A New Beginning

For the 420 odd students of the Class of 2008 at the Indian School of Business, today marks the end of a fruitful journey to get to a new and exciting beginning. I am not there in Hyderabad physically (I graduate a month or so later because of my exchange to Darden) but my thoughts are with the classmates for who an eventful and successful year came to an end officially as they donned their graduation gowns and received their diplomas. As I write this most of them are packing their stuff to leave the campus - some right away after the graduation ceremony and some others who will have one more bash before they head out. Most of them are getting terribly emotional and leaving with a heavy heart; I sure am missing all the action and the chance to say Good Bye. All the very best Class of '08 - hopefully our paths will cross more than once in the years to come!

For those that might chance on my blog and do not know much about the Indian School of Business (ISB), I encourage you to look up the website and Google to get to know more about this institution that is fast becoming the gold standard for business management education in India. Ranked 20th by Financial Times globally ahead of such renowned US business schools such as Kellogg of NWU, Ross of Michigan, Darden of UVa, and Fuqua of Duke, not to mention a host of other well known global schools, ISB has achieved in six years what most business schools can only dream of. Whether this ranking was deserved and whether ISB will be able to maintain this ranking and whether it can get on the top 20 lists of the other publications like US News and Business Week are debates that will rage on. But what cannot be denied is that this school is a force to reckon with and it is for ISB to lose from this position of strength. As a soon to be alumnus and someone who has made many friends at ISB, I sincerely hope that the people who make decisions at ISB don't give into pressures to grow fast and instead focus on sustaining the excellence.

This will be my last post on ISB itself but I intend to write a couple of pieces on business school education in general that could be useful for those considering an MBA or those that just got into a program. Go ISB!

Think Vertical

This is sort of a continuation of the theme from the previous post about planned Indian urbanization. As I look around Hyderabad and the hundreds of apartment complexes being built almost anywhere you look, I wonder why isn't each one of them taller - I mean why don't they have more floors? Given the exorbitant (unaffordable to most including yours truly) prices of houses in Hyderabad and the scarcity of land, one would think the best strategy would be to build more houses per square foot. If not skyscrapers at least some or most of the four or five floor apartment buildings should at least be doubled or tripled in height. I am sure it has something to do with building codes and the speed with which the construction companies would like to move on to the next project. But given the fact that most people cannot afford individual houses (single family homes as opposed to flats or condominiums) the public policy should be such that the land use is optimized and building tall buildings is encouraged.

I once went to a place in Hungary on business called Tiszaújváros. It was a small industrial town that was barely a couple of square miles in area. But it had a large population of nearly ten thousand and one thing that struck me odd - especially going from the US to Hungary - was how thin and slim the people in that town were. But the other interesting thing was how most residential buildings were tall with many floors and since that reduced the overall size of the town while maximizing the number of people in the town, people preferred to either walk or use the bicycle to get around. This made them healthier while keeping automobile traffic to a minimum which of course results in a host of fringe benefits. Mind you this city is in no way special - it may just be one example of the efficient use of space and energy that is a hallmark of Europe. And the worry for India is that we seem to be aping the US in creating the environmentally unfriendly Indian version of the American dream.