general – Karthik Shashidhar

arbit, business, general, work better chance, commitments, completeness, conclusions, consulting firms, consulting partners, downside, long time, new partners, partnership, sake

More on consulting partners

July 12, 2011

I’d written in an earlier post that consulting firms remain young nd dynamic by periodically promoting new people to partnership, and they in their quest to develop new markets and establish themselves, take on risks which can prove useful to underlings who now have a better chance to make a mark and establish themselves. However,…

bangalore, business, fundaes, general, media, politics advent, audience, deccan herald, election results, funda, generality, geographical area, karnataka assembly elections, new channels, new indian express, niches, polls, popularity of the internet, studs

The other side of the long tail

April 6, 2010

There are several people who talk about how the advent and the popularity of the internet has resulted in markets in many a long tail. Without loss of generality, let us just take the market for writing here. Several niches which were earlier not served since there wasn’t enough of a dedicated audience in a…

books, business, descriptive, fundaes, general, personal, retail binge, book shopping, casual browsers, checkout counters, crowd, footfalls, grand mall, high streets, impulse, landmark, madras, malls, passerby, seven years, spencer, store staff

The Loot

September 13, 2009

So I executed the book binge yesterday. In two phases – first at the “main” Landmark at the Forum and then at the “other” Landmark at Swagath Garuda Mall. Technically the binge is incomplete since I still have another Rs.600 to spend but it’s unlikely I’ll be spending that off soon, so for all practical…

business, general, technology conscious decision, exclamations, few days, good guys, imagination, initial network, initial stage, nicknames, orkut, periods, random names, scraps, seekers

The Trouble with Orkut

July 9, 2009

Some of you might have noticed that I haven’t been replying to your messages on orkut any more. I still exist there, but am not “active” by any stretch of imagination. I check my account once in a long while, when I’m feeling really bored. And make a conscious decision not to reply to scraps…

business, entertainment, fundaes, general, media, randomness advertisements, advertiser, bad idea, commercial break, crap, cricket, cup of tea, exact length, fag, modi, slots, soap, tata sky, tv channel, two minutes

Randomizing advertisements

April 20, 2009

This 7.5 minute break in the middle of an IPL innings is a bad idea. The biggest problem is that everyone knows the exact length of the break, and can use it to do stuff – like cook, or clean, or crap, or fag, or maybe watch the Everton-Man U shootout. 7.5 minutes is a…

food, fundaes, general, studs and fighters, work BASE, blog, blogging, blogs, carnatic, chefs, classical cuisine, confidence, consulting, cooking, copyrights, delhi, dosa, eating, evenings, Exception, eyes, fighters, flavour, food, funda, fundaes, google, gurgaon, handful, hypothesis, implementation, improvisations, job, jobs, market, maybes, mohit, music, parents, possibilities, process, productivity, profession, professions, publishers, pulao, recruitments, strategy lucknow, stud, studs, taj, theory, trades, work

Fighterization of food

April 9, 2009

One of the topics that I’d introduced on my blog not so long ago was “fighterization“. The funda was basically about how professions that are inherently stud are “fighterzied” so that a larger number of people can participate in it, and a larger number of people can be served. In the original post, I had…

arbit, economics, fundaes, general 2000s, accidents, bangalore, bike, bust, car, compromise, delhi, economic meltdown, friends, handful, high, home loans, home ownership, implementation, implication, improvements, incentives, jai, job, neighbourhood, ninja, ownership, personal safety, perversedriven vehicles, proportion, road safety, severity, subprime, taxis, theory, vehicle safety

Car Ownership

March 6, 2009

People, especially in the US, make a big deal about home ownership. In fact a large part of the current economic meltdown has its roots in the American craze for home ownership. Fannie and Freddie were created to help home loans become cheaper, then there was the CDO wave. Then came subprime. NINJA (no income…

bangalore, economics, food, general, relationships 1980s, affiliation, attendance, bangalore, BASE, benefit, course weddings, cousins, dessert, excuse, favour, finite probability, food, friends, gurgaon, house, iimb, indian wedding, money, mysore, NED, networking, occurrences, offerings, photographer, proceedings, process, receptions, restaurants, sweets, time travel, train, work

Weddings

February 28, 2009

I’m trying to understand the significance of attending another person’s wedding. It is very unlikely that you are going to add any significant value to the process, since the person who invited you is likely to be extremely busy with the process. Unless you know one of the main people involved in the wedding really…

business, economics, general bank ceo, feng shui, interior design, investment bank, john thain, million dollars, ml, numerology, painting, profession

Interior Design

January 25, 2009

Recently it has been reported that former ML MD John Thain spent some 1.2 million dollars in decorating his office. And people say that this is very conservative by normal CEO standards. Normal people (like me) might wonder why one needs to spend so much on one’s office. Even if you were to list out…

economics, general

The stamp paper market

August 5, 2008

Following the Telgi scandal the Karnataka government had a great brainwave. They decided that one of the reasons duplicate stamp papers were in circulation was that stamp paper was available freely. The only remedy to this, it was decided, was to restrict sales of stamp paper. So now the street corner guy doesn’t sell the…

descriptive, economics, general

The economics of motorcycle maintenance

July 16, 2008

Yesterday I gave my old bike for servicing. It was in such bad shape that for a while I was worried that the cost of servicing would be greater than the salvage value of the bike. This morning, when I went to pick it up, I was pleased to see that the bill came up…

books, economics, general

Indian editions

June 27, 2008

For the last one year or so, I’ve been relying on bloggers such as Tyler Cowen for my books recommendations. Basically I read about a book on a blog, or say Marginal Revolution does a book forum on the book, and I soon get interested in the book, and go out to buy it. And…

arbit, economics, finance, general, politics

The GS Report

June 19, 2008

I’m in the process of reading the Goldman Sachs report about what India should do to become a superpower by 2050. Have read some 4 pages of it so far.

economics, general, randomness

The met department and randomness

April 18, 2008

Ok. Nothing unusual about the title of this post. There is intuitively a lot of randomness where the met department is concerned. This post is about an editorial in the Business Standard. Now, the Indian Met department used a new process for forecasting the monsoons last year. Now, this process yielded good results in the…

general, personal, work

Being a jack of many trades

April 16, 2008

Earlier today, I had written that bosses are unlikely to trust employees who they think have the option of easily quitting their jobs. I had made the point back then that you shouldn’t take a job for which you are over-qualified. Thinking about it, it strikes me that if you are versatile, you face a…

economics, fundaes, general

The Sugarcane Mess

November 17, 2007

The situation with the sugar industry has gotten more bizarre, with the Allahabad HC stepping in and mandating that the mills buy sugarcane at Rs. 110 per kilo and start processing. While on first thought, it seems quite funny that the high court is getting into matters it shouldn’t get into, such as fixing of…

economics, fundaes, general

Wheat Procurement And Derivatives Markets

July 18, 2007

So the government has done it again. After managing to procure only about 11 million tons out of the targeted 15 million tons from our farmers, the government has gone ahead and imported about half a million tons from the international market at a much higher price. A process which, in its entirety, ends up…

bangalore, economics, food, fundaes, general

The Barista Way

July 7, 2007

The Barista outlet outside Barton centre on M G Road seems to have come up with an excellent way in order to improve their “table turnovers”. They simply play loud and jarring music in order to make the stay as unpleasant as possible for the customers. And new ones keep pouring in so they are…

bangalore, economics, food, fundaes, general

Vidyarthi Bhavan seems to have got it right

July 1, 2007

Recently, I had written that the old restaurants in Bangalore need to cash in on their loyalty factor and make use of the inelastic demand in order to remain profitable. Vidyarthi Bhavan in Gandhi Bazaar seems to have gotten it right, at least partially. Of course, they remain closed for lunch and dinner, and on…

bangalore, economics, food, fundaes, general

Saving the old “hotels”

June 2, 2007

Recently, an article on the CNN-IBN site about old eateries in Bangalore shutting shop made its way into my inbox a number of times. Read it the first time, and put a “well left” on all subsequent occasions. And recently, in response to some other totally unrelated post, someone wanted me to comment on it.…

business, economics, fundaes, general, retail

Protect The Chain, But At What Cost?

May 29, 2007

Recently the West? Bengal State Marketing Board chairman Naren Chatterjee had to say this about Metro?s entry into the state, ?have heard that they will sell directly to the trade then what will happen to the people in the chain, they will become jobless. We will not allow any one who disturbs the chain.? Similar…