The AIM Blogger

It's that time of the year when those not in the living realm receive our collective attention. Yep, the three day stretch of October 31, November 1 and November 2 are celebrated as Halloween, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day respectively. (Halloween is not an official holiday in the government nor a recognized special day in the Roman Catholic church.) It's only fitting to feature the most popular ghost story about the Asian Institute of Management : A Professor died of a heart attack a few years ago in one of lecture rooms on the third floor of the main building. There are voices; shadows and cold spots can be felt in that specific room where the professor died. His car remains in the faculty parking area even until now. There are several websites and blogs that have featured this story ( here's an example ) and I'm not quite sure where this story originated or when it started. If we look at the facts, "one of the lecture rooms on the third floor...

In the spirit of the Diwali season, you could take home a NEW premium JanSport , Hedgren or Timbuk2 bag courtesy of Bratpack , one of the leading bag stores in the Philippines. How do you get the bag? Very simple: The person who submits the most interesting "bag story"-- about how useful their bags were in their travels, or how they used their bags to express themselves, or even how they used their bags to complete their fashion style--  in one hundred words or less will be the winner of the spiffy new bag of their choice*. All stories will be ranked and the winning story will be determined by a panel of three people, including myself. Submit your unique "bag story" by posting a comment on this blog post , along with your email address . Only those based in the Philippines are eligible and people can submit as many stories as they like. The deadline for submitting your story is on November 18, 2008 . The person who submits the best story will be notified b...

Diwali came a little early here at the Asian Institute of Management as the AIM Student Association (AIM SA) organized a variety show to celebrate the Indian festival of lights. The show opened strong with a nice musical and dance history of Bollywood, then proceeded with Hindi and Tamil song numbers from students from the various MBA cohorts. There was also a nice dance number from our exchange students, dancing a nice Indian dance. In between numbers, there were also fashion shows from the MBA Cohort 3 folks. The best number of the evening came from the Punjabi dancers who got everyone to dance Punjabi style! But the evening's show stopper was our very own Sanvij Balakrishnan, who did a mighty good Michael Jackson impression, with Moonwalk and all. :) This is my second Diwali celebration here in AIM. And like last year's celebration , the evening was a great night of talent, delicious Indian cuisine, dance and free flowing drinks. Happy Diwali to everyone! :D

Property experts agree that the three most important in determining the desirability of of a property are location, location, location. So when it comes to the Asian Institute of Management , it has more or less taken advantage of its prime Makati location in the heart of the Philippines' business district for the last forty years. However, the situation may change for AIM-- a change of address to be exact. Media has picked up the story on the possible move of the institute to two possible new locations. The potential move is a land swap deal with Ayala Corporation  , the donors of the land in which the current campus is built on. This deal is motivated by the institute's strategy to be the "management school of choice for those that want to operate in Asia" and aggressive revival its brand. If AIM pushes through with the move, it will get a hold of the capital gains of the Makati campus (PhP 3 billion) and use this to pay the institute's debt and create a ...

I woke up this morning recalling the dream I was having just before I awoken. Interestingly enough, it was about the only time I complained about grades here are the Asian Institute of Management . To give you an idea, I'm not really conscious about my grades, so I rarely complained. Of course, I don't want to just get red marks left and right-- I definitely want to excel on things that I like to do and enjoy, but with things that aren't really catching my fancy, I tend to look at them like a chore and would just come up with mediocre results. Going back to the only time I complained  , it was during the start of this year. Prof. Nani Roxas, our Operations Management (OM) professor, just released an exemption list for the midterm exams and I was not in his list. I would have been fine with it until I saw the set of folks who were exempted. The list raised questions because there some a handful of exemptions that seemed to make little sense. So a few days after the l...

Dr. Peter Schier, Co-founder of the Penang Global Ethic Project and Former Country Representative of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Malaysia , posited a very interesting take on the global financial crisis: We have to point the finger at unethical practices that led to one of the worst financial crunches the world has faced in recent history. Dr. Schier's lecture was the concluding activity of the World Religions, Universal Peace, Global Ethic Exhibit at the Asian Institute of Management . The talk centered on the "profit at all costs" mindset at the micro-economic level has led to bankruptcy at the macro-economic level and that mindset has a high potential to destroy the social fabric of society. The fund managers that toppled the dominoes of the financial world definitely tip-toed on ethical boundaries and now we have billions of Dollars eaten up by the financial crunch. Heck, it may have affected opportunities for us MBA graduates this December. Prof. Mayo Lope...

What started off as a friendly conversation in the library ended up as this blog post featuring one of my MBA classmates. Shu Wang is one of the few Chinese folks at the Asian Institute of Management . It took some cajoling on my part to get her featured in this blog, but thank goodness she accepted. :) Shu is also the is the youngest member of our class, and has been focusing the banking sector. She accomplished her Action Consultancy with one of the biggest banks in the Philippines and she has caught the attention of Citibank as of late. Shu is fluent in Mandarin, English and Filipino (she finished her undgraduate degree here in Manila). Well, this post was very much inspired by  my previous post about Maya Perez . Do you think there should be more posts like these in this blog? :) -- Shameless plug: I'm giving away a FREE night-out for you and four of your friends in The Great Wii Night Giveaway in my other blog. If you feel like spending a great evening at the...

"I read the news today, oh boy..." - John Lennon, A Day in the Life I distinctly remember last year when were still taking Economics under Prof. Federico Macaranas, he said that our is graduating on a time that's very inopportune. He shared that by the time we graduate, the effects of the then simmering United States subprime mortgage crisis would be felt immensely. And, boy, is the world feeling it. The financial crisis  , now a global issue, is big news these days. A search for "financial crisis " in Google News   would yield over 400,000 news stories on the past month alone. Newspapers here have placed global financial crisis news in their respective front pages. News have covered a various range of issues: the subprime issue, crashing stock markets all over the glob, U.S. banks' bailout, the fall of investment banking, tons of money vanishing in a snap. But these news all have carried the same message: very bad financial times are imminent. I can...

Today, our class in Social Entrepreneurship (SE) under Prof. Marie Lisa Dacanay went on a field trip to visit two social enterprises : The Community Crafts Association of the Philippines (CCAP) and the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA). The first part was a visit to the CCAP complex in Quezon City where we were given a briefing about the organization, as well as a tour of their facility. The CCAP is essentially a non-government organization (NGO) that helps small entrepreneurs, specifically crafts producers, to get market access, training and support to professionalize the business and trigger social development. The CCAP also is focused on promoting and practicing fair trade for the crafts industry in the country. Here are some pictures I took from the CCAP's showroom where the products from their partners are being showcased: Nice looking products, huh? We then proceeded to have a lunch stopover in one of the malls in Quezon City. After which, we hopped...

The Asian Institute of Management is host to the opening of the World Religions – Universal Peace – Global Ethic Exhibit organized by the AIM Policy Center  and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung . The opening ceremony for the exhibit was held earlier and was highlighted by a ribbon-cutting with Mr. Klaus Preschle, Country Representative of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, AIM Policy Center Director Dr. Federico Macaranas and AIM Dean Victoria Licuanan. Copies of the AIM Policy Center's Philippine Cities Competitiveness Ranking Project 2007 were also distributed to the audience. (Yey!) As for the exhibit itself, it's very interesting. The thesis of the exhibit about religions all over the world is that there are certain commonalities and if only people would focus on the similarities or a "global ethic standard," then the world would be a better place. A good example is the " Golden Rule  "-- or the ethics of reciprocity is present in all the major organized religi...

Last week, the elections for the new Asian Institute of Management Student Association (AIM SA) officers were held and now, we have a new set of students to lead the student body. An induction ceremony was hosted by the Student Services, Admissions & Registration (SSAR) department of the institute. Here's the new set of officers for the AIM SA and different classes: AIM Student Association Chairman:  Mr. Kshitij Dimri Vice-Chairman:  Mr. Rohan Khera Student Association Overseas President:  Mr. Nirav Shah MM 2009 President: Dennis Bumanglag Treasurer: Czarinah Bergantin Secretariat: Bhavik Doshi     Placement: Carlos Laurel, Gaurav Mehta MDM 2009 President: Albert Masuda Representatives :  Kitty Arambulo, Noellie Garand, Girard Marin       MBA (Cohort 2)   President: Franco Ongkingco VP Internal: Siddhartha Banerjee VP External: Dindo Ofrecio Secretary: Bhavisha Dave Treasurer: Bharati Rajaram...

The school recently launched its revitalized website and it hopes to cater to the new demands of what a website should be. The design is much more vibrant and fresh, plus the the way information is presented is more appropriate for the target audience. I was able to lend a hand in doing some user research for the site, as well as doing the organization of information. So, if think there's something amiss, you can chime in this blog. :)

Elections for the Asian Institute of Management Student Association is today and here's a little recap of the candidates: Laurice Alaan believes she is the right person for the job of AIM SA Chairperson because of her ability to communicate to various levels of stakeholders in AIM. She says she has demonstrated that she can cross boundaries between different programs and students. She intends to energize the student body with programs aligned with her "Unity Amidst Diversity" theme. Laurice is striving to be the AIM SA's first female chair. Siddhart Jain of MBA 2009 wants placement to take top priority in the AIM SA's list. He thinks clubs and facilities need to be revitalized if is elected as AIM SA Chairperson. For Kshitij Simri , he echoes the concern that placement for the students is the biggest issue the student body is facing. Once elected AIM SA Chair, he also plans to initiate more alumni-related outreach projects. Kenneth Lao brings a vision of bri...

"Wake me up when September ends..." - Green Day I just realized that we are already in the third week of the fourth term and a good two months till the end of classes. It's weird because people say time flies when you're having fun, but in my case, days in school are passing me by in a rather uneventful way. Hey, I'm not saying my classes are easy. Here's my load this term: Understanding Consumer Behavior (UCB) - Prof. Roger Chua Business Intelligence (BI) -  Prof. Roger Chua Brand Equity Management (BEM) - Prof. Jose Miranda Social Entrepreneurship (SE) - Prof. Marie Lisa Dacanay   Entrepreneurial Finance (EF) - Prof. Richard Cruz Strategic Negotiation and Conflict Management (SNCM) - Prof. Nieves Confesor  (My current favorite subject of the term so far) Even with a load of six electives this term, I'm tip-toeing between ennui and being busy with things like my MRR (which as been moving like molasses the past couple of weeks). I even drop...