd ? We had valuation class on that but still nobody turned up for the event? Did he ask PGSEM guys why did not they come?

Guys just ignore that email.

-Amol

[gandhi dharmesh]

This event was an opportunity for PGSEM guys who are interested in Product Mgmt. I am sure they turned up and in fact most of them were volunteers. I dont expect anyone else to turn up, why would they?

Independence: This is the way we have operated in the past wherein the CP does not get overtly involved in student activities. And I think that should not change, I hope not...but his recent actions seem to be opposite .Taking over of SAC bank account does not augur well.

About branding: I think this is the best way of branding in my opinion wherein you do not overt mention  PGSEM but you still manage to make it as an inseparable entity of IIMB and bring out its value by being the interface between academia and industry.

I personally gained a lot from this event and I think so did the other organizers. In that sense we have achieved what we set out to do :)
Let's just ignore CP's email. Of course in future we would still need to tackle him in some manner.

Regards
Dharmesh

[gandhi dharmesh]

Let us have a meeting of the SAC and the representatives from the organizing committee on Friday so that there can be a consistent approach on how to tacke CP. Is lunch time fine? We should not go beyond 2 PM.

On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 9:47 AM, gandhi dharmesh <gandh...@gmail.com> wrote:

Left out the SAC here

[Joel Johnson]

Hey guys,

PGSEM-SAC is unable to reply to the india-product-managers-conclave group.

Looks like there's an access problem for external mail IDs.

Here's Laxmi's reply (SAC Secretary).

Thanx,

Joel.

-------------------------------------------
From: Laxmi Harikumar[SMTP:LAXMI.HA...@GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 8:49:57 AM

To: india-product-m...@googlegroups.com
Cc: PGSEM-SAC
Subject: Re: FW: Product-Manager Conclave

Auto forwarded by a Rule

Hello all,

We spoke to CP yesterday.

Let us not dig into this matter any further.

The event has been a great success and lot of effort has been put into it. But there have been lapses and going forward we have to ensure that the institute and the course are held in supreme respect.

Thanks and Regards

Laxmi Harikumar

On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 8:08 AM, PGSEM-SAC <pgse...@iimb.ernet.in> wrote:

-------------------------------------------
From: Joel Johnson[SMTP:JOE...@GMAIL.COM]

Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 8:09:13 AM

To: india-product-m...@googlegroups.com

Cc: PGSEM-SAC
Subject: Re: FW: Product-Manager Conclave

Auto forwarded by a Rule

Hey Alok,

Just to add, I think there is some validity in terms of points 1 and 2. I've raised our reasons with SAC, and they'll communicate it with the CP for the required clarifications.

Essentially, it looks like he had a different perspective on how the branding and communications for our events was to be done. While we have taken the inspiration from the Vista website, it looks like he may not be aware of how this is done. We will take care of ensuring that the CP and the team are on the same page next time onwards.

Also, I'm quite sure that our team is proud of what we've accomplished. I personally feel no pain from his reply, and I feel most of us also think the same way. I find his wording written with less criticism than he could have. What I do take away from this is that we have to ensure the awareness of the CP in the decisions we take with the reasons for them. Granted that they will add more delay in the proceedings and planning, but it will help us go a long way in understanding the view of one of the most important stakeholders in the PGSEM programme. He is, after all, amongst the one permanent pillars in the PGSEM programme with a long term view and experience in the ways of the institute.

I must say that I'm proud to have worked on such an event with you and the team. For the most higlighted parts, the mistakes made were unintentional, and we'll make sure this doesnt happen again.

Thanx,

Joel.

[Alok Shukla]

What was the discussion? What was the summary? Many of the statements by prof agrawal are not even based on facts.

Alok Shukla

> Hey Alok,
>
> Just to add, I think there is some validity in terms of points 1 and 2. I've raised ...

>
> On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 7:23 AM, Alok Shukla <alok.k...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>

>> Another comm...

[Joel Johnson]

Hey Dharmesh,

A couple of points here.

It turns out that the CP was not aware of the fact that SAC maintained a separate bank account. When the SAC representatives went to speak to him yesterday, and told him about this, he was then ok with the sponsor money being put in the SAC account and its continued existence. He has also said that the money that was collected by the PGSEM office can be claimed by the SAC whenever they need it. So this is not an issue anymore.

Second, this in a way works against the other argument, of independence. He just wasn't aware of the account! Considering that CP is going to be present even after we're gone, and he's an important stakeholder both to IIMB and PGSEM, it is quite unfair to not keep him aware. This is precisely like one of the questions raised in the conclave "Engineers look at us like we're part of marketing, and marketing looks at us like we're part of engineering, and we get the flak from both sides". Our CP is in a very similar position, as I'm sure you seniors have seen. :)

While I agree with the point of independence, I also feel this comes with the added responsibility of keeping the CP in the loop and making sure that he's not caught unaware of the happenings in the student community. It is the responsibility of the SAC (as our reps) to communicate our point of view to add to his and reach an understanding. That's what they're there for, we should utilize this.

Thanx,

Joel.

[Rakshmi Bhatia]

Hi,

 

My point of view is opposite. I think we should not ignore CP Sir's message. Though I know I am a little outsider in the sense that I was not invovled in the event right from the beginning & I don't know the issue between SAC & PGSEM office completely.

 

But, I & many of PGSEM-2010 volunteers felt that event's focus was about PMs, not Adaptive & sorry but we felt somewhere it went little disproportionate. Hence, I agree to Sir's points 1,2 & 3.

 

On Saturday night many of us left around 9PM, but many of 2010 batch people were working till 11 PM or so & they realized later that they were actually working for Adaptive not for PMC. Need to check this point.

 

Adaptive could do lot of marketing, but they couldn't provide proper brouchers. Why so? And, why did he stop Sir & tried video recording. He shouldn't have done this.

 

Regarding PGSEM advertisement, was it an agenda at all? If not, then we should ignore point 4. But, if yes, then we should make sure next time some slot for it. Though I felt this time it was quite proper.

 

As a whole I felt it was a successful event & I think Sir also agreed to it. We should take his points in positive spirit & as we know the way of functioning of Corporate & Institutes are different, hence we need to take care of all these things next time onwards.

 

Here are some comments from Pinkesh Shah

"Rakshmi,

Lot of your hard work paid off, great job on the event

regards,
Pinkesh Shah, CISSP'

Regards

Rakshmi

---

From: india-product-m...@googlegroups.com on behalf of gandhi dharmesh
Sent: Tue 9/21/2010 9:53 AM
To: pgse...@gmail.com; india-product-m...@googlegroups.com

[Karthik Raman Naig]

I agree. Event was great. But CP was upset. His points are partially valid. i think we should have a discussion on this, and not take his criticism negatively. Let's find a way to tackle it.

 

I propose Dharmesh / Alok / someone from the 2008 batch send a mail to CP with the following text. Even though we can debate the validity of his points, ignoring him is not going to solve the issue. He is our most important stakeholder.

 

 If there is a consensus, I don't minding sending this mail myself.

 

"Dear Sir,

 

      We have seen your email and think your points are valid. Your email is a learning for all of us. Rest assured, we will have a detailed meeting on each of the points raised by you and update you on specific actions that we will take to prevent such a situation from recurring.

 

    The specific incidents you mentioned were not intentional. We have all put in a lot of thought and effort in organizing this event, and the last thing we wanted was some other company walking away taking the credit for this event. The whole idea was to brand PGSEM, but in a subtle way. But we may have made some mistakes along the way.

 

   I would like to reiterate that the whole idea is to make the PM conclave a regular feature of the PGSEM calendar because it can open up a significant career path for the PGSEM students. In addition, it also benefits IIMB and the Industry as it will draw top leaders from the industry.

 

     We promise you the mistakes were unintentional, and will take the greatest care to ensure it does not happen again.

 

Regards,

Karthik

 

 

---

From: india-product-m...@googlegroups.com on behalf of gandhi dharmesh
Sent: Tue 9/21/2010 9:53 AM
To: pgse...@gmail.com; india-product-m...@googlegroups.com

[gandhi dharmesh]

Well put Karthik. If SAC agrees with this then maybe SAC should send it.

[Joel Johnson]

Hey Karthik and Dharmesh,

Please let SAC take the point from here.

Let's make this perfectly clear now, this issue is to be only communicated to the SAC, and will not be taken up with the CP by anybody from this group. This is henceforth SAC's responsibility. We have Subhra, Kavash and me from the SAC who also took part in this event, so we are not unaware of the happenings. All this is being communicated towards the SAC.

Thanx,

Joel.

[Alok Shukla]

Some clarification I need to do before you make assessments. Let us have facts on the table before we make judgments.

1. The banner thing was innocent mistake (if I call that) of an individual and not something asked/designed by Adaptive. So while he has a point of view, if CP means it was deliberate, he should have reasons for saying so.

2. Who is Adaptive BTW, It is a venture founded by two people - Mr. Pinkesh Shah and Mr. Vishawanthan S (PGSEM 2008). We are encouraging a venture by PGSEM student and not by anyone else. We also offered the same opportunity to VRideAlong (Parashar), Dhonuk (Shamit Bagchi, PGSEM 2008) and MeshLabs (Shantanu and Amarnath PGSEM 2008). It is up to individual people to advertise or not advertise to their potential.

Parashar did by sending out a mail to all of the participants to do a VRideAlong on the day of the event. Meshlabs had 10 minutes slot, they also could have advertised if they wanted to know. Adaptive did because it was their target audience.

3. Disproportioante time slot to Mr. Shah - Now this was not by design, but by strange coincidence. Initially Mr. Shah was not even on the panel itself. We had a drop out from Professor Ganesh Prabhu and then by Mr. Milind Shah. Professor Ganesh Prabhu was to chair the panel and this was done on Professor suggestion itself. Once we Professor Ganesh dropped out, he proposed Professor DVR and I and Vishwa wrote a mail to request him to chair the panel who turned that offer down. Infact I also spoke to Professor J Ram, who though agreed but had a flight to take at 9 AM on Sunday. 

Finally I had to balance the panel and hence I had to take a choice with in the panel themselves to moderate it. I could not contact Mr. Ram as Mr. Bala was anyways the moderator for the second panel from Yahoo itself. I tried contacting Mr. Sanjai but he was travelling on thursday and friday and was not taking any calls. Hence I called on Mr. Pinkesh and also because McAfee head also wanted McAfee's point of view to be represented as part of the sponsorship request offered him both - A slot on the panel discussion and to moderate it. 

Now I would request you to know - What was fair and what was not? Leadership is taking about decisions and I am ready to take the flak for it if you feel it was not the right decision.

4. About facilities being managed by Mr. Shah and his group - I do not even know if he was managing anything apart from his own booth. Regarding his interaction with Professor Agrawal, it is a personal chemistry issue. AFAIK Pinkesh got Mr. Ram and Mr. Sanjai to come for the recording and they were happy to do so. I need to understand if Professor has a problem individually with Mr. Pinkesh, ideally he should have made it clear to Mr Pinkesh, Why link it with us in any case?

5. PGSEM profile - I invited Ujjwal Tickoo to present apart from Vishwa to talk about his research on PM. Both of them did not have the material ready. Ujjwal dropped out 15 days before the event on account of his child's illness. And then rest of the class was not responding. If we do not have research which has been carried out in this field, where and how we can present some research. I tried to do that in the last moment by putting a spin on Satyajit Paul (PGSEM 2008) work.

6. One of things we need to be clear about - Adaptive supported us when even the professor did not believe that if more than 40 people would come for the event. And this is not the way to treat somebody who believed in us when even our CP would not. I am putting out the extract of his email to understand how he derided our efforts when we launched this initiative.

"I wish you had spoken to me before finalising the details. We have not made any budget provision for the event and hence I cannot provide any budget for this event.

Secondly, I am not sure about the projected audience number. With just three speakers, it is very unreasonable to assume that you can attract about 75 product managers from the industry on a Sunday morning.

PGSEM participants have examination next week (August 27-28, 2010) and I do not think that they will participate in the numbers indicated by you. Two of the speakers listed by you have already participated in PGSEM events last year. Hence, it is not likely to be very attractive event as perceived by the participants.

I can meet that members of PGSEM – CMC / SAC next week to discuss the proposal. I feel that with proper preparations and sponsorships we can work for a  research-based conference sometime in November – December. "

Thanks,

Alok

About branding: I think this is the best way of branding in my opinion wsherein you do not overt mention  PGSEM but you still manage to make it as an inseparable entity of IIMB and bring out its value by being the interface between academia and industry.

--
Alok Shukla
India

[gandhi dharmesh]

Thanks Alok for summarizing, I agree. Context is vital before assessing this. I do not think Alok or anybody needs to take any flak for this. It was a collective decision and effort and I can stand by that.If anyone has any doubt on this, the innumerous telecons can be testimony :)
Let's discuss on Friday.

Regards
Dharmesh

[Alok Shukla]

Joel,

I agree with your general theme, however I have personally told him about the SAC account twice before this happened and that too a week earlier to this event.

Al;ok

--
Alok Shukla
India

[Rakshmi Bhatia]

Hi Alok,

 

First of all please dont take any of my comments personally or otherwise. I mentioned earlier too I am little outsider since I joined very late & don't know the internal issues.

 

I really want to thank you & Sheetal for coming up with such a great idea & giving us an opportunity to be part of it.

 

Secondly, you don't need to give explanation for any thing being decided, since you were the one who was involved since starting & know very well the issues now & then. I know it, since during Pehel many of us realized people start commenting at last "why this is this & why not this" without knowing the facts & it irritates a lot. Honestly I didnt have the same intention.

 

As an outsider or third party what were good & what are scope of improvement, we need to judge those. And, tried to just convey our points. No intention to hurt you or any of the team member.

 

It would have been unfair, if I had not given feedback knowing the fact that many of our batchmates were talking about it.

 

Regarding Sir's unhappiness, I think in 1st quarter itself I realized that professors are tough to handle. They say they are open to ideas, still somewhere they are stuck with their own opinion.

CP sir is no exception, but the fact is we are in institute & we need to deal with such things.

 

Regards

Rakshmi

---

From: india-product-m...@googlegroups.com on behalf of Alok Shukla
Sent: Tue 9/21/2010 11:28 AM
To: india-product-m...@googlegroups.com
Cc: pgse...@gmail.com; PGSEM-SAC

[Karthik Raman Naig]

I agree that SAC should take this ahead.

Alok, thanks for the clarifications. It provides clarity, .

Regards,
Karthik.

________________________________

From: india-product-m...@googlegroups.com on behalf of Alok Shukla

Sent: Tue 9/21/2010 11:38 AM
To: india-product-m...@googlegroups.com
Cc: PGSEM-SAC

Joel,

Al;ok

Hey Dharmesh,

Thanx,
Joel.

Hi Alok,

Hey Alok,

Thanx,
Joel.

. " the conclave yesterday was excellent - definitely worth attending and participating in... Thanks to Alok for dragging us in!"

From Jayant Thakre of Subex

"I must say you guys did a fabulous job in terms of organizing today's IPMC event. The event was managed very professionally. I know how much hard work organizers put into such events so I want to make sure your effort doesn't go underappreciated. Please let your team know that how much we valued their effort.

Kudos to your entire team!"


Alok


On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 7:01 AM, Alok Shukla <alok.k...@gmail.com> wrote:

Sorry Guys,

In spite I having a 30 minutes session with Professor Agrawal on Sunday encouraging him not to do so, he still sent out the email. I had asked him to please work with SAC to clear his misgivings as most of them are baseless, however he chose to write his unfounded, unverified misgivings in public. We all know that apart from point number 3 which may have been a impression that might have been caused however incorrectly so, rest of them are clearly unsubstantiated statements.

Guys, I do not want any one of you to feel demoralized, because apart from him NO ONE and I say NO ONE has nothing but extremely good things to say about the team and the conclave. I think the best way to counter this argument is present facts as they are.

This is what Mr. Ram and Mr. Ravi said about the conference.

From Ravi Padaki - Yahoo - "Alok, great job on the event. Great panels. Well attended and received."

From Mr. Ram Narayanan, VP product management at Yahoo "Thanks for having all of us at the event yesterday - it was an enjoyable experience and hope to see it grow further. I am adding the others from Yahoo who were there as well to provide their inputs. I look forward to seeing this effort take wings"

Thanks,
Alok Shukla

Dear All

Narendra M Agrawal

___________________

Narendra M Agrawal

Bannerghatta Road, Bangalore - 560076

Phone: 00-91-80-2699 3037 (office); 2699 3161 (Residence); 974 222 1301 (Mobile)

e-mail: agr...@iimb.ernet.in <mailto:agr...@iimb.ernet.in>

[Joel Johnson]

Here's a mail from the PGSEM-SAC. We're still having issues with external mailers (problem with Google groups).

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: PGSEM-SAC <pgse...@iimb.ernet.in>
Date: Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 12:05 PM
Subject: FW: Product-Manager Conclave

To: pgse...@gmail.com, Kavash Sharma <kavash....@iimb.ernet.in>, Gireesh Kumar G <giree...@iimb.ernet.in>, Karthick SM <karthi...@iimb.ernet.in>, Subhra Jyoti Saha <subhra...@iimb.ernet.in>, Joel Monsy Johnson <joel.jo...@iimb.ernet.in>, laxmi.ha...@gmail.com, Vijay P Sankar <vijay.s...@iimb.ernet.in>, Saurabh Dhar <saurabh...@iimb.ernet.in>, Naseema Basha <naseema...@iimb.ernet.in>, Ravish Shetty R <ravis...@iimb.ernet.in>, Prashant Singh Gangwar <prashant....@iimb.ernet.in>

-------------------------------------------
From: PGSEM-SAC
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 12:05:13 PM

To: india-product-m...@googlegroups.com
Cc: PGSEM-SAC

Subject: Re: Product-Manager Conclave

Auto forwarded by a Rule

Alok/Rakshmi,

Please please refrain from any further comments over email.

This is precisely why I do not want people to respond as it might result in individual comments than anything else.
Let us allow SAC to head it on Friday. Friday isn't that far after all.

No more of this stuff. We are all very mature and experienced. No one wants 35-40 emails floating in their boxes early on Tuesday morning.

Let us meet on Friday and discuss this.

Thanks & Regards,
PGSEM Student Affairs Council

Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore

[Alok Shukla]

Rakshmi and all,

I am very proud of you all to have executed the event the way you did. I feel it is my responsibility to ensure that you are armed with the facts so that you can justifiability back up your efforts. This is one event which has gone into the news and raised our stature. People are comfortable are dealing with us at level of VPs and Directors. Next time, I would like to step back and support you guys to take it to the next level of greatness. And that is the way you would deal with senior execs face to face and gain confidence.

Everybody makes mistakes and we have our proud share from this event.. However I am little disappointed with Professor's comments on the event to dwell on these on such a public forum rather than highlighting the positives. I would have appreciated his intent if he had done is a closed room and offered a space for learning from mistakes as he deemed fit. This was my personal impassioned appeal to him on Sunday. I requested him, begged him to not to pull the trigger, but he choose to do so.

Supriya dey wanted to do a case study on Intel-McAfee deal sponsored by CSITM. Professor J Ram is started working with me on this. And the guy (Vimal Solanki) who architect ed this deal is a close friend of Pinkesh and he is on board of Adaptive. Everybody should know now, how my efforts to do so have been drained out completely out of this. It is an art to manage relationship with corporates and I have a feeling that CP should have been more sensitive in running down a person so publicly.

http://www.adaptivemarketing.in/boardAdvisors.php

http://www.linkedin.com/in/vimalsolanki

And finally this is my dictum which I abide by.

" You cannot please all of the people all of the time. It is very easy to offer feedback from sidelines and specially with the benefit of hindsight but if you are in the middle of things and making decisions, you would be the only one feeling the heat! That takes courage and obviously you would make mistakes. But then you were there making those calls and that is the best experience of life!

And that is what leadership is all about, to own the risks of going wrong and not only keep on accumulating rewards."

Thanks,

Alok Shukla

--
Alok Shukla
India

[Alok Shukla]

Sure,

Would refrain

Alok Shukla

--
Alok Shukla
India