Making a Difference to Micro Businesses in Your City

In our assignment that will span three months (August-October 2011) my business entrepreneurship students will work towards making a difference to micro business owners in Pune City.

The assignment includes a series of tasks:

1. Identification of one micro business owner in Pune city such as a vegetable vendor, flower seller, small vendors selling snacks on a cart, doorstep vendors, people selling goods at traffic signals.
2. Working with this vendor over 3 months (Aug-Oct 2011) to help him/her/them overcome their business problems
3. Talking to the vendor and listing down his or her problems
4. Working together with him/her to find viable solutions to overcome those problems
5. Monitoring the results of your suggestion and solutions

Methodology: Making a short film on the background of the vendor by getting him or to talk about himself/herself.  The film should include clippings of a day in his/her life.  Before and after responses (relating to problems and solutions suggested by you).

You can make this film on your mobile (as a video) or shoot in on a handy cam (just to validate what you say).

A written report on the project to be submitted by each student in November 2011

How to Manage Your Examination Time: 3 Vital Pointers for Students

As a teacher my job demands include working an as invigilator.  Supervising a paper usually takes up three hours of time or two depending on the duration of the exam.  Over the years I’ve watched students take several exams and one thing I've noticed is that students either don’t use their time well or they don’t use it at all.

This blog post is for you if you plan to use your examination time well…That is you plan to make judicious use of your time.  Here’s how you can make your exam time work for you…

1.       Take Stock

How much time do you have? Typically a final examination paper that carries 80-100 marks lasts for three hours.  You need to know…

·         The duration of the exam

·         How many questions you have to answer?

·         What is the paper pattern?

Most of this information is available to you ahead for the exam so it’s important that you take steps to find out about this much before your exam.

The paper pattern is very important (check for any changes that may have been introduced so that you avoid last minute hassles) so that you can plan how much time you can devote to answering each question. 

2.       Divide Your Time

As a rule of thumb, I would say…

·         Spend at least five-ten minutes reading the question paper

·         Mark the questions that you would like to answer (in case you have options)

·         Opt to write the answer that you know best first (first impressions are last impressions)

·         Decide an order in which you will write beginning with what you know best to the least preferred answer

·         If you have five questions to answer and each of them has equal content then divide 160 minutes by 5 and devote 32 minutes to writing each answer

·         Save the last five-ten minutes or so to underline, mark points and check for neatness and correctness

3.       Save Some Time

Wherever you can…save time…if you aim at answering one question in 35 minutes, try and complete it in 30-32 minutes, that way you’ll have a good amount of time on hand in case you want to make any corrections/changes.

Once you have finished writing, the time you have saved can be used to…

·         Check if you have everything covered

·         Check that you haven’t missed any question

·         Check that you have done justice to each and every question

·         Underline points

·         Draw neat charts, diagrams and flow charts wherever necessary

·         Read over your answers and add missing links wherever required

Most students complain they never have enough time to write.  The trouble is you have time…you just need to plan your reading and writing work well and you will be surprised at how well you have managed time!

Sloving Real Life Business Problems: Stretching the Learning Curve

Problems are precursors to solutions.   They are also precursors to new products and services.  Here's how teachers can make problems precursors to learning.  Here is an experiment I carried out with my first year students...

 While the study of cases relating to successful businesses helps students to understand what works best, the study of businesses which are failing or struggling to carve a niche is much ignored. 

 “Under the Mango Tree” is an organization which is working to promote bee keeping among farmers and is engaged in the production of non-synthetic honey.  The organization was looking for some ideas to aid successful commercialization of their product in Pune and the students were asked to come up with low cost solutions which did not involve advertising as it was unaffordable. 

Students of the first year BBM (IB) class visited malls, small shops and grocers and made suggestions like two day promotions at malls, hiring table space at M.G. Road walking plaza, stalls at schools on parent-teacher meets, diversification of the product in to capsules for face washes to capture the interest of people looking for natural beauty products, etc. 

These ideas were then passed on to Ms. Vijaya Pastala, the founder of “Under the Mango Tree”.

Why “Learning by Doing” is all about “Doing and Learning”

One of the issues with classroom teaching is that the traditional lecture method ends up as “one way communication”.  In life true learning is achieved by doing and as teachers we need to apply this in the classroom.  You will be surprised by the results that it can produce.

Here are two experiments that I have tried out in class and my students have always ended up surprising me pleasantly.  These student centered methods have been applied by me in teaching communication, management, marketing and advertising.  This is how I go about it…

Students are told that there will be a creative activity in class on a certain day.  They are asked to form groups of 3, 5 or 7 persons (not more than that).  Having anymore students in the group will limit the scope for individual contributions, hence the prescribed limit. 

Students have to bring certain things with them to class…old magazines, newspapers, scissors, glue, stationary items like sketch pens and markers, just about anything they would like to make a great poster.  Do not tell them what the poster will be about, this will introduce the element of surprise and bring spontaneity to their work.

On the day….Students are given products, services, companies (real or imaginary) for which they have to create advertisements within one or two hours.  You can ask them to prepare a print ad or a hoarding advertisement as these are things they come across on a day to day basis and such advertisements are best produced on paper.   Tell them what you will be looking for…a good copy, layout, slogan, logo, etc…all these are elements of text advertisements that students learn in the theory of advertising.  This way they will end up focusing on these aspects, thinking about them seriously and putting them on paper. 

Another alternative method that I have employed has been asking students to prepare a basic business plan for a theme restaurant or a single product food chain like cupcakes, doughnuts, bread or even tea and coffee shops. 

Students can produce their plan on the poster in terms of :

·         The Product

·         Pricing Strategy

·         Promotional Methods

·         Distribution Plan

·         Vision for the next 1/3/5 years

What you will cover in this exercise…branding, the four P’s of the marketing mix, marketing planning (short term, medium term and long term) and strategies.   The results at the end are amazing in terms of quality and innovation.  In the end students will have learnt far more about these concepts than they would have learnt by simply reading/listening.  This is why “learning by doing” is really all about “doing and learning”. 

Out of the Box: Experiments in Teaching Business

As a teacher one of the issues that I grapple with almost everyday is how to transform students from mere listeners to active partners in the teaching-learning process.  Here are some things I've tried and tested and believe have enriched the teaching-learning process for me and hopefully my students too..

• CLASS ROOM PRESENTATIONS WITH A DIFFERENCE:

Presentations by students are commonly used by most teachers to involve students in class work.  Oral presentations supplemented by visual aids like posters and charts or PowerPoint presentations not only add to confidence but also enhance a student’s communication skill.  However, it is observed that other students in the audience stop listening to the speaker if the topic does not interest them. In a bid to make classroom presentations both interesting and rewarding for the entire class the introduction of a quiz at the end of each presentation or after of four to five presentations works wonders.  The quiz must be conducted by the presenters themselves and small incentives like a chocolate for a correct answer or a ribbon or badge for the most active participant with a trendy title like “Quiz Champ” are some rewards which can be given in appreciation.  Topics selected for presentation could be business related but not directly from the syllabus.  For instance asking students to pick any one famous brand like Coca Cola, Levis Strauss, Cadbury, Reebok etc will help them in disseminating knowledge about the history of the brand together with important facts and trivia.

• BRAIN TEASERS AND REVERSE QUIZZES:

Most interviews today test a candidate’s ability to think “out of the box” and often involve the use of brain teasers to determine the same.  The internet is a great resource where one can find brain teasers and one or two of the same may be introduced to wind up or begin a lecture.  This will inculcate lateral thinking in students and prepare them for life in the professional arena. 

A reversal of the regular quizzing process involves giving students the answer and asking them to frame as many questions as they can on the same.  For instance “The Palace on Wheels” is the answer to questions like “Name an Indian train which is one of the Top 10 Luxury Train Holidays in the world?”, “Which mobile palace begins its journey from Delhi railway station?”, “Which train offers you a royal travel experience along the Golden Triangle?” and so on.  The idea behind the exercise is to encourage students to frame questions while testing their knowledge about various facets of the answer given to them.