The AIM Blogger

This blog, like most things, is evolving. The AIM Blogger will be changing from a blog into a community site. From a blog with the perspective of one person to a website looking through the eyes of every student at the Asian Institute of Management . I guess it's pretty apparent that my life outside of AIM after graduation has expanded tremendously. And while I still consider the institute my home (I still teach a couple of courses there as needed), the story of the struggling b-school student no longer there. Francis did a wonderful job contributing and this legacy of the student's side must be preserved for the long term. So expect some hiccups while accessing the site. For instance, the domain "theaimblogger.com" may be inaccessible at times. The site's old URL "theaimblogger.blogspot.com" can still be used to access this site. Finally, feel free to ask questions about the changes in the site. :)

The Philippine premiere of the film " 10 Tactics " will be held at the Asian Institute of Management tomorrow at 7pm. 10 Tactics is a documentary that shows how information can be translated into concrete action. While the film has open source leanings, I believe the contents of the film can give business folks an idea how to create active participation via technology. Here's the trailer of the film: If you're interested, please register here .

I cannot deny the fact that the long weekend is over. While some of us went out of town and had their own adventures, I chose to stay at home and go out a bit during my long weekend. It was nice, but sadly, too short. Checking my emails' inbox confirms it. The weekend is over, time to get back into my current reality of school and the MBA program. For this week, our load will be light and we have only a few classes with very long breaks. Tomorrow after Marketing Management class (or is it Microeconomics class?), I will go to the bank to fix my former staff account and turn it into a regular account. I'll visit some of my friends and have a little lunch get together. Maybe I'll walk around the malls and do stuff. But unlike the weekend where I enjoyed taking 8 hours of sleep and only thought of school once in a while, I knew that when I go out after lunch tomorrow that the week has begun and there is much work to be done. Still, we all have more time in our hands t...

The first day of another 3 day long weekend for MBA cohort 5 students has started! I for one am looking forward to it. DVDs at home, some more quality time with family, going out and not worrying too much about the time! Even hanging out at home without any readings to worry about! (Well, I have readings and will still read up hahaha!) Something is strange about next week's schedule though, the school seemed to have heard our silent plea for lighter loads and now we just have 4 subjects for the coming week... I even have 2 half days this week....Hmm Ideally, we should be taking advantage of this short break. As to what kind of advantage it is for, it depends on each person I guess. As for me, I'd try to read some more and practice some cases maybe.(just maybe) But I will also have time to walk more in the mall tomorrow. I'm visiting my grandma on Monday too! Maybe on the half-day schedules I'll also visit my former officemates and have a quick lunch somewhere...

One of the things I've been doing to get involved with AIM MBA cohorts is playing basketball with them regularly. Since the "easy" fourth and final term started, we played almost weekly. We usually play at the AFP Army Gymnasium and the Power Plant Basketball Court. Majority of players come from MBA Cohort 3, although there are folks from Cohorts 2, 4, and 5 who have played. Basketball games have ranged from friendly to overly competitive. I remember one game where my body ached like hell after a hyper-competitive game. The game we last played could be the last for the group since the graduation for Cohort 3 is coming up. Here's a photo tribute to the men and women who run, jump, and shoot every Tuesday/Thursday for the last few months. (Thanks to Laurice Alaan for the photos!):

Finished taking the Macroeconomics Midterms a few hours ago. After taking the test, I found a new found respect for economists and the training that they go through. While I'm quite sure none of us will be expecting a perfect score, I am sure that at least I got maybe 4 points right. It is true I guess, what the upperclassmen said about how hard it was. But it turned out to be more difficult than I expected. Whatever score we get, I know how much effort the professor put into that exam, and how much important it really was for us to have as complete an understanding as possible of economic theories and principles. It really helps if we know more about how economics work. Anyway I still hope I get a good mark. They gave us a time extension earlier, but I don't think it helped out that much, hahaha. One midterm done, more to go! =) On a side note, today is the start of this year's World Pyrolympics event. Check out Anton Diaz' blog here. Chino

DO I SLEEP OR DO I NOT SLEEP? Just got home after meeting up with friends. After the hopefully going-to-be regular habit of jogging with some of my classmates (no group name yet), I proceeded to Glorietta on foot to meet up with them. We had dinner at HG Rockstar, the former Heaven and Eggs "breakfast restaurant". Strange to eat breakfast food of toast, sausage and egg during dinner. But it wouldn't seem that odd if I considered the fact that we were going to have our Macroeconomics Midterms tomorrow at the 9 in the morning. Something, which some of the upperclassmen even advised us, to just relax and go watch a movie instead of spending the whole night and morning reviewing. It seems that our professor, had very high expectation which no one actually had a chance to even reach a break-even point. Anyhow, I'm sure everyone is spending the night reviewing alone, or in a group and I hope we all get good grades. As for me, I did some reviewing last night thank...

The Mozilla Philippines Community, Globe Telecom , and the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) will be hosting the Five Years of Firefox in Manila! event this coming November 21, 2009 (3pm-5pm) at the Fuller Hall of AIM in Makati City. This event is a get-together of Mozilla Firefox and web enthusiasts in the Philippines. This is the third web-related event held at AIM this year. First was the Form Function & Class Web Design Conference , next was the WordCamp Philippines event, and now it's the Mozilla Firefox event. AIM is making an effort to diversify its presence into the web-savvy crowd by supporting community events like these. By reaching out to web professionals, bloggers, and netizens, these events are really a part of a "Geek Series" the institute is trying to string together. With the support of W. SyCip GSB Associate Dean Prof. Ricky Lim and the institute's marketing team, people should expect more events like these in the future.

The Asian Institute of Management recently launched a new look for its website! The design is quite special to me because I was  responsible for creating the design where the final template design was based. I was inspired by the "maximal" photos incorporated in nice sites today, like the website of MIT . The good thing about this design is that the photo can be changed easily to suit the season. So we may see a new photo at the site's home page by the end of the year. What do you think of the website? Feel free to give feedback without fear. :P -- Trivia: The new design features a photo of students from the outgoing cohort of the MBA program. :)

Brought a Statistics book today, only realizing that the authors of the book entitled "Even YOU Can Learn Statistics: A Guide for Everyone Who Has Ever Been Afraid of Statistics", are the same as the authors of the textbook that we use in class (2 of them are)... So, what do I do with this book? Well, I have to look at it in a more positive way I guess. For one, the book is way thinner than the textbook that we use, which admittedly, I did not really read much. Maybe in a few days I can finally understand statistics and actually apply it to cases with more confidence and less confusion. So far I have 3 subjects which I feel that I am lacking in terms of marks. One is QA (statistics), another is OM (because I don't really know what my standing is there, and there is little chance for CP in class), and of course LOB. Some of my classmates have given up, or are almost about to give up on LOB. Me, I've always known it was going to be really hard. I guess I should...

I'm writing this in the car , as we're going on our way to the province. In the Philippines, November 1 and November 2 are usually celebrated as holidays/holy days. For a lot of Filipinos, these 2 days are the days when people go back to their roots and respective hometowns to honor their dead or our beloved ancestors. This is also one of the times when relatives have their own small reunions with each other, being one of the few days in the year that people really go and spend their time together. To an extent the clan or family is made whole in these 2 days as even those who have departed already are sort of "attending" the reunion as well. This is the first 3-day vacation that I am going to take as an MBA student of a full-time MBA program. While I am looking forward to taking a few days off from the fast-paced school life, I know that our cases, readings, exams, research, and even org activities are not going away any time soon. So I am bringing with me some ...

The Philanthropic Activities Society (PACTs of AIM) is in need of donors and volunteers from the school community for the Blood for Thought event that will be held on Friday, November 6, 2009. We need people to help set up the educational materials and help design the booth for the event. For interested parties please do not hesitate to contact Laurice Cortes Alaan at lalaan.mba2009_b3@student.aim.edu or contact me if you have any ideas to help enhance the event. Also, do invite your friends, and colleagues to visit the campus during the event and donate. Contact Persons: Laurice Alaan lalaan.mba2009_b3@student.aim.edu Francis San Luis fsanluis.mba2010_cohort5@student.aim.edu

The PACTS of AIM (the Philanthropic Activities Society of the Asian Institute of Management) and PLDT are hosting an event that's socially relevant and entertaining at the same time. On Friday, November 6th, the two organizations will launch “BLOOD FOR THOUGHT”—a blood donation awareness campaign that will benefit the Philippine National Red Cross. The campaign will comprise a daylong blood donation center and health education and vendor fair, leading up to an evening outdoor benefit concert, featuring up-and-coming bands from the Manila music scene. All events will take at the Asian Institute of Management ’s Graduate School of Business Campus. Folks who will donate blood on that day will receive free passes to the evening concert, as well as surprise treats. Regular tickets to the concert will cost PhP 100.00. For more information, contact Laurice Cortes Alaan of the PACTS OF AIM at lalaan.mba2009_b3 (at) student.aim.edu

I dropped by the Asian Institute of Management for this year's Diwali celebrations. The show really belonged to the three cohorts (Cohorts 3,4, and 5) plus the International Student Exchange Program (ISEP) folks, as the lively numbers and dance party was super fine. I took some pictures from my mobile phone camera: A bit grainy, but I think it captures the fun scenes. Happy Diwali! :D

Next Friday, the Asian Institute of Management celebrates its own version of the Indian DIWALI festival. From my understanding, it is a happy event similar to what happens during Christmas but with meaning more related to Easter. Our friends at school could probably and will most likely be able to give a better description of the festival. Here are some things that I got from a site called Diwalifestival.org : 1. DIWALI is a 5 day celebration of joy and happiness celebrated by people all over the world. Also called the Festival of Lights, the 5 day celebration signifying 5 different ideas or philosophies which will bring enrichment and understanding to the people's lives. 2. Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth and prosperity's name is derived from the Sanskrit word "laksya" which also means, goal or aim. Fitting that we celebrate this festival for the success, and achievement of goals of everyone. 3. The term lakh , or a hundred thousand as used in the Indian ...

Interested partying for a cause? The Philanthropic Activities Society of AIM (PACTS of AIM) and Happiness Squared, Inc. are organizing a fundraising party for the victims of Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng. The event is titled "Project Eternal Sunshine 2009" and it will be on October 24, 2009 at the Asian Insitute of Management campus. Mobster Manila and Collie Herb shall provide the music and beats. Apart from the music and dancing, there will be a bazaar and all you can drink beer. Share of the proceeds shall be donated to the PACTS of AIM and their Food Relief Fund. PACTS of AIM has been very active in helping out the typhoon victims . For more information on tickets, contact Nash (09056669645) or Harsh (09159960608). You may also email squared.happiness@gmail.com.

I recently attended a few meetings of the Philanthropic Activities Society(?) of AIM. They're planning on conducting a Blood Drive and are looking for able and willing volunteers to gather corporate sponsors, actual donors and for various other tasks during the project. While giving out blood is a normal practice already for a lot of countries, it is unfortunate that in the Philippines, this hasn't been that prevalent a practice. Few do it here, and the general public do not know the benefits and other facts about how important it is to have a steady supply of blood. We all know how important blood is. Accident victims need blood, blood is used for surgery, dengue patients need blood. I myself have suffered from Dengue twice(or is it thrice) in my life. The most recent one was just a few days after I filed for resignation in my company. I remember how bad it was. I couldn't taste anything. The food I ate was either bland, or too salty. I remember eating potatoes o...

Haven't really been updating the website lately partly due to the lack of wifi services in my place, partly because of the heavy load of readings, cases and quizzes, but mostly due to lack of drive to write something. Some call it the writer's block(?) I think. Anyway, I've been thinking of getting wifi soon because of the obvious necessity to stay up-to-date and connected with the rest of the campus community(it also makes setting up meetings and CAN sessions easier). Tomorrow I'm going to sign up for a cheap one that will be enough for my stay in Makati. A number of important things have happened last week. While I cannot recall all of them, some things are just worth taking note of: 1. We had an impromptu public speaking session during MC class(MGT COMMUNICATION), out of a random pick of speakers I got to be the one to speak first. I was supposed to be a famous martial arts movie star, who gets invited to an elementary school to persuade kids to eat vegetables. ...

If someone were to ask me what's my favorite city in India, I'd say "Bangalore" without batting an eyelash.  I was there for a summer last year for my internship. So I was glad when AIM alum Fahim Saleem, one of the kind Bangalore folks whom I met there last year, told me that a Bangalore chapter of the AIM Alumni Association of India (AIM AAI) was just launched this month. The launch was ushered in by several rounds of golf at the Karnataka Golf Association club. New officers of the organization were also installed in the event, with my classmate Thomas John elected as part of the executive committee. A news story at the AIM Alumni Portal covers the event in detail. I hope I could drop by Bangalore again and feel the great weather there. :)