Wednesday, July 29, 2009

I love to Move It

Q1) Connect (1), (2) and (3)


(1)
For he/she's a jolly good fellow, for he/she's a jolly good fellow
For he/she's a jolly good fellow (pause), which nobody can deny
Which nobody can deny, which nobody can deny
For he/she's a jolly good fellow, for he/she's a jolly good fellow
For he/she's a jolly good fellow (pause), which nobody can deny

(2)
Should Old Acquaintance be forgot,and never thought upon;
The flames of Love extinguished,and fully past and gone:
Is thy sweet Heart now grown so cold,that loving Breast of thine;
That thou canst never once reflecton Old long syne.

(3)
Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday Dear " "
Happy Birthday to You

Coding the Decoded

Q1)

From the world of Business .... What is known by the code name " Weathering the Storm" and " Fit For The Future I and II"?

Q2)
From the world of M&A's, Connect the code names "Rome", "Madrid" and "Apollo"?

Q3)
Again from the world of M&A's. connect "Aprilla", "Suzuki" and " Moto Guzzi" code names?

Q4)
What was code named " Project England" and " Project Colour" in the world of M&A's?

Q5)
What was code named "Ruby taking over Diamond" in the world of M&A's?

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Legendery Blues


















Q1) From the World of Ghost Stories... Identify the picture?


Q2) This is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. In the book, It is a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. This has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia—a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live here are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance.


Today we also know this place as a chain of hotels at various locations. Identify the legend place?


Q3) Identify this legend which in English means "GOD GIFT"?


She rode naked on the streets of Coventry in England in order to gain a reduction of taxes imposed by her husband. The people who watched her riding would become blind or dead.




















Q4) The Legend of a tribal chief who would cover himself with gold dust and would dive into a lake of pure water?




















Q5)
Identify the legend?




















Q6)










From the world of Greek mythology, Identify this man who played the Trojan horse trick on Troy and took 10 years to return home after the Trojan War?





Q7)
Identify this great legend?




Monday, July 27, 2009

Hire People Who Disagree with You

Emma Sky is a British is pacificist dedicated to getting the U.S. out of Iraq. In 2007 she also became a key aide to General Ray Ordierno, the operational commander of U.S. forces. "People always thought we were funny," she tells Thomas Ricks in his book, The Gamble, "this huge man (Ordierno is 6'5) and this tiny British woman who went everywhere with him." Sky represented a civilian sensibility and voiced oppositional views that she felt senior officers needed to hear. Ordierno once referred to Sky has "my insurgent."
Credit Ordierno, as Ricks does, for realizing that he needed someone who could be "his opposite" (Sky's words). In this instance, Ordierno was following the example of his boss, General David Petraeus, who surrounded himself with an assortment of military and civilian aides. This "brain trust," as Ricks calls it, would provide him with the different perspectives so vital to running a counter-insurgency operation.
Leaders who solicit opinions from people who disagree with them are smart enough to realize that they do not have all the answers. Such leaders also must make it safe for others to disagree; otherwise the exercise is moot. Here are some things to consider when hiring for difference.
Look for character. From a leadership position, character is the willingness to do what is right for the team. Every team needs people who will stand up for their ideas. That requires backbone. Integrity and virtue are also essential, but what matters is not what you are, it is what you do . Character is leadership put to good purpose.
Look for strength of ideas. It is not enough to disagree; executives need alternate viewpoints that are based on facts as well as reason. Good ideas that are contrary to the boss's ideas must be carefully thought-out, supported by data, and argued from a viewpoint of doing what is best for stakeholders.
Look for ambition. When bringing on someone who disagrees with you, or at least is not afraid to do so, make sure they have an ambition to move up in the organization. They aren't just contrarian; they want to make a positive difference, and they're in it for the long haul.
Look at their track record. I have yet to see a recruitment advertisement that says, "Wanted: People to Disagree with Boss." So look for managers who have shepherded projects to positive ends when the odds were against them. For example, if they achieved something in the face of new competition, diminished resources, or even organizational change, these are indicators of an ability to think and act for themselves.
Hiring someone who is opposed to your ideas is not the same as hiring someone who is opposed to you. The former is a good thing; the latter is a threat. The latter will disrupt the team in order to achieve his personal ambitions at your expense. Such a person will cause more grief than glory — so keep him on a short leash or ask him to find work elsewhere. In any organization, the designated leader must have the final say in strategic decisions, otherwise the organization loses focus and direction.
Having a strong oppositional voice is the mark of good leadership. Rather than a sign of weakness, it demonstrates force of character and the ability to think and act strategically. More importantly, oppositional views can clarify the leader's own thinking, sometimes changing his mind, other times sharpening a course of action.
And while ultimately, the leader still has to make the final call, encouraging others to voice opposing views enables the organization to be more adaptable and more agile — and will help you make better decisions as a leader.

How Knowledge Can Hurt Innovation

A meeting I had recently with some folks at Gillette highlighted an important issue facing the would-be innovator — the "curse of knowledge."
Chip and Dan Heath described the curse of knowledge nicely in their 2007 book Made to Stick (highly recommended to all innovators). The basic problem: people who have deep knowledge about a topic sometimes assume other people have that same knowledge. That can lead to major missteps.
The brothers Heath bring this to life by describing a simple experiment run by a Stanford doctoral candidate in the early 1990s. The researcher gave subjects a list of popular songs like "Happy Birthday" and asked them to tap those songs out on a table. Another person had to guess the songs. The researcher asked the "tapper" to predict the percent of songs the "listener" would guess correctly.
The tappers — who could hear the song in their heads as they tapped — assumed that people would get 50 percent right. They actually got 2.5 percent right.
What does this mean for innovation? Managers who have spent their entire lives working in an industry often suffer from the curse of knowledge. They assume customers know more than they do. This curse can blind managers to opportunities and threats.
During my meeting at Gillette, one group member described how "of course" the last place you should shave is around your mouth. As I tend to shave my chin last, I asked him why.
"Well, that part of the face has the most nerve endings," he explained. "So you need to give more time for your shave prep [lotion or gel] to work."
As that was news to me, I wondered if I was alone in my naivety. So I launched a quick survey.
Twitter and Innosight friends and family produced about 100 responses in 24 hours. Turns out only about 30 percent of people claim to shave around the mouth last (the neck was the most popular choice).
Further, only about 25 percent of the people who shave around the mouth last said they did so in order to let their shave prep work or because the area is sensitive. Other answers (it was an open-ended question) ranged widely, with my favorite answer being, "Best for last?"
How do you break free from the curse of knowledge? Spending a lot of time with customers helps. The more you listen to what the customer says and doesn't say, the more you can make sure that your intuition is attuned to the customer's knowledge base. Recognizing the curse helps as well. Make a regular habit of asking questions such as, "Is this our view, or the view of our target customer?"
Finally, bring in outside voices who can ask the innocent questions that can expose the curse of knowledge.
The 2004 Boston Red Sox showed how curses can in fact be broken. Don't let your own knowledge blind you to threats and opportunities.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Jai Ho Fund ( you got it right ... Slumdog Millionaire Jai Ho Fund)

An India-focussed hedge fund, which owes its name to this year’s Oscar winner for the best song, has garnered $11 million for buying Indian stocks which are ‘slumdogs’, but with potential to become ‘millionaires’.The money has been raised by ‘Helios India Jai Ho Fund’ named after the theme song of the movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ that scooped eight Academy Awards this year— and would be invested in the stocks that are like slumdogs of the market, but could gain significant value over time.The fund, launched by Singapore-based Helios Capital Management, seeks to replicate the storyline of worldwide box office hit, wherein the protagonist rises from Mumbai slums to become a millionaire after winning a television quiz show.According to a regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the fund has already raised $11 million from 14 investors and plans to tap more investors. As per the filing, the minimum investment expected from an investor is 100,000 dollars and the offering is expected to last for more than one year.However, the capital raised so far is well below the targeted $50 million by the end of July. The fund is aiming to tap investors in the US, Europe and the Middle East.The managers of the fund are looking to invest in “Indian stocks that have recently got ‘Beaten Up and Cheap’ with strong long-term growth prospects”. The fund is not charging any performance fee for the first three years.Helios Capital was founded by Samir Arora, a fund manager and former Chief Investment Officer at Alliance Capital Mutual Fund, along with some of other Alliance Capital executives.Arora, who had been associated with Alliance Capital ever since its foray into Indian MF market in 1995, had become a sort of poster boy of Indian mutual fund industry.He resigned from Alliance in August 2003 to join mutual fund business of former Standard Chartered banker Rana Talwar-headed SabreCapital. Around the same time, market regulator SEBI barred Arora from dealing in the market for five years on charges including conflict of interest.This charge was related to Arora making a bid along with Henderson Global Investors for buying the fund house.In its order, SEBI said that when Alliance Capital planned to sell its stake in the asset management company, Arora tried to thwart the bidders to favour Henderson Global Investors and Henderson buying the fund would have resulted in a personal gain of nearly Rs 30 crore to Arora. However, the Securities Appellate Tribunal exonerated Arora of all charges, as it found nothing wrong with a fund manager making an offer to buy a fund. The fund house was sold to Birla Sun Life MF in late 2004.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

The Downsides of Branding

Recent efforts to put a brand on Nigeria to attract tourists remind me of how easy it is slap a label on something and hope that its uglier characteristics will go away. Long before the phrase "lipstick on a pig" became an election issue, I had warned of the dangers of putting "lipstick on a bulldog" - that is, making superficial cosmetic change in organizations rather than looking at the real underlying problems. The problem with putting lipstick on a bulldog is that it is hard to wrestle the bulldog to the ground long enough to do it and then doesn't change the nature of the beast.
(Just so that no one accuses me of being unfair to Nigeria and its new tourism brand image, let me say that crime-ridden, corrupt, oil-rich, poverty-ridden sub-Saharan nations - and I'm not saying Nigeria is one -- can be charming spots for calm, peaceful vacations.)
Brands are wonderful assets when they capture the essence of a product, service, or event succinctly, meaningfully, and with endurance over time. Consumer product companies have brand guardians to protect those conceptual assets. But when branding becomes a fad, it can reduce communication.
Political labels often resemble lipstick on a bulldog - cheery phrases trying to put a face full of makeup on something that requires deeper scrutiny and deeper change. Politicians float laws called defense of marriage intended to keep people from marrying, or use income security slogans for anti-tax bills when people would have less security without certain government programs. Enormous sums are sunk into branding campaigns for countries ("Cool Britannia"), states, and cities (Providence, Rhode Island, paid Midwestern marketers to come up with its "brand" as a creativity center).
(And just so that no one accuses me of being unfair to chief marketing officers, advertising agencies, or public information officials, let me say that sloganeering is an art, and inventing product jingles is one of my favorite games for long car rides with kids.)
George Orwell, the renowned British author of anti-fascist works, warned of the evils of lipstick-clad bulldogs that co-opt words and distort their meaning. In his book 1984, the war department was called "The Ministry of Peace," the watchdogs called "Big Brother," to make them sound protective rather than oppressive. Orwell was particularly outraged by euphemisms promoting mindless acceptance of atrocities. In his essay, "Politics and the English Language," he warned that since the label democracy is felt to be positive, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy and prefer not to have the term pinned down to any one meaning. He wrote: "Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different... The great enemy of clear language is insincerity."
Branding should start with an authenticity test. This is especially important in our overloaded digital world, which rewards breezy slogans. One-minute elevator pitches convey the essence of a business plan, people tweet in 140 characters, and PowerPoint-speak is a new language (all headlines, no verbs). These can be excellent tools to capture attention. But if labeling becomes a way to hide the truth rather than invite dialogue, then we could slide into Alice in Wonderland's topsy-turvy world where no words mean what them seem to. Consider this wisdom from Tweedledee and Tweedeldum. "'I know what you're thinking about,' said Tweedledum; 'but it isn't so, nohow.' 'Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'"
Did you get that? I didn't. Lewis Carroll, like Orwell, was parodying politicians and other crafters of empty euphemisms. He wasn't intending to make sense.
Whether country branding or personal branding, the search for slogans is a trendy quest. I am simply making a plea for authenticity. Before reaching for the lipstick or using the catchphrase, first make sure that the underlying reality can sustain the claims.
Happy vacationing in Nigeria.

M&A

In the first six months of 2009, Indian companies were involved in 136 M&A deals, down nearly 54% from the same period last year
On value of announced deals, M&A activities fell 73% from a year ago to $5.4 billion (Rs26,136 crore). The average deal value dropped nearly 40% to $98 million.

Imperial Energy acquired by ONGC Videsh - $1900 mn in Jan 2009
Satyam Computers acquired by Tech Mahindra - $576 mn in April
Dempo Mining Corp acquired by Sesa Goa - $ 350 mn in June
Vredestein banden acquired by Apollo Tyres - $ 300 mn in May
STel acquired by Sterling infotech - $230 mn in June

52% were domestic deals
23% were outbound deals
25% were Inbound deals

Total No - 136

The hunter becomes the hunted

Sportscar maker Porsche conceded a months-long power struggle to mass-market rival Volkswagen by axing its chief executive and said it would raise at least 5 billion euros in equity as the two prepared for a merger.
After an all-night meeting of its board of directors, Porsche said Wendelin Wiedeking, Germany's best-paid executive and its CEO for the past 16 years, along with finance chief Holger Haerter, would quit the group immediately.
Their hasty exit will be sweetened by payoffs of 50 million euros and 12.5 million euros, respectively.
Wiedeking, who had opposed selling Porsche to Volkswagen, which would have helped the company reduce the debt he had run up in a botched attempt to take over VW, will be succeeded by Porsche's production head Michael Macht, the board said in a statement early on Thursday.
The meeting of the non-executive directors, which include the Piech and Porsche families that between them control Porsche, approved Wiedeking's proposal to raise fresh equity -- either in cash or through a contribution in kind -- and endorsed talks to sell a stake to the Gulf state of Qatar.
"This should lay the foundations for the creation of an integrated automobile group consisting of Porsche SE and Volkswagen," Porsche said.
It was unclear from Porsche's statement who would contribute to the capital increase and whether it would be taken up by Qatar. A Porsche spokesman declined to comment further.
The board's unanimous approval signals that the powerful Porsche and Piech clans may be open to surrendering some of their influence at the maker of the 911 sports coupe.
Between them they control 100 percent of Porsche's voting shares and have resisted selling a stake to an outsider.
At 0820 GMT, Porsche shares were up 1 percent, while Volkswagen's were down around 3 percent, compared with a 0.8 percent fall in the DJ Stoxx auto index and a flat German market.
JOINING FORCES
A source at Volkswagen, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters it was still open whether oil-rich Qatar would take a stake in the Porsche SE holding company or directly in Volkswagen, or in both groups.
The issue was due to be discussed by Volkswagen's own board of directors, which gathers for an extraordinary session on Thursday in Stuttgart, where Porsche's Zuffenhausen headquarters are based, rather than its own headquarters in Wolfsburg.
Volkswagen, Europe's biggest carmaker, declined to comment.
The moves came as Porsche enters the final stretch of negotiations with Volkswagen to create what both sides have called an "integrated" auto group, in which Porsche would essentially become the 10th brand in Volkswagen's sweeping automotive empire.
Porsche SE, the holding company that controls sportscar maker Porsche AG, needs to bolster its finances after accumulating more than 10 billion euros in debt through its botched attempt to seize control of VW.
Porsche was forced to abandon attempts to win control over 75 percent of VW, leaving it with a stake of nearly 51 percent. The failed takeover attempt opened the door to Ferdinand Piech, VW's powerful chairman and himself a part-owner of Porsche, to turn the tables on Porsche.
The Porsche and Piech families had been at loggerheads for months over how to resolve the company's debt woes and the role VW would play. Piech has pushed for VW to take over Porsche, on condition that Porsche fixes its finances first.

Part 2

Q1) Long time back there was a girl who loved a boy. The boy was in love with some other girl. So this lady got dissapointed. Seeing her lonely, her brother prepared a potion for her and told her she would definately get the Guy she wanted. She applied the potion and attracted the guy and married him. The question is how do we know this potion today?

Q2) “When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say, For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today.” Where would you find this engraved?


Q3) Why did Marcus McGee steel the limelight recently?

Q4) Connect ...

When Ivo goes back with the urn, the urn;
Studds, Steel, Read and Tylecote return, return;
The welkin will ring loud, The great crowd will feel proud,
Seeing Barlow and Bates with the urn, the urn;
And the rest coming home with the urn

Q5) Name the Brand " Aaj Pehli Tareek hai"

Q6)
This company is known to operate the largest number of playground in the world.
They are the single largest buyer of beef, pork, potatoes and apples.
It is said that nearly 1/8 workers in US has been employed by this company.

Name the company?

Q7) Identify the movie? Clue.. Starring Will Smith, the title of the movie is intentionally misspelt.

We hold these truths to be self-Evident, that all men are created Equal, that they are Endowed By their Creator with Certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the ________________."

This is for Cognizant Friends

Q1) What did Harry Lumsdar use for the 1st time, which is now used by armies all over the world?
A1) Khakhee

Q2) Developed in 1980 by Mehboon Ul Haq, another british professor and Lord Meghnad Desai
A2) Human Development Index

Q3) Hotel Taj is on the route to rebrand itself? What would it be called now?
A3) The Gateway

Q4) What is derived from the word in French " Bougette" which means " Little Bag"
A4) Budget

Q5) What is the formula for preparing Coca Cola called?
A5) Merchandise 7X

Q6) Where is the above formula stored?
A6) The Sun Trust Bank

Q7) Who owns the above Bank?
A7) Warren Buffet

Q8) Name the company started by Khwaja Ahmed in 1935?
A8) CIPLA

Q9) Expand CIPLA
A9) Chemical Industrial Pharmaceutical Laboratories

Q10) What happened when Ruth Handler saw her daughter Barbara playing with a doll?
A10) The world got the first " Barbie Doll"