Science of decision making - Movie Review Edition

Vencut Sobbo, BTech, MBA, Senior Vice President–Strategy, was busy making a presentation on “Strategic Initiatives for Sustainable Growth by Leveraging Synergies”, when he got a call from his wife that she would like to go for a movie.

Hard pressed for time, he called up his Secy and asked about hindi movies currently playing.  Cecillia replied, “Dil to Baccha hai Ji, Yamla Pagla Deewana, Dhobhi Ghat, No One Killed Jessica & Tees Maar Khan ”.

His AVP, Suniel GoSwami, MBA from IIIICM, overheard this and decided to do a quick research on the reviews and ratings,  and knowing that Mrs. Sobbo was an Aamir Khan fan , he "zeroed in" on Dhobhi Ghat.

Suniel, like most of you , relied on the medieval “Star Rating” system to choose which movie to watch but decided to “Walk an extra mile” to impress his boss .

He pulled out 21 reviews of Dhobhi Ghat , meticulously put them in a PowerPoint.

These were the results :

« One Star – (1) Komal Nahta

«« Two Star – (3) Minty Tezpal ( Mumbai Mirror) , Gaurav Malani ( Economic Times) & Blessy Chettiar ( DNA)

««^1/2 Two and a Half star – (4) Khalid Mohammed & Kaveree Bamzai( India Today) etc

««« Three Star – (5) Anupama Chopra ( NDTV) , Rajeev Masand ( IBN) , Sonil Dedhia ( Rediff) etc

«««^1/2 Three and Half Star- ( 5) Nikhat Kazmi ( Times) , Sonia Chopra ( Sify) , Sarita Tawar ( Mid-Day) etc

«««« Four Star – (3) Taran Adarsh , Santa Banta and Now Running.

Little confused but knowing his Boss’s fetish for numbers and stats , he didn’t settle for this raw data and “drilled down” further . So all 21 results were “populated” in “Microsoft Access” and he “Run a query” to find a little more scientific and statistically correct rating , results were :

Average	2.928571
Mode	3
Median	3
Geometric Mean	2.805119
Harmonic Mean	2.643093

As any statistical result would have , he also added a disclaimer : "It's assumed that all 21 reviewers are equally talented ( hence no need of weighted mean), and none of them has been influenced by any kith, kin cast or crew of any of these movies. Also, it's assumed that they have rated these movies after watching at least 10 minutes each of both halves"

Satisfied that he had done enough, he called his boss to tell the results. Vencut , entered the cabin humming “Sheila ki Jawani”, looked at the PowerPoint titled “Informed Decision Making” .  Inspite of being a “Man of numbers”, he was not looking visibly impressed with this 6 slide power point presentation with graphs and pie charts. He called Cecilia to check who’s the heroine in Dhobhi Ghat , Cecilia said “Some new unglamorous chic, I don’t know the name, sir”.

Vencut immediately called his wife “Honey , tried tickets of Dhobhi Ghat , but couldn’t get , so got you Tees Maar Khan – It’s an Akshay Starrer, and a comedy which you’ll like”. 

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LinkedIn – The Blunder years !

As of 1 January 2011, LinkedIn had more than 90 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries. You can be proud that You , Your neighbor , and the society watchman, all are one in 90 million.

 

Let’s get started .

 

Profile

It’s first and the easiest step , all you need to write is your education( if any) , Past and Current ( no no not girl friends ) Employments , and it’s ready . It also allows you to give a brief summary , that’s where many of us try to be creative.

 

Sample Summary of Vencut Sobbo

“I am a vibrant , creative and hardworking young professional with a sharp focus on quality tasks. Other than BAU am also good at multi tasking and have accomplished a robust culture in current organisation. My goal in life is to scale new heights and take my organisation to even higher height. If given a chance , I would prove an ASSet to your esteemed organisation , together we can achieve even newer heights – you can see that I am not scared of heights"

 

This will ensure that your summary appears in every possible search , by any damn consultant , MBA or a wanna be MBA cum Consultant.

 

Sending Invites

First and foremost , use LinkedIn special feature to send auto invites to all your gmail, rediffmail and yahoo mail contacts , this will ensure that your invite reaches atleast 749 people. Now it’s time for sending some personalised invites.

 

Sample personalised invites :

First , to that pretty HR lady who hired you.

“Dear SunderLuxmi , I would like to invite you to my LinkedIn because I like the way you helped me in filling all the 19 Joining Forms including my hobbies , I still remember the way you smiled listening that Orkutting is my hobby”

 

Second , to the Head Marketing , whom you met in the LOO.

“Dear Sunderassan Sir, I am working with despatch department , as a junior vice executive – outgoing emails , please accept my invite. In case you don’t remember , we met at the place where all bodily fluids meet , and I liked your tattoo”

 

Making Recommendations

Now , it’s time to make some recommendations. By now , you would have received at least 19 messages asking for your recommendations.

 

The typical message would look something like - "I'm sending this to ask you for a brief recommendation of my work that I can include in my LinkedIn profile. If you have any questions, let me know. Thanks in advance for helping me out"

 

Now seeing this , don’t waste your time in remembering who’s this guy. All you need is to dust off your old “wren n martin “ , see what is an adjective – pick any one at random and make a sentence and Bingo .

 

Sample Recommendation for an Ex

“Nymphia and I go a long way , I still remember her first day in our office , also when we met at the “Annual Forward Looking Strategy and Looking Back Meeting”. She is very well dressed and has an eye for detail , she quickly spotted the mole and some hairs on my left ear lobe”

 

That’s it for this time , keep licking linking.

 

Disclaimer: Names have been changed on requests, If still it’s your name you better change it. 

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Oh Yeah , We’re the CrackVerry Boys

We wear  fake attitude

We deserve no gratitude

We’re the CrackVerry Boys

Oh yeah

We’re the CrackVerry Boys

We’re Medicore , But we’re Arrogant

We’re very very Arrogant

We’re the CrackVerry Boys

Oh yeah

We’re the CrackVerry Boys

We do PowerPoints

and we do mail

We do meetings

We do all in vain.

Oooo, ooo, ooo, hoooo

Cos We’re the CrackVerry Boys

Oh yeah

We’re the CrackVerry Boys

Na na na

We’re the CrackVerry Boys

Oh yeah

We’re the CrackVerry Boys

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Can we take it offline ?

Reporter of The Daily Times decides to call his friend  Harry Blotter , MBA from IIIIPPM , Associate Managing Director with Hefner and Old consultants  NA for a quick view on the Blackberry ban.

Reporter:            You think the Blackberry ban is justified ?

Harry :  Holy Crap , this Government  needs to start with  “Blue Sky thinking” , “deep dive” into the issue , do a  “SWOT” , then take a call to “Pull the plug”. When technology is not the “Core Competency” of the Government, why doesn’t it “touch-base” with other “Stake Holders”  , discuss it “Thread Bare” and then arrive at a “Win-Win” situation . By the way , Government’s approach should be “Customer Centric” and it needs to discuss the issue “End to End” while keeping the “End use perspective” in mind so that it “Manages expectations” of all. Above all , whatever be the “End result” , it ought to be “scalable” , which will require “robust” planning . But the problem is no one is looking at the “Big Picture” , everyone is concentrating at “Low hanging fruits” without “leveraging” the “synergies” and the biggest worry is who will “take ownership”.

Reporter :           Sir , I repeat the question , Is the ban on the blackberry justified ?

Harry:    Can we take it offline ?

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