AIM Fuzzi-Olympics 2009... remembering all the fun we had during our walk-about

What an experience! :)


This is one activity that I am going to propagate in my company once I am back in the work stream.

The Walk-About gave many of us a chance to do something out of the ordinary and for me personally it was like climbing a steep ladder, slowly and steadily, day after day and finally, the view from the top is really amazing.

First of all I would like to mention how we came up with the plan. Well before that, how ‘we’ happened. My partner in crime ‘Sameer Alve’. Since we both are the founding members of the Entrepreneurship club, it was just after a very healthy discussion on how to take the club forward, that he asked what plans do I have for the HBO Walk-About. I mentioned and I still have it on record (as we recorded our meeting discussions), that I wanted to do multiple things under the Walk-About umbrella and involve the maximum people possible. We didn’t have to ask to be partners, as we both were thinking of the same thing. Here, I think the mutual trust and respect took the decision.

Next what happened was a few emails sharing ideas and we have a plan ready for the ‘AIM Fuzzi-Olympics 2009’.

So we have a Big Hairy Audacious Goal assigned for ourselves amidst our tight MBA curriculum and man, were we excited :). Nobody knew what we were doing but considering that we were the silent types many had high expectations.

Planning to get sponsors for the event happened over dinner when we went to Pizza Hut and ‘were just talking that it was so far from AIM that not many people could be visiting them and Bang! Came the idea.

Our main objective was to make sure everyone has fun and enjoys themselves. Also since there were so many DE and Walk-About taking place over the last few weeks we anticipated that people would generally be low on cash. So we wanted to make sure that we kept our registration fee at the minimum (that could cover our admin expenses). Keeping the main objective of fun in mind we made the entry for family and friends of the students free of cost. Also the entry for the faculty and staff with family were also free.

Keeping the same value of Fun in mind we sold the idea to our sponsors who were more than happy to support the effort. But we had to make sure that every potential sponsor we approached had some connection with the student community (in our case Burger King, National Book store, Subway, Power Books, Lotus Massage spa and MINI STOP. To each of these, we made a separate proposal selling them the value of associating themselves with the event and AIM. It required a lot of follow ups and meetings before we managed to arrive at the sponsorship amount and gifts.

We wanted to make sure that students who participate - compete, enjoy and take away more then just the experience. We got prizes sponsored in the form of gift vouchers and gifts from BURGER KING, POWER BOOKS, NBS, MINI STOP organised all the materials for all the games... and as an add on, we got LOTUS SPA to set up a Mini Spa in campus giving all students free of cost mini massages. To make sure we got a good deal from Lotus we also tied up with them for a two month package of providing all AIM community 50% discount for all massages, unlimited times over the period.

So basically whatever we did had a motive and motivation.

During the entire process we had our highs and our lows. Our first high was when we got our project approved but after that was a long lull. We wanted to get sponsors who were taking time to respond. Here we both knew that we both were down but we never let each other feel low and encouraged each other to concentrate on our main objective. We both motivated each other with new ideas that we can do to raise funds. And we decided to raise some funds by organizing a poker tournament in, which went off pretty well. And once that went of successfully, we had five of the sponsors confirming with the interest on the same day. ( Happy faces, Yahoo!)

In my opinion, organizing “Fuzzi Olympics” was a new learning experience for both of us managing an event, negotiating with vendors, and promoting the event. It helped us generate some funds and an opportunity to work as a team. We engaged students and staff, as we knew that it could be difficult managing everything own our own. The anxiety of losing reputation was killed with enthusiastic participants enjoying the event and many students enrolling into free massage place. The barrage of cheering emails from all the participants was overwhelming and this has geared us to do another event in the future. We have tentatively named it “the AIM Sports Bonanza 2009” scheduled for September-October 2009, again targeting students, staff and faculty of AIM.

My most important learning from organizing this event has been ‘the planning and its execution’ plus patience. I also learned to trust and delegate responsibility when there is a crunch of resources. Any project organized at this scale cannot be successful without keeping the future in mind.

We also wanted to make sure that the biggest winners at the end of the day were not just us but all the memories that we created which are going to cherished for a long time to come.

An AIM Young MBA Professional now... graduated Decembr 2009

I am a MBA graduate from the Asian Institute of Management, Philippines. I have majored in Marketing and besides earning a management degree I have also earned the friendship and network of one of the finest management and business talents around the globe. At the Asian Institute of Management we follow the case study methodology of education, where we worked on Harvard Business Case Studies and were exposed to solving and debating on management situations globally. The case room sessions are always very intriguing where we came out richer in experience on how business works in different parts of the world.

IBM Experience in a nut shell

After spending two intriguing years with top of the line media house, I got am opportunity to work with IBM India (BPO). I was part of the Business Development team and focus on International Marketing Services. My role was to prospect for new opportunities/businesses for outsourcing to IBM Managed Services. My role demanded of me to carry out relevant research on marketing analytics, create client deliverable presentations, communicate concise messages to prospects and host conference calls for delivering client solutions. Working on multiple accounts, my work needed me to coordinate with the global and domestic teams, requisite of me to work on multiple shifts. This challenge helped me develop my time management skills.

Working with prospects is an ongoing process and most of the time I was working with multiple accounts; a challenge which I quickly realized and enhanced my skills to be a very successfully systematic/ organised person, in work management. Being very true to myself, I am not an expert on Finance and Accounting, but what I am, is an expert in adapting/ learning skills and able to communicate that successfully and analytically. This coupled with my excellent communications, people and event management skills. I am looking for an exhilarating, challenging and professionally satisfying career with the aim of attaining higher goals and best results.

Pavaanjeeet with the Times of India - i started my career here

During my tenure with The Times of India Group, I learned the professionally hard way of how a big brand name operates, and how challenging it is to continue to maintain and improve the image that comes along with the company. As a sales professional, in the results and market development department, it was not only the numbers that counted, but also the value that I delivered with my clear understanding of our brand products and our offering, resulting in a successful relationship with our clients. My responsibility was to establish and maintain real two-way partnerships through excellence in partner sales, marketing and relationship engagement. Liaison with finance, brand team and operations to drive promotional campaigns. There have always been set-backs/obstacles, but learning from them and overcoming them have made me the strong character I am today.

Pavan Is Here.. then and Now.. its all about AIM

well this is just a preview of me... as i look back the last few months before we join AIM..
its been such a long wait for AIM.. ever since we got the offer leters in March 2008.. its been a topsy turvy ride... trying to figure out a lot of things... from financial options.. to bank loan options.. other loan options... in fact there was a time when some of us got together and thought abt investing together in some property is a high growing area so by the time we graduate the value would have quadtripled... and here is a start up for u... yea yea wishful thinking... atleast the enthu was there.... anyhow... but how can we forget the gyan sessions and debates and arguments on how to get the PCC done and from where all.. specially the modus operandi in different cities / regional post offices being different.... to add to this was the ever confusing Attestation :) .. phew.. just thinking abt the entire process is exhausting... luckily i was never alone when i went for any of the Passport related stuff... so with that out of the way... it was working seriously towards the UBI Bank Loan thing... normally patience is a virtue which has helped me survive in sales... but even i got to admit the kind of waiting grind that the UBI authorities put us thru even got the better of me... had started exploring other options... but hats of to the entire group of plp who stuck together in gettting it thru.. and also for all the others who had there valuuble inputs at all the times... UBI was the biggest catch for all of us... but having got the approval wasnt the end of the road... it was merely a smal curve... the laon sanction process was again a process which had many of us sweating... with diffeent branches speaking different languages... literally... well with the loan under process the next hurdle of sorts ws the Medical report thingy... hee hee.. yea.. for once i will rememebr a medical test simply never means a chest x ray and a blood test... it means going thru a small round of interview with the doctor... who at times was very annoying... and the striptease .. .... and of course how can one forget the surprising stool test... with no warning whatsoever... well a few of the plp spent a lot of time only for this test... ha ha ha...
the air tickets was a very well planned effort.. with so much info pouring in from all sides.. it was amazing to see so many people with the kind of inputs that they had... the last but not the least was the VISA process... well tht turned out to be a piece of cake didnt it.. well atleast for folks in delhi..

But having said all the above... i must say one thing... it was alll an very well coordinated effort from the beginning to present... the kind of active contributions and views and queries.. experiences... learnings... collaboration of resources... channelizing of efforts was an amazing spectacle to be a part of... and i am sure all the experiences gained here is just a begining of more things to come at AIM...


wow... hmmm ... not bad for a first time blogger :)

Cheers all..