Jes bak from Skool

... Marketing skool to be precise..2 welcome days off from work...But then you cannot actually call "training" a complete break.. For though one can sit in a room and doze off the whole day, there are still negatives like having to switch off mobiles and being away from mails.. But its also nice to set an Out-Of-Office message and then delight in watching people slog their butts off responding to RFIs..Besides all these the free coffee/snacks/lunch and the opportunity to meet "new people" never fails to whip up some excitement in our dull lives :-) I digress, as usual...

So how was it ? 8 sessions of 2 hours each .. On a variety of topics ranging from the mundane Market Research, cliched Customer Relationship Management, exciting Branding to creative Marketing Communication...A mixed bag, i must say..A few of the speakers were really good, some were strictly average and a few downright pathetic.. The last category had me looking back with nostalgia to the days when i used to walk out of lectures mid-way..sigh.. If only i could have done that these last two days but then i am now a responsible corporate citizen....

Fine.. what were the take-aways from the 2 day exercise that were worthy of mention...The best session was undoubtedly that IIM-B Professor Ramesh Venkateshwaran's session on "COMPETITVE EDGE: Creating a sustainable advantage" - Unlike the run-of-the-mill session speakers, Ramesh demonstrated his class by starting off with examples from sports...I don't remember the exact numbers but just sample this..

	Player A	Player B
First serves in	56%	63%
Aces	26	17
Double Faults	14	8
Winners	45	41
Unforced Errors	28	17
Break Points Converted	3/6	3/6

Total Sets: 5
Total Match duration: 3 hrs 1 min

Who won ?? Data would lead one to believe that it was Player B but fact was that Player A won. The total points won (154 vs 150) reflects how close the match was.

(with pride) It didn't take me long to guess the match and his inference.. But what a way of hitting home the point.. Needless to say i was awestruck... Just reinforces my belief that the best Profs in the business lecture only at A, B and C.. So if you are not studying there, u are missing a lot.

Another interesting session was the one conducted by Shripad Nadkarni, Marketing head of Coke.. Name rings a bell ? Yes, he's the guy Sushmita Sen sued for sexual harassment and settled out of court :-P

The best part of the 2 days program was the session by Niranjan Natarajan, Exec Creative Director from JWT. He touched upon various aspects of marketing communication and shared experiences of a few interesting launches. What worked for me in this session was his deployment of analogies from movies to explain related concepts in marketing communication. Okie, to be honest, he was relating mostly to M Night and specifically, The Village and i simply loved this..Oh boy, he does know what he is talking about.. He actually ended his presentation with one of my all time favorite quotes by Night...

"My biggest fear in life is to be average"

I did note down some other nice one-liners from the 2 days but looks like i have misplaced the notepad..Will post them if/when i get 'em bak...Bye for now.

PS: Since mobiles had to be switched off, I could not take calls - might have even forgotten to return a few.. My apologies ;-) Will make it up - How ? Have saved "Shall We Dance" in my lappie - mebbe we cud see it again :-p