The AIM Blogger

Blood For Thought: Give blood and Help Save Lives! On Friday 6th November 2009!!

noreply@blogger.com (studentlifeblogger) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:40:00 +0000

Sunk Costs

noreply@blogger.com (studentlifeblogger) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:18:00 +0000

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've put more effort into it. While it is already too late to regret, I am trying to join and observe review groups. It is the actual practicing of the problems that sometimes intimidates me (normally I take 2-3 hours on a case that the average person finishes in 30mins). I still don't want to think of it as a sunk cost however, so I will still try to get a decent grade in the finals...

As for OM and QA, QA maybe I can still manage. But I don't like how the software aspect of the course is biased towards PC users. Javascript doesn't work on Macs and I don't like to have to buy software just to install Windows on my laptop. If someone can get me free or cheap copies though... OM on the other hand, maybe I can also make up with. ALthough I am not sure of where I stand in the course as of the moment, I get the concepts well enough. My only gripe is connected to QA which we've discussed recently.

Anyway, term 1 is almost ending and a new term 2 will come soon enough. Our FM looks to be a promising subject. I like the examples and the way the book is presented. Hopefully it will be enough to keep me motivated. MCP also is relevant enough as I can really see myself making use of a lot of what I am going to learn in Managerial Accounting in my future work. For sure a lot of us have some subjects which we need more effort with.

What subjects are you most weak at? What are you going to do about it?
Comments appreciated... :)

Chino

1st 3-day Holiday

noreply@blogger.com (studentlifeblogger) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:39:00 +0000

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 of my books, keeping abreast of what's new in the news and sort of reuniting as well with society in general. I know there's lots of work to be done in the coming week(1 Statistics Exam, 1 LOB Exam, 2 Eco Case presentations, 1 Blood Drive Event, and so many more things littered in between.

I slept at around 6AM today after having submitted our WAC number 3 in the morning. I'll most likely sleep of tonight to recuperate. While I'm rearing to go back to school(dunno why exactly), I also need this short period of rest.

Supposedly there's a storm here but we haven't experienced the full force of it yet. Hope we don't have to.

For all who are going to their hometowns, have a safe and productive trip.
For those who are staying, start reading our assignments and cases in advance. But take a little time off once in a while.

Take care everyone!

CHINO

Volunteers Needed for PACT's Blood Donation Event

noreply@blogger.com (studentlifeblogger) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:43:00 +0000

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

Blood For Thought

regnard@raquedan.com (Regnard Raquedan) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:00:00 +0000

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

Scenes from AIM's Diwali 2009 Party

regnard@raquedan.com (Regnard Raquedan) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:58:00 +0000

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

AIM Celebrates Diwali

noreply@blogger.com (studentlifeblogger) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:07:00 +0000

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 counting system, also comes from her name to represent her abundant blessings.

4.Similar to other religious festivals, Diwali is an event that celebrates the triumph of good versus evil. In the festival, people gather to light up candles to represent the triumph of knowledge, understanding(light) over ignorance and other negative forces(darkness). The Chinese also do this during Chinese New Year, when evil spirits are driven off by lights and loud sounds.

Next week,our student body will celebrate the festival as a school activity. Teams have been set up to organize the event and ensure that people have a great time. Looking forward to the sharing of cultures and many happy memories.

-CHINO
Picture taken from Funmunch

Project Eternal Sunshine 2009

regnard@raquedan.com (Regnard Raquedan) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:44:00 +0000

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.

PACTs needs volunteers

noreply@blogger.com (studentlifeblogger) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:58:00 +0000

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 or something and it tasted like I was eating powder. I was lucky to not have to deal with blood transfusion but the daily blood tests were painful. I survived obviously though.

But one of my high school batchmates did die of dengue a few weeks after that. He had reached the blood transfusion stage and had some complications.

What I want to say is that, despite these two things that have happened, I believe in the value of giving blood.

For one I get tested for many kinds of sicknesses when I donate blood. I've donated my blood since college.

Second is that I feel that I have helped someone survive because of my blood. it felt comforting in a way, that even if I gave some small amounts of myself, that it meant a lot for whoever got my blood.

Third, it is like serving my fellow human beings and country. I could say now that I bled for my country right...?

PACTs is still in the process of organizing this event. We hope that more students as well as alumni will join in this effort. After all, AIM students are supposed to be responsible members of society right?

The PACTs moderator former AIM professor Azanza said, "AIM blood is in demand here." He also said that because of the diversity, the types of blood is also diverse. Good things I guess.

PACTs will release more info soon. There is a facebook page for PACTs. Look it up in the internet. Also, interested persons can approach the members for more info on what help they could do.

CHINO

The WEEK that Was (last week, Sept 28-Oct 2)

noreply@blogger.com (studentlifeblogger) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:37:00 +0000

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. While I enjoyed it very much, as I think despite my extra-introvertedness I was at home with public speaking. I never really got to finish my martial arts movie-like "autobiography" entitled, "The Secret Weapon of Master Chino" because I totally forgot about the 3 minute time limit...oh well haha

2. During the same impromptu speaking sessions, I discovered new sides to a lot of my classmates. While some of us who spoke obviously had more than enough confidence and charisma to dominate a room, I was surprised more than once with the skill that a lot of my classmates had when it came to delivering seemingly researched, intricately detailed and most especially inspiring speeches. Our class was great, in that constructive criticisms were really given at the end of each speech. We all felt good after the speeches as speakers received praise for their efforts and the audience seemed to be very appreciative really of what each speaker did. About 3 speeches really stand out to me: the speech about the love for haute cuisine, the clever use of brand name for a new cleaning service( "Talk Dirty to Me"), and a really inspiring speech who some of my classmates said could've been said by a future leader.

3. LOB- Words weren't enough to describe how the whole of COHORT 5 felt, when we were given the 1st LOB quiz last friday. Confusion perhaps? I was looking at my paper wondering at the time about how I knew absolutely NOTHING about the questions given, bothered why none of my classmates were asking the proctors until I asked myself. Turns out a lot have asked, the proctors checked the paper, and saw that they gave us the wrong set of exams! What a relief it was...

UPDATE:It wasn't really a relief as this week's LOB exam will prove...

I've yet to recall everything. Seems like at AIM, things just move too fast to remember everything. Whenever I go home, everything seems to slow down...Strange

Chino

Bangalore Chaptrer of AIM Alumni Association Launched

regnard@raquedan.com (Regnard Raquedan) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:23:00 +0000

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. :)

Stepping-Up

regnard@raquedan.com (Regnard Raquedan) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 06:01:00 +0000

AIM students, led by the Philanthropic Activities Society of AIM (PACTS of AIM), have been leading relief operations for days now since the Typhoon Ondoy hit Metro Manila last September 26, 2009.

Relief efforts have been focused on repacking donations to proper relief packages. Also, PACTS of AIM has been the interface of the AIM community in receiving cash and in-kind donations and forwarding them to the other relief efforts in the city.

Props to the AIM students who have stepped up in this moment of crisis-- you have proved that there will be future managers and business leaders who will rise to the occasion when needed. :D

Here are some more pics:

The photos are taken from the PACTS of AIM Facebook Page.

Thankful to be Alive

noreply@blogger.com (studentlifeblogger) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:47:00 +0000

It makes me feel grateful, to be writing this, after the worst storm hit the metro. Last Saturday was depressing. If anyone stayed online for extended periods of time, the neverending calls for help or the announcements of villages and household getting completely submerged by the floods will eventually take its toll on someone. Add to that the knowledge that some former colleagues are spending their weekend stuck on rooftops, seeking shelter in schools and desperately waiting for supplies of food and fresh water that might not come.

I believe the internet is already swamped with stories and pictures and videos of this incident. But more important than posting and talking about that is actually doing something about it.

I guess the first problem that all of us face, is the sense that we are not important enough or that we can't do anything. But if we really think and ask that question from ourselves, we know we can always do something, no matter how small.

This is one of the moments in my life that I can say that I am proud of my race's spirit of overcoming adversity. Drives and rescue efforts are being made as we speak, and despite the many casualties and lost property, efforts are being made to address the needs of people who really need all and any help that they can get.

I'm thankful that I wasn't part of those whose home were washed away. The nearby road in our neighborhood had asphalt cracked and debris scattered all over.

I'm reminded of this interview in the news earlier:(translated into english and paraphrased with what I can still remember)

"Everything's gone, swept away by the flood. Our house and all our livelihood are gone. But I am still thankful that we are here. What's important is that we're thankful for God because we are still here and we are still alive."

Stay safe.

Do coordinate with the nearest help center. We can all do something for our fellow men and women.

CHINO.

The importance of time management

noreply@blogger.com (studentlifeblogger) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:37:00 +0000

For the past few days of meetings and classes, I learned that one of the most important things that AIM students value was the rare commodity called TIME. The professors weren't kidding when they said that the pre-MBA class(with courses which would have lasted for a semester in other schools) was nothing compared to the actual MBA.

I've acquired a taste for coffee of the bitter and sugary kind. I've learned to value breaks more and plan ahead when it comes to readings and meetings with my CAN groupmates. While it is a technique still far from being perfect, at least I've started to make more use of the available time at hand. You have to learn to manage the time you spend when doing case readings and meetings as a lot of Cohort 5 can attest. Even some of our professors constantly reminded us to spend just 1 hour and 30 minutes with our case discussions with the CAN group. It was an adjustment period for most of us I think, with the in-your-face realization of what can happen should one not take advantage of the available time. A lot of us spent back to back days sleeping at 3, 4 or 5 in the morning because of this.

Some useful things to know:
1. Read the case before meeting and do the case analysis beforehand.- doing this saves time in discussions and saves everyone from having to wait for others to finish.

2. If you haven't read the case completely, make sure to skim and highlight the important points that you come across. If you don't get it the first time, at least when meeting time comes you can discuss those concepts with your group mates. One professor even said, "Do not show up for meetings if you didn't read at all." You have to know the topic, if not the charts or data.

3. Listen, listen, listen. - Everyone will get their chances to speak. Unfortunately, like in in the real world, not all people want to open themselves to other people's perspectives. But as a CAN group, it really is important that people slow down and listen. Who knows, maybe what you want or mean to say has already been said by the other. Maybe you just spent so much time thinking your idea in your head that you didn't recognize it.

4. Get sleep every chance that you can.

Well, they weren't kidding when they said it was like a boot camp. But like any boot camp, trainees eventually get used to it. Better yet, trainees eventually turn into excellent soldiers, able to devise their own strategies to manage the precious commodity that is TIME.

We're all looking forward to sleep. Eventually we'll all get that coveted 6 or 8 hours of sleep a day that we all crave for.

CHINO.

Typhoon Ondoy Relief Operations at AIM

regnard@raquedan.com (Regnard Raquedan) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 03:09:00 +0000

The video you see above is just one of the shocking scenes that happened in Manila as Typhoon Ondoy (internationally known as Typhoon Ketsana) slammed the city.

Thankfully, the Asian Institute of Management was spared from much flooding-- despite the water reached approximately 50cm in Paseo De Roxas Avenue, the street in front of the campus. But for a brief moment, the Zen Garden became a pond.

Now that the storm has passed, relief operations are now underway in the city. The Philanthropic Activities Society (PACTS) of AIM are participating in the relief operations for the victims of Typhoon Ondoy. Spearheaded by MBA Cohort 3 student Laurice Alaan, the PACTS have volunteered manpower to the efforts and have been collecting relief goods and donations.

AIM alumni and students who would like to support the initiatives of PACTS, please contact Laurice at alaan.mba2009_b3 (at) student.aim.edu .

This is a worthy cause and I join the PACTS in encouraging the AIM community to do our little part in the relief efforts.

How Socially Responsible Should Managers Be? (Part 3)

regnard@raquedan.com (Regnard Raquedan) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:58:00 +0000

This is the final part of the "How Socially Responsible Should Managers Be?" Series. In the previous posts, I talked about the need for social responsibility for managers and Prof. Jun Borromeo's thoughts on this gap.

For this blog post, I'm sharing Prof. Junbo's plan on how to address the seemingly widening gap between what managers are doing and what managers ought to be doing.

Prof. Junbo's idea is quite simple: Bring all the folks from the MBA, MM (Master in Management), and MDM (Master in Development Management) together. To quote Junbo:

"...It is time to bring all of our degree program students together under one roof (in a manner of speaking). Of course this does not mean that there will only be one program. It simply means that we have to find a vehicle that will give all degree students, during their stay at AIM, the time and the opportunity to learn together and from each other's diverse backgrounds and experiences. Imagine in one can group, comprising 7 or 8 students from MBA, MM, and MDM, the diversity in age, gender, nationality, religion, education, work experience, industry, sector, management experience and position."

Prof. Junbo touches on the concept of "Leadership Plus," a type of leadership that has the edge of the different thrusts of the degree programs. The components of which are:

Self-mastery, or the pre-requisites for leadership.
Project Management, or the art of leading and getting things done.
Communication, or the art of being effective across cultures (organizational and societal).

If you ask me, this is a very good idea, but it's also quite lofty. There will be challenges of the logistics and scheduling, but the benefits are just tremendous. Ask any MBA, MM, or MDM student and this idea will appeal to a side of them. But at the end of the day, this idea will help imbue a a stronger sense of social responsibility among Asian Institute of Management graduates.

AIM to Host WordCamp Philippines 2009

regnard@raquedan.com (Regnard Raquedan) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:27:00 +0000

The Asian Institute of Management will be hosting the 2009 edition of WordCamp Philippines. Last year, I spoke about Web Standards at the event where the special guest was none other than Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress. This year's event will have folks from Automattic and Mozilla to speak about developments on Wordpress and Firefox respectively.

Here's the program for tomorrow's WordCamp Philippines 2009:

8:00am - Registration
9:00am - Welcome Remarks & Backgrounder: Mindanao Bloggers Community by Blogie Robillo
9:30am - Meet the WordPress Family by Beau Lebens
10:30am - WordPress in the Wild by Markku Seguerra
11:15am - Citizen Journalism in the Context of the 2010 Elections by Danilo Arao
11:45am - A quick look into the Mozilla community through the lens of localization by Seth Bindernagel
12:25pm - Lunch
1:30pm - Vlogging Mythbusters by Coy Caballes
2:30pm - The Editorial Voice and Taste in Writing Tech by Jeff Villafranca
3:15pm - Advanced WP: Portfolio & Directory Sites by Gail Villanueva
4:15pm - WP: The Ultimate Content Management System by Karla Redor
5:15pm - Q and A with WP Experts

I helped in arranging the event to be held in AIM, which was a great venue last July for the Form Function & Class Web Design Conference. At this rate, AIM can be considered as one of the hubs for major web & social media community events here in the Philippines.

Assumptions

noreply@blogger.com (studentlifeblogger) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:01:00 +0000

I'm writing this in a coffee shop somewhere in the Fort. This week, our batch(or as our Professors put it, COHORT) has been divided into 2 groups. So far, only our systematic management analysis class has been split. Meaning besides that class and schedule, we're all still attending the same schedules. Last Tuesday was my SMA class, and today is my day-off, or the other group's class schedule for SMA.

So far so good is what I can say with my stay in AIM. I still remember how my grandma gave me some encouraging words. She said, "you'll be entering a school where most of your classmates are probably top of their class or are honors and you're just one of the regular guys." Hahaha come to think of it, are those really encouraging words...? Well I guess looked at differently, they are.

We've been all told that we are a group composed of people who are at least of equal caliber compared to our predecessors. I do not know if I should look at it as a good thing or as a bad thing, but what I'm quite sure of is that we are a diverse group- in personality, if not in race.

And now comes the main idea behind this entry.

During SMA class, we were grouped into 6 groups. We were to discuss a case assigned to us beforehand and identify the problems and possible solutions we can formulate to solve them. I knew a lot of my classmates we're very competitive but I never expected to encounter this early on.

In the group discussion, I acted mostly as a listener, giving out comments or raising questions every now and then. This I think was okay then, because our group wasn't really lacking with people who raised their ideas. From here, we had a meeting of different minds so to speak. Each person was trying to get their point across. Thankfully, we still maintained our composure and were still able to listen to our other group mates.

What can we learn from this experience?

One highlight of that session was raised by our professor and that was to rely less on "assumptions" and focus more on the facts of the case.

He had a very good line with this actually. When you want to assume, make sure you do it good or else you will end up making and ASS of U and ME. Hehehe....

I think learning to listen, to observe, and to try to get to know where the other person is coming from is one of the most important skills that we can learn in our 16 month stay here. To go beyond assumptions and initial perceptions of others, and get to really know the other person because, after all, we are all together in our journey here.

I remember a comment made by a classmate of mine when I told him my name. "I'm having a little difficulty with remembering your names because they were unfamiliar to me" To which I said, "It is the same with us."

Get to know the other side and learn to challenge your perceptions and stereotypes of people and soon things won't seem to be too different and more look like they're the same.

CHINO

Getting Together

regnard@raquedan.com (Regnard Raquedan) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:40:00 +0000

Meeting good friends is always welcome and I could say I made some good friends during my MBA stint at the Asian Institute of Management.

We had a little get together last night because two folks in our class were in town: Cheska Herrera and Howie Schmidt. Thanks to text blasts from Diamond Uy and Faye Abis, we were able to round up a few folks. :)

Around two years ago, we had our Cubs' Night, or the welcome party to the juniors thrown by the seniors. This is how we looked like then:

A little trivia: Our Cubs' Night theme was Hawaiian Luau. (Isn't it obvious? :P)

Photoshoot for AIM Alumni Leadership Magazine

regnard@raquedan.com (Regnard Raquedan) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 06:23:00 +0000

Just a quick one: We had a photoshoot for the upcoming AIM Alumni Leadership Magazine this morning and it was a pretty quick shoot. The folks from the Alumni Relations Office needed extra photos for the layout on the article I contributed to the magazine.

If you have a chance to grab a copy of the issue at the end of the month, please do. The article I contributed is about The AIM Blogger and I feel that it covers some of the things I've not been able to talk about in the blog.

So, will it be an explosive tell all? To give you a hint, I originally titled the article "Confessions of an MBA Blogger." So go figure. :)

The AIM Blogger has a New Contributor!

regnard@raquedan.com (Regnard Raquedan) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:36:00 +0000

I'm very pleased to announce that The AIM Blogger now has a new MBA student contributor!

Francis San Luis of the new MBA Cohort 5 has already been blogging about his Pre-MBA experience at "The AIM Student Life" blog. I was ecstatic when he accepted my invitation to blog here and share his experiences at the Asian Institute of Management.

A little info about Francis: He finished his undergrad at the Ateneo De Manila University and he was with HSBC for two years prior to starting his MBA.

Here's a sampling of his blog posts in his blog:

I'm sure you'll get to know Francis more by his blog posts and I'm sure he'll share his unique perspective on AIM life here at The AIM Blogger and The AIM Student Life.

WIMST MBA Elective Done!

regnard@raquedan.com (Regnard Raquedan) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 04:11:00 +0000

Last Friday, the very first offering of the Winning Internet Marketing Strategies & Tactics (WIMST) elective for the MBA students was concluded. As you can see from the photo above (courtesy of Anton), the class is much, much bigger than the Online Marketing elective that was offered last summer.

The last class we had for WIMST was the presentation of the results of the internet marketing campaigns the thirteen (yes, thirteen!) groups in the class ran for the last month or so. Based on what the MBA students from Cohorts 2 & 3 presented, they definitely learned and got a better appreciation of using the various internet channels for marketing. And I'm sure my co-faculty (Anton Diaz & Jayvee Fernandez) shared my feelings of pride on what the students accomplished.

I'll blog about my personal learnings from handling this class in the next few posts. But I extend my congratulations to the WIMST students for a job well done! :D

Working So Hard

regnard@raquedan.com (Regnard Raquedan) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 03:59:00 +0000

I just read this report by UBS entitled "Prices and Earnings 2009 (PDF)" and I think it's a fantastic report full of insights. The report is about the UBS survey of the cost of living in major cities in the globe, from developed (New York, Tokyo, and London) to emerging economies (Manila, Mumbai, and Jakarta). While the report is full of numbers and indeces, there was one section that caught my attention and I figured is worth reflecting on.

That section is entitled "Working Hours and Vacation days" and it detailed how much hours on average people from the surveyed cities are spending for work and the number of paid vacation days each person has. Here are some excerpts from the report:

People work an average of 1,902 hours per year in the surveyed cities, but they work much longer in Asian and Middle Eastern cities, averaging 2,119 and 2,063 hours per year respectively.

European cities had the lowest working hours per year. On average, employees work 1,745 hours per year in Western Europe and 1,830 hours in Eastern Europe.

Interestingly, compared with 2006, people now work 58 hours more per year on average.

For Manila, people here average 2,032 hours a year for work and only get 10 paid vacation days. Those figures indicate that people here spend much more hours for work more than the global average, and get less paid vacation days than the global average. If you try to compute it, the average of 2,032 is much more than my estimate of 1,920 working hours if you try to compute from 240 working days, with 8 hours each.

So think about it: Here in Manila, we work an extra hundred hours for work. No wonder we're such a stressed-out society.

This Blog is now TheAIMBlogger.com

regnard@raquedan.com (Regnard Raquedan) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:20:00 +0000

Since yesterday, The AIM Blogger can now be accessed at http://www.theaimblogger.com. There's no need to update your bookmarks, as the old URL http://theaimblogger.blogspot.com will forward to the new domain.

Actually, the domain is almost a year old (I registered the domain last year). The little story behind is that when I was featured in a magazine, the publication erroneously printed that this blog's URL was http://www.theaimblogger.com, instead of http://theaimblogger.blogspot.com. So to avoid any confusion, I bought the domain and forwarded it to the more accurate URL.

It took me a few months to realize that I was paying for a domain that just forwarded, so I figured that I might as well use the domain for its intended use. Besides, the domain helps in the branding aspect. The only drawback is that it will take some tome before the search engines will recognize this domain.

AIM Facebook Fans Reach 1,000

regnard@raquedan.com (Regnard Raquedan) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 06:13:00 +0000

Since launching the Asian Institute of Management page in Facebook last October 2008, AIM has reached the 1,000 fans mark last week. :D

So if you're in Facebook, the Number One online social network today, support AIM by becoming a fan. :)

Asian Institute of Management on Facebook