Question 1.1
What is demand management?
Sounds simple enough. ITIL has a straight forward definition for it. But it seems that I found 2 schools of thought about it.

One says that demand management is the process of controlling and influencing the demand of a service that a service provider provides to its customers. These are pre-existing services, which demand management helps in managing by creating additional capacity for. An example would be a service provider who provides reporting service. Right now, he provides 10 out of the box reports to the customer, but by effective demand Management, he increases the capacity to be able to provide 20 services, essentially influencing the demand. This logic would follow the thought that the process needs to work with an existing service or a need for an increment to a service.

The other school of thought says that the demand management process, applies to identifying pasterns of business activity to be able to predict an untapped opportunity inn the market or influences the market by creating a demand for a previously non existing service. a service provider accomplishes this by positioning itself in the market in such a way that it is able to create a demands for a new service.

What do you think??

I read a blog in which someone stated that Service Catalog is a luxury (and hence not a necessity), because you need to have basic incident and change management present in your organization before you 4 years ago, I would’ve agreed with that thought process. Not anymore though. And here’s my thought process:

By definition, Service Catalog is a list of services that an organization provides to its employees or customers. Whatever ‘work’ we’re doing under the umbrella of IT Service Management is being done to provide a service. This implies that a service is being provided to the consumers and hence somewhere there has to be a clear definition of what is in or out of the scope of the service. In other words, there has to be a service catalog.

For the argument that says ‘Incident’ and ‘Change’ management needs to be present before we think seriously about a service catalog – I have the following argument:

Considering that you don’t have a Service Catalog, but have Incident and Change Management – Would you consider an earthquake in remote region of Indonesia to be an Incident?? If not, why??

Since there is no centralized list of services that your consumers (or for that matter, your helpdesk/engineers) provide, does that mean that there is an unlimited scope or does that mean that there is no scope, so nothing is an incident.

I know that the above analogy seems far fetched, but yes, that is the intention of doing so.

I would rest my case by stating that more often than not in real life, a service catalog is more a conceptual, and not so much a physical list that exists. Whether you agree or not regarding the existence of a Service Catalog, there is one that exists (not necessarily published) in our minds to ensure a clear definition of what our end users can ask for.

Your opinions are always welcome…

This is my average morning… and yes it will seem weird to some of you who are reading this.

I open my eyes, I check my smartphone for time, and emails in my official accounts. I read any emails that I think are top priority (and those are the ones from prospective recruiters or people who I am expecting a one-to-one mail from). I get out of bed, and while getting ready open Viigo on my phone and read through my standard RSS feeds of  sites like CIO.com, Tech Radar, WMPoweruser.com, Financial Times, Economic Times, etc. And I don’t really go through the full news piece, I just glance through it. All this while, the stuff that I think is really worth talking about or discussion and hence worth a READ, I post it to twitter from Viigo (@dubeysaurabh). Then once I reach office, I open my homepage – a dedicated browser with the homepage set as – twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. And If I really spend too much time on it, I am able to cover about 20% of all the stuff that I want to read up on.

This brings me to the point of discussion  – is there too much social media to be successfully involved in?

As my friend Windows Observer (@WinObs) says, “I think I am the only person who bothers to read what others have posted.” This makes me wonder. If it’s not a full-time job, do you really have time to read what everyone is posting. If you really want to think about it, break it down:

1. LinkedIn – One of the most important Social Networks in today’s date, is probably the top of my list as well. I think I go online on LinkedIn at least 8-10 times a day. It also because of my current need of finding a job, but that is actually not the main purpose. LinkedIn has made people mini-celebrities. This has almost leveled the celebrity status symbol playground. Without going into the details of the platform itself, let me tell you what I like the most about it. It has given a completely new flavor to discussion forums as well.

2. Twitter – Yes, I have given in to the concept. But not to inform you that I have decided to put ginger and cardamom in my tea, but to tell you what I am reading. To know what you are reading and talking about. And to share the professional interests that I have with others.

3. Facebook – The personal life does exist. Though I really do dislike the quizzes and applications that people subscribe to. I visit Facebook about 4 times a day – more so because when you’re in business school, there is a stronger chance of finding colleagues logged on to facebook than any other chat session.

Other than these three, it is really difficult to follow any other social network. But then again, is that all that there is… My need to know more and connect to more people tells me that I need to push more. Should I??

http://www.getinterviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task;=view&id;=75&Itemid;=44

I found this through EMC Careers Twitter post, and I thought this is useful for those who are on twitter and those who are not…

I am sure I am going to analyze this… Soon…

1. There is a global industrial consolidation in progress – bigger companies are acquiring smaller companies and are creating a state of global one-ness.

2. Geographically, countries and states are trying to become independent and are trying to break away from each other.

So what does this tell you??

Soon, we will have a very interesting state of the world. 10 big companies in 5000 countries. Do you think that is possible?

Sometimes I wonder where we are really headed. When I was 21, I used to find the news of a company buying another surprising. It used to be a big deal. When Microsoft bought Hotmail, it was huge news, and for a long time. But today, every day there is a takeover – companies get bought and sold as if we were in a retail market. Earlier, when entrepreneurs started a company, it was to get on their feet and have something of their own – don’t get me wrong – they still do it for all those reasons, but today, we have a new reason added to the list – to get bought over by a multi-million dollar company and making a quick few millions.

Another trend that is seemingly becoming more interesting, is that of distributed global consolidation. Companies buy local companies that fit their business model the most and then declare them as subsidiary company. When Deloitte did this ages ago, it was a first of its kind practice, however, it is now a norm. eBAY bought Bazzee in India and made it eBAY.in; Consulting firms do it everyday; even big IT firms have started to follow this trend.

Now try and think of this development with the 2nd piece of the news above - Geographic independence. Think about what will happen if we had 5000 countries, because countries broke and new ones formed – and 5-10 companies with everything else as a subsidiary. It is an interesting thought, and do realize that I am not planning what to write – I am thinking about it as I write about it. Do you think this can ever happen?

I doubt it, despite the trend suggesting otherwise. I recently heard about the concept of Entrepreneurial Talent as a national economic resource, and that made me wonder – can you really run out of this resource? Is it a limited resource? And connecting that back to this discussion, can you ever have just 5-10 companies in the world?

I leave that up to you to comment about…

For this analysis (and a very weird one in my mind), we need to understand that there are 2 kinds of people – those who know that they are better candidates in the pool (Type A), and those who know that they are good, but there are better qualified people than them (Type B).

All these people use their own strategies. And I break down the ones that I have seen in the following categories:

1. Early Morning candidates – As the name states, these people are early morning people. They prefer the early morning slot. They have their own interesting reasons why they would do this.

a) Type A people who try to be in this spot, mostly think that they would want to set the bar high right in the morning, so that when the lower quality candidates that show up later jut don’t make the cut. Their strong belief is usually that the first impression is the strongest one.

b) Type B people who try to be in this spot are the ones who would want to make an impression as the first or second person in the morning. It is a proven fact that the most easy to remember slots for interviewers are ‘bracket spots’. So the attempt for this group is to overpower the Type A based on memory retention of the process.

2. Pre or Post Lunch Candidates – This is the group which prefers to be in the spot that (as the name states) is jut before or after lunch.

This is more generic – those that want to be a part of this group, are the people who tend to want to be remembered during the lunch conversation.

Type A candidates in this position tend to get spoken about a lot during the discussion and may get a stronger impression than other possible spots.

Type B candidates in this position can strengthen their candidature and come to par with the Type A candidates, if they can perform better.

On the contrary, if a Type A candidate just before lunch can be excellent compared to an average Type B candidate before lunch – this has different repercussions.

The post lunch spot has the benefit of being the fresh candidate after a round of discussion about the various candidates from different pools. For a Type A candidates, this can be a good opportunity to excel, however, for a Type B candidate, this may be detrimental as they will have a tough time living up to the best candidates discussed during the lunch.

3. Last candidate – Obviously, the last candidate of the day spot is a precious one. This is where the candidate is most remembered, or the most under pressure of performance.

For Type A candidates, this may be a spot where they may be able to excel. However, being at the end of the process, this may also mean that one mistake can cost them the opportunity.

For Type B candidates, this can be the most dangerous spot. And I wonder what benefit might one have by being in that spot??

BUT, here’s the real discussion topic. If the interviewers know that this situation exists, can they really adjust their parameters for evaluation based on the knowledge of this situation.

And to what extent, if yes…

Opinions welcome…

Here I have a completely unrelated situation that I somehow relate to this question. A couple of days ago, a gentleman who I regard with utmost respect blurted out something. Whether intentional or not, I don’t know. But he said, “Do you know how many times in a day do I hear – ‘You know what you should be doing….’ and for sure Dubes is one of them who says this to me…. No, I don’t know what I should be doing… I just have a degree and a career in this line because I don’t know what I should be doing…”.

So I go back to the question – what makes me a capable person to comment on this?

Those of you who know Laloo Prasad Yadav, the Minister of Parliament and ex-Chief Minister of Bihar (Eastern State in India) may find this funny – but I was impressed at the following incident.

During a television interview, he was asked – how many members of your party (which was a leading majority in the state at that time) are literate?

His response: “If you think that only literate people understand the meaning of management of life and the nitty-gritties of daily hardwork, you are very wrong. No one understands the value of literacy more than an illiterate person, and no one knows the value of money more than one who doesn’t have it.”

So, once again – I come back to the question: What makes me a capable person to comment on this? – I rest my case with the same fact – I don’t have a job yet.

The reason I bring these incidents out is to justify why I continue to try and find more avenues where I can search for jobs and why I continue to suggest more things that people should do.

Next time… The real technologies…. for searching Job Opportunities…

One of the things that impressed me straight up was the structure of the event: Everyone applied individually, and so that hassle of having to find a team was not there. The students met at the event and then were allocated into 12 teams of 4 each. This gave us the opportunity to get into the business situations that we will end up in at a later point in stage.

Lets get into the day. I reached a day before the event – realized that there had been some confusion with the place I had planned to stay, and was at the airport at Midnight (actually at 1 am) trying to book a hotel at that unearthly hour. Thanks to Ashraf Hossain, who was the lead organizer for the event, I was able to find a hotel in time. When on my way to the hotel had received a voicemail from another organizer of the event offered to pick me up next morning for my hotel and take me to the University.
Next morning I received another call from her and then she picked me up promptly as she had promised at 1 pm. We went to the Hotel – Carolina Inn. Great facility, I could check in immediately, despite having a regular check in time of 3 pm. Once settled in, I decided to go for a walk and spend my remaining time before the kick-start event site-seeing. I walked up to a Franklin street (for those in Pittsburgh, this is the equivalent of Forbes Avenue inside the Pitt Campus). Nice place, I felt hungry so stepped in to a joint called “Noodles”. Ate and then decided it wasn’t the place for me. It’s a great place (from the size of the crowd), but I didn’t like it.

Let’s cut-to-event. 7 pm, me and Brian (the student who I was sharing the hotel room with) stepped out to meet our welcoming party in the lobby. The two lovely ladies led us (a group of nearly 24 students from all around the nation) through a maze of streets (exaggerated) to a nice evening place where we were welcomed with Wine and snacks. We were given our student kits (files, souvenirs, etc.) and then we networked our way into the event. I finally met Ashraf (the organizer), who was doing a great job managing the event with his team.

The evening was good – great networking, good wine, great people. The food was OK too… I walked around and found my team – Riju (Vanderbuilt), Lynn (UNC) and Diana (Chicago – Booth). We spoke for a while, got acquainted to each other, and then at the end of the evening retired to our respective rooms. Our team started at 7:30 am with the shuttle picking us up at 7 am. Early start after an evening of wine – not very easy but we made it on time. We got into the shuttle and reached the Business School building.

Now let me take a moment here and describe the business school building. It was actually the size of 6 joined buildings put together, 4 or 5 floors each. It was huge for a business school. I have seen some business schools and this was, by far, the biggest.

We stepped in and went to the cafeteria where we picked up breakfast and cases and then walked towards the rooms allotted to us for preparation. The team was great – I couldn’t believe the number of ideas we came up with. Any idea presented by any of the teams was a part of our brainstorm session. We had 15 minutes at around 9:15 am to get queries resolved by the judges (from Walmart). The group did a great job compiling all our thoughts and then presenting. I think we fell short in the presentation session and a little bit with the numbers.

After our presentation, which I personally thought was great, we waited an another cafeteria (you can imagine the size of this place – it had more than two cafeterias) with Lunch sponsored by Target. I must say – any organizing committee that can get rivals to sponsor parts of the same event (Walmart and Target) have to be good. Teams poured in as they completed their presentations. Finally, the judges walked in – and announced their top 3 (one from each room). We didn’t make it – and I was interested to see why not. 30 minutes break and then everyone to the finals of the event.

The top three teams presented after that (I think they drew lots to decide the order). I was shocked to see that each one of them had presented the same ideas that we had. Well, not all of them. They picked up one idea and went into great detail about it., but at the end of the three presentations, the three ideas that had come out were all in one presentation that we had given – I think now, maybe that’s what we should’ve done. Pick up the best idea and then run with it.

The team that won recommended to create an Entertainment Centre and to buy out RedBox. Intelligent idea and it won them 2 grand and the top honors.

End of the event was a dinner and presentation ceremony and then the ritualistic bar tab. I can’t remember the name of the places that we visited after that. I must say – Ashraf was a great host and his team (apologies guys that I can’t remember any of your names) were great organizers.

In the end, it was a brilliant event and a great networking opportunity. I would recommend anyone who intends to go for case competitions to definitely not miss this one.

It’s a new day and a new semester kicks off. Everyone either has an internship, or is looking for one for summer. I currently have an on-campus Internship – but I am looking for an off-campus one (hopefully, with a large multinational company).

Let’s start with basics. Currently, I am working as a “Student IT Consultant” (they have to put that in my designation). I am working with the Small Business Development Centre (SBDC) at the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence. It’s an interesting job – pretty much full time consulting.

But that’s not all!!

I am also organizing an event for the Katz Team Technology Initiative.

What’s that… Wait till the next post…