Globonomics!

My newly acquired Rolodex business car holder from US

I got this for the original sticker price of $25 USD plus Rs. 150 for logistics cost. Not bad, given just a week back, I had all sorts of crazy experiences in trying to procure such a harmless stationary for my business cards! I was even prepared to pay 4X the cost of the Rolodex and at that price point, I could have bought 4 more such to gift to someone! I have to personally thank my peer for this – he lives in San Diego and had a colleague who was traveling back to India over the weekend. This reached me today morning! This is the power of execution – convert a thought into action at the lowest possible cost!

Product review

The Rolodex 240 business card holder is pure leather, the casing is smooth, there are a lot of jackets to keep other stuff on the left fold, the plastic thicker than the Staples plastic I had bought a fortnight ago. I will have one to spare to gift to someone in case I need to. I personally believe a lot in the power of networking and have experienced this as well.

I got my MBA seat in 2004 at the prestigious Indian Institute of foreign Trade (IIFT), New Delhi just because I marketed my EcoFin group I had setup in November 2003 with backbreaking efforts in getting a geographically separate peer circle of 40+ people together on a common thread discussing topics related to my first love MBA subjects  – Economics and Finance; who were indeed very accomplished. I had once even published the audience profile of that group and it had people from everywhere – Finance MBA’s from the NYU Stern, JPMorgan Chase, Insead-France, Lehman Brothers (not so great to mention this now!), Infineon, Misys, HP, Serial entrepreneurs, Accenture, Singapore University MBA’s, GE, MBA’s from University of Buffalo, MBA’s from University of Michigan, Delmia, Bestbuy, MBA’s from IIM’s, SAP, Technocrats from various industries etc. – all working towards a simple goal – discussions on topics of Economics/Finance.

Of course, as my MBA course beat the pulp out of me in 2005/2006 with it’s grueling schedule, this discussion group lost the leadership and slid into oblivion. There were tries from a couple of my peers to rekindle activities and invigorate discussions but it was too difficult as the group members had themselves moved on and gotten busy with their lives.

Having said this, the mandate is clear: I always have, and will, continue to believe in this simple fact of life: Who you associate with says a lot about who you are. (This is a different version of a Mastercard ad that was running in the 1990’s in India saying “What you carry with you says a lot about who you are”. I agree with both the sayings.

Networking is king! Long live networking!

My newly acquired Rolodex business car holder from US