The AIM Blogger

If the United States are deep into the coming elections featuring the Democrats' Barack Obama and Joe Biden against the Republicans' John McCain and Sarah Palin, the Asian Institute of Management  student body will be casting the ballot as well. The campaign period for the AIM Student Association (AIM SA) elections has started and the posts of Chairperson, Vice-chairperson, and Overseas Students' President will be vied for by candidates from our junior MBA cohorts. If you remember, I ran for the post of Vice-Chairperson last year and I lost by only four votes . I guess there were still some positive outcomes for me because I was assigned to lead the AIM SA Sports Committee, where I was involved in steering the school's participation in the  2008 Inter-MBA Games and organizing the first AIM Community Poker Championships . The candidates for this coming elections are: For Chairperson: Laurice Alaan (MBA 2009) Kshitij Dimri (MBA 2009) Siddhart Jain (MBA 2009) ...

Got this email from Prof. Jun Borromeo. I think Asian Institute of Management Alumni should really look into this nice event: Dear Fellow AIM Alumni: The Alumni Association of AIM-Philippine Chapter is inviting you and your family to join us in our 2nd AIM Alumni Family Day Reunion as we continue to celebrate the 40th Year Anniversary ofour beloved Institute. Our theme, “ STAND UP FOR LOVE ” aims to foster unity among AIM Alumni and members ofthe AIM Community. The AIM Alumni Family Day event will also honor the members of theSpecial Olympics-Philippines and the Payatas Community who are the major beneficiaries of thisnoble activity. We will start our AIM Alumni Family Day with a fun run followed by exhibition gamesby the members of the Special Olympics-Philippines and to be concluded with a thanksgiving mass.The AIM Families and Community will have a sumptuous lunch together with our beneficiaries.Fellowship and various fun games for AIM Alumni Families will highlight afternoon...

  Failure, in one form or another, is a part of student life and here at the Asian Institute of Management  , failure does not only happen inside the caserooms. A few weeks ago, I launched a project that aimed to produce and sell shirts for my MBA class. (I blogged about it twice-- one is an introduction of the MBA Dec 2008 shirt  , another one is a reminder  ). After weeks of weak demand, I decided to pull the plug on the project two days ago. I reflected on this setback for the last couple of days and I have come to the conclusion that the shirt project I launched failed on the four P's of marketing: Product, Promotion, Price and Place. Here's my brief analysis: Product Based on the suppliers, I had three products to choose from: jacket, t-shirt and golf shirt. I decided on what product to produce and sell based on market research (an online survey of the class) and what emerged was that the majority wanted a golf shirt in blue or black colors and they were...

I'd like to share a nice discussion going on at the Asian Institute of Management LinkedIn Group  . Alumnus Ramki Ramakrishnan asked: What are the three key actions that should be done to regain AIM in top Management institutes of the World?   If you think you have some nice suggestions, scoot on over to the LinkedIn group. :) Note: You need a LinkedIn account plus membership in the AIM group in order to participate in the discussion.

In a few hours, the awarding ceremonies of the biggest blogging event this year will take place: The 2008 Philippine Blog Awards . I'm pleased to share that two of my other blogs have reached the final list in their respective categories: Big Lakers Fan for the Best Blog for Sports Category and Screensucked for the Best Blog for Entertainment Category . While I believe in the effort I put in for my blogs, I think only have a longshot of winning since the list of finalists are a virtual who's who of great bloggers. So, I'd like to allot a little space for my two blogs that made the finals: Big Lakers Fan - This is probably the easiest blog I maintain because I always talk about my favorite basketball team-- the Los Angeles Lakers . Like any sports fan, I want to curse at the world whenver my team loses and rejoice when they win, so I figured creating a blog about them would be the natural thing to do. This blog is also my blog that got the notice of the global crowd w...

The International Student Exchange Program (ISEP) at the Asian Institute of Management threw a welcome party to the exchange students from international schools last Friday and what a party it was! In what could be regarded as one of the best parties our MBA class was ever went to, people had loads of fun, made lots of new friends and even had a taste (literally!) of the culture of other countries. There was a brief program that kicked off the party, with introductions from the exchange students from France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria and Mexico. I joined lively emcees Neil Risos and Pia Sanedrin and acted as the party's Game Master with Diamond Uy. After every two or three countries have finished presenting or introducing themselves, party games were played, and boy, were the games rockin'! After the program, we had everyone's favorite party activity-- karaoke! My classmate in the MBA program Mei Ling of Indonesia stole...

Note: This post is a follow-up to the Case Writing Workshop that started yesterday . Today's sessions at the Case Writing Workshop earlier were shorter and only consisted of two spots with Professors Gaby Mendoza and Mario "Mayo" Lopez but they were very filled with substance. The morning session was a presentation and critique of our case plans and outlines and I presented my outline for one of the cases in my Management Research Report  and thankfully it wasn't slammed by Prof. Mendoza. The afternoon session with Prof. Lopez was a more practical sharing/story-telling time as he shared his war stories of writing cases under James Culliton and other pioneers of the Asian Institute of Management . The workshop over-all had a tremendous impact on me in terms of my appreciation of the Case Method and the whole deal about writing cases. I also had a small epiphany on one of the reasons why I decided to do a case writing project for my MRR-- I realized that I wanted...

One of my advisers for my Management Research Report  (MRR), Prof. Jun Borromeo, required... er... invited me to join a special workshop for case writing pool of the Asian Institute of Management . As you may know, I'm taking the path least taken (or is it path of least resistance?) by writing cases for my MRR, as opposed to writing a strategic management paper for my thesis. All things considered, I think the Case Series writing option suits my strengths and gives me enough flexibility. Besides, I really think I can come up with cases that can maximize the Case Method used in AIM. The workshop kicked off with a case discussion with another mentor of mine, Prof. Ricky Lim . We discussed how the Case Method works from a pedagogical perspective and it was revelation. You know those moments in a movie where there's a big reveal, like say in Vertigo  or The Sixth Sense where everything unraveled when the truth was uncovered? I had that feeling because after learning how the ...

  Classes for our fourth term at the Asian Institute of Management will start tomorrow and I figured it was a good time to reflect on the past elective term . The thirt term ran for ten weeks and I took five electives: New Product and Service Development (NPSD) - Prof. Jay Bernardo Creative Marketing and Selling (CMS) - Prof. Joe Faustino Customer Experience Management (CEM) - Prof. Tommy Lopez Marketing & Finance Creating Synergy (MFCS) - Prof. Richard Cruz Self-Mastery, Arts and Spirituality (SMARTS) - Prof. Cecilia Manikan In retrospect, I think I was able select suubjects that covered areas that I'm interested in, plus had a very good schedule-- SMARTS took only around half term because we had 3-5 sessions in a week, plus the meditation activities took up a good portion of the course. CEM was a subject that met more than the normal "twice a week" schedule, and CMS finished early because of our Sales Interview exercises and presentations. So in my last mo...

Imagine there's a party like, say, an AIM BeerPub , an event that is known to get people from different groups or factions together and have them know each other better and socialize. And you know that this type of event has  always been open with little restrictions, if any. How would you feel if you hear that you're not supposed to be there? "Left high and dry," "left out in the cold," "excluded"? No matter how you would describe it, the feeling sucks, right? You probably would feel a little slighted, but then again, you will try to grab a good and logical explanation why things are turning out that way. However, at that point you are already irrational and no matter what people tell you, you will feel you were shut out and decide to hole up and ignore the whole event, and think you have better ways of spending your time. Yeah, this is a rant. A whiny rant at that.

The MBA Dec 2008 Shirts has a new model: Neil Risos !     Order your shirts now online at http://tinyurl.com/mba2008-shirt-order or go to Ms. Amy to also see the sizes and styles for men and women.

It's post-term (or pre-term?) break and I have a week off to either a) rest and take a break or b) do MRR stuff. I decided to take the early portion of the week to have a well-deserved break from the last couple of weeks. Ironically, I have not been busy with my MRR in the lsat couple of weeks because I was devoting my attention inpreparing for the two talks I had last week-- the Philippine Youth Conference in Information Technology and WordCamp Philippines 2008 . Now that those two are done, I figured I could relax for the next few days. Here's a pic of something I did over the weekend: Yeah, I went back to my musical roots and I enjoyed every minute of it. :) I guess everyone in our class is taking a break in one form or another-- there's someone who went out of the country, there's someone who went to the beach, I'm sure some folks are just enjoying lounging back home and watching TV (yeah, TV is a privilege you'll give up in while you're studying...

A good portion of the Philippine blogosphere (including myself) considered September 6, 2008 a special day because it was WordCamp Philippines 2008 day. And that day started really early because I had to polish the presentation I was going to give as a plenary session for WordCamp. My topic was something very close to my heart-- Web Standards and WordPress-- two of the main components of this blog . Since I left the house late in the morning, that meant I had to miss a significant part of the day's talks . :( (This should be a lesson to me not to wait for the last day/hour/minute.) The past week was already doozy for me because I had already given a talk at the Y4IT Conference on Wednesday, and then the WordCamp a few days later. (I think Jayvee and Juned had the same schedule) The two talks were significant, yet contrasting. Y4IT was like a rock concert, and WordCamp was more like an Unplugged event where it was more grounded and intimate. When I arrived at the Colleg...

I had my last class for the term today it was New Products & Services Development (NPSD) under Prof. Jay Bernardo and we concluded the class with a very interesting activity: Elevator pitches to "potential venture capitalists." (Well, not really VC's but folks from the Philippine Business for Social Progress and a couple of entrepreneurs :P) How things went was everyone in the class was given two minutes to pitch a new business idea and five judges will either say "Yes" or "No" to your business idea a la American Idol , i.e.the judges will be very upfront with you and tell you in your face why your idea will either succeed or suck. Judges will also ask questions and give their critiques in an objective, but frank manner. So you could imagine how I had to condition myself for the activity because for sure the judges will not mince words and will not pull their punches in giving their comments. When my name was called, I stepped up to the plat...

The batch shirt for the MBA Dec 2008 is now available! The shirt is priced at PhP 525.00, with premium embroidered designs of the Asian Institute of Management logo and the batch name. It comes in two colors: black and navy blue, with sizes for men and women. Here are some images of the shirt (Thanks to Ms. Monina Montepiedra of AIM's Insitutional Marketing for modeling the shirt):               You can fit the sizes and see the samples of the shirt from Ms. Amy at the MBA program office. You can also place your orders online at http://tinyurl.com/mba2008-shirt-order . So get your shirt now! If total orders amount to 100 or more, the shirt's price will be discounted. :)

The annual Recruiter's Night was held last evening at the AIM Conference Center and it was one of those rare moments when everybody in the class dressed up (including myself!) and looked smart and spiffy. So you could imagine how annoyed I am that I failed to bring my camera to take some nice shots of the folks in our class. (Doh!) The reason I forgot to bring my camera is that I brought it to the talk at the Y4IT 2008 Conference I had yesterday and I unwittingly left it in my car, which was parked far from campus so I guess I'll rely on the snaps taken by other people. :P As for the event itself, it went pretty smoothly. Everyone was there promptly and the brief program started around 6:30pm. After a few talks from Asian Institute of Management President Francis Estrada, Enrollment Management and Placement (EMP) director Prof. Eli Santos, and a couple of student representatives, the evening of schmoozing with company managers and bigwigs started. I wasn't able to tal...

This post may have set my personal record for the longest interval for a sequel posting. More than a year ago, I wrote about our Convocation event which happened on our second day of classes for the MBA program at the Asian Institute of Management . Now, I'm writing about another convocation event, but this time, it's the one for new class that came this month. The event was like a coming into a full cirlce for me-- I was invited to give a little talk, along with my CAN Groupmate Madhu Ponnuveetil, to share our experiences in AIM to the new folks. Madhu and I basically did what Georgina Chingkoe and Shreyas Ramanathan did for us last year: The talk was a chance for me to scare the heck out of the new MBA class (as if my blog posts weren't enough, hehehe), but I figured it would be more fun to share some nice nuggets of insights since they more or less knew what to expect. So, I came up with five things the class would go through and here's a list of the items ...

Last Saturday, our respective groups in Marketing and Finance Creating Synergy (MFCS) under Prof. Richard Cruz spent the whole day competing against each other in a business simulation game. The game we played was Pharmasim , a brand management simulation game where groups took over a fictitious cold medicine and manage it in terms of the product's marketing and making sure it performed well despite the market forces and competition. Unlike the business war game we played in Development of the Enterprise (DE), we did not directly compete against teams in the game, but competed on how we performed relative to how each group fared in their respective games. There were eight groups in all our group (me, Faye Abis, Maya Perez , Starrie Sun, and Jennifer Valenzuela) was erroneously named as " Regnard " because we failed to get an instruction in the game's registration. Prof. Cruz set specific goals for our class competition and group scores were based on 60% financia...