hi friendzz .....

its shoOOonya here .... back on the blog ....

well .... MastishK 2004 is over ...
the main event lasted 15 days from Sep. 27th to Oct. 11th.

Then came Prerana ... the Flagship event of PGDIM, NITIE
and we all got busy with that ....

well ... MastishK 2004 ... the event is over but not the work ... even after the event got over ... the site had to be given a finalised look ... the prizes had to be announced immediately ....

Now all that is done .... the only task remaining is the dispatching of prizes .... work in progress on that too .... hope to get that done in the next few days .... dussehra ... weekend ... other institute competitions ... have kept us busy ... and so the p[rocessing slowed down ... i hope the processing is done b4 diwali or else a lot more delay will be introduced ....

Looking back at MastishK 2004 . . . It has been a very satisfying experience ....
For the debut year .... the figures are very overwhelming ....

17,500 Hits on the MastishK website
2.500 Registrations
Paricipation from B schools across the country ....
.... some from international schools too .....
Participation from over 25 countries
Participants from more than 50 Corporate offices

So now what next .... well ... pretty obvious .. MastishK 2005 ....

you might feel it is too early to start .... but the matter is not so simple ...

We (senior batch) are there in the campus for another 3/4 months only ...

I will have to ensure that there is complete Knowledge Transfer about MastishK before we leave campus . . . or else they will have to re-invent the wheel and start from scratch ...

Maybe somewhere in the very near future ... as soon as the prizes are dispatched and we can relax a bit ... after a short break ... i will have to start putting MastishK 2005 Team in place .... will have to pass on the Torch to new bearers ....

Right now ... I am trying to figure out how will I be going about this Knowledge Transfer and Knowledge Management thing .... hope to do the best of it ....

Hey guys .... you have any ideas .... let me know ....
send your feedback / sugestions / ideas regarding the above KT/KM to hemantkumarjain@gmail.com

keep smiling and have a nice day .....

. . . shoOOonya . . .
¶ posted by shoOOonya @ 3:01 PM 0 comments

Well Friends ..
Its 6.00 Am, 14th October and I have just dispatched the Mastishk Conclusion mail to all participants. . . .MastishK 2004 is formally over. So many sleepless nights (including today’s) and so many tireless days – the effort has been worth it. Lots and lots of appreciation, feedback and lots of interaction; MastishK has become a phenomenon in the very first year of its inception.
I would like to post some learning that I have got from Mastishk:
First and foremost – nothing succeeds like success.
Second – attitude matters; aptitude is but a corollary
Third – If you feel you are correct, never shy away from trying; the world will follow you
Fourth – When you develop an offering, always try to understand how useful it will be for its users
Fifth (which is also our motto) – If you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

These are pretty general learnings; well I will post more in the coming days about a lot more details and their effects. For now its Adieu
¶ posted by Nikhil Kulkarni @ 5:48 AM 1 comments

OBJECTIVE: To create the 1st ever B-school comic strip.

STEP 1: Create the character
a). Decide on who should the lead character represent. As the strip was meant for B-school junta, the lead character was picked as a B-school student.
b). Decide the name of the strip/character. After much deliberation, the character was christened “Arbit Choudhury”.
c). Design the character sketch. The likes, dislikes, aims, aspirations, habits, behavior, talents of the comic hero were defined. The final character sketch was as follows-

“Arpit Choudhury is a typical 2nd Year MBA student of a leading B-school. His life revolves around all the daily chores of a MBA education. Tests, assignments, presentations, competitions, case studies, net-surfing, chatting, ctrl+C, ctrl+V are as much part of his daily routine as food, drinks, friends and girl-friends are. Sleep is word not present in his Dictionary. As any other management grad., he dreams big, and farts bigger. He often finds himself juggling with the concepts of strategy, logistics, marketing, finance etc., and tries (in vain) to apply these in real life situations. He has come to believe- “Management is an Art… And Art is a 4 letter word, with a 'F' silent ” !’”....
His wisecracks frequently have everyone rolling in mirth. Perturbed by his penchant for blurting business balderdash, his friends jokingly call him “ARBIT Choudhury”......”

d). Design the appearance. Design of the wardrobe, the hirestyle, and looks was done.

STEP 2: Generate Ideas
a). Think of original ideas. Days were spent pondering over humor in common B-school situations, application of management funda in real life and so on.
b). Take ideas from the environments. Ideas were taken from friends and classmates.
c). Test ideas on Humor scale. Ideas were presented to a test audience, for their feedback.

STEP 3: Sketch
a). Visualize the setting. Common B-school environs were visualized.. canteen, library, class, stairs and so on.
b). Draw draft with pencil.
c). Refine Draft. The draft sketch was checked for proportions and aesthetics.
d). Finalize Draft. After all refinements, the draft was finalized by bordering with pen. At this stage, the strip looked something like this-


STEP4: Colour
a). Scan drawing.
b). Decide the colour combinations.
c). Fill colours using Photoshop. After this, the image looked somewhat like this-

d). Put title bar on top.
e). Fill in the dialogues. And finally, an edition of the 1st ever B-school comic strip gets created.

¶ posted by Wondering Wanderer @ 8:52 PM 1 comments

Blog….me ?? Nahhhhhhhhh…………

Hey ppl,
Me neither a member of mastishk team nor Prerana, but I came on this blog just to congratulate the entire team behind this awesome conceptualization of the idea of
“India's First Ever Fully and Truly Online B School Event of Management Games !"…..
as shoonya puts it….. So true!!
I’ve always been a regular visitor of all the blogs written in my campus and so I pretty well know the kind of emotional and physical turmoil this team has underwent. Well I don’t think I’ve contributed anything for “MASTISHK” ever. But everytime I visit the site I feel proud of being associated with it, one way or other.
One of the profs, today, in a class pointed out the fact that we, humans can’t be happy about someone else’s achievements. I fully agree that its difficult. But then when I realize the magnitude of hard work my batch mates, along with juniors, have invested into this, I cant feel anything but happy for them.
I am sure these are the kinda people who achieve success in life, because to be successful, I believe, u need 3D’s in urself……. dreams , determination and dedication …
And “mastishk” holds it all for them.
Good work guys !!!
Keep it up.
Me as a NITIEAN congratulate u all !!!


Snehal…
¶ posted by life.. @ 11:34 AM 0 comments

hi friendzz ....
its shoOOonya again ....

Well . . . I m back on the MastishK Team Blog after a long long time ....

In the past several days ... a lot of things have happened ...exams started ... site launched .... exams over .... games launched ....last minute hurdles and technology problems ..... regualr updation of games and pages .... keeping track of all the games deadlines and data flow. Announcing results for the daily quiz , crossword and Khoj. Launching a new strip of Arbit chaoudhury everyday. Updating the Downloads section of MastishK Informalzz with a minimum of 3 new wallpapers daily. whew !! so many and many more ..... i m not even aware of the total number of things we are handling simultaneously.

We have one big helluva team.
Everyone is contributing their bit ... and the 'bit' is more than 100% of their capacity.

I would like to share with you the most significant achievement of MastishK ; being
India's First Ever Fully and Truly Online B School Event of Management Games !

The thing was that earlier competitions and events were organised and the communication of the same was through posters and website. These events were dominantly On-the-grounds events or simply off-line (Case Studies etc.). In case of elimination rounds , entries were submitted by email.

Then came a time when some events tried to go online but they accepted most of the entries by email/post etc. thus losing out on the 'online' part of the game.

Our vision was to launch India's First Truly Online Event.

No off-line submission of entries. No emails.
All Games on the websites. All contests on the website.
The games to be played online and entries to be submitted in forms on the website itself.

This vision of going completely Online met with a lot of sceptism from both inside and outside the institute.

We were told ... No one is doing it.
We said .... Thats why we will be the first one to do it. Isn't that great !

We were told ... It cannot be done so it is not being done by the Big B's
We said .... It was now our turn to become a big B and do it so that others cud do it too.

We were told ... You will fail. The servers will fail. the games will fail.
We said ... We are ready for the worst .. Now ... Lets concentrate on the Best ....

We were told ... You don't have technical expertise.
We said ... we have a great teacher called "Google"

We were told ... You will need a good enough website for the Event.
We said ... Just Good Enough !! Sorry ... we won't deliver anything less than "Excellent" !

We were told ... You are wasting your time ...
We said .... Time will tell ...

Today ... October 5th 2004 ....
almost a month after the MastishK homepage was launched
almost 10 days after the MastishK Event actually began ....

The MastishK Hit Counters have crossed 12,000 Hits
Averaging about 1000 hits per day ...
MastishK site being viewed in 24+ Countries
Corporate Participants from over 50 corporates.

Truly speaking ....
We had great expectation from MastishK and even imagined some unimaginable things about it. But the Reality has surpassed all expectations & imaginations.

For a first timer ... the response is both great and overwhelming.
I would like to thank ALL the visitors and participants of MastishK.
Your response is the greaatest appreciation for the entire Team MastishK.

Thank You !!

You can send in your comments at
prerana.mastishk@nitie.edu and/or mastishk@gmail.com


¶ posted by shoOOonya @ 9:37 PM 0 comments

1st post on the MastishK blog after a long time.. You nay have guessed the reason by now.. MastishK- India's 1st Fully Online Management Games Extravaganza, has gone LIVE.. and for all members of Team MastishK, it’s crunch time.. Hardly any one of us has caught a proper nap since the 25th.. Everyone seems to be in hyper mode.. scampering here and there making arrangements, slogging it out managing the dynamically changing scenarios of games.. or simply burning the midnight oil answering queries of contestants.. Discussions, differences, disputes have become a part of our daily routines.. But as they say, the proof of the pudding lies in the eating.. and so far, the pudding tastes really good..

Nikhil, the IT whiz, incharge of managing all the technical nitty-gritties, shuttles from one team meeting to another, clearing technical snags, providing coding consultancy, and keeping the games on track.. Hemant, the creative mastermind, is constantly conjuring newer ideas for the look and feel of the site, fine tuning the gaming console and user interfaces as well as making sure that all schedules are met.. All game teams are busy crunching truckloads of data being fed in by participants across the land.. and getting the future phases of the games ready to go.. As for me, I am busy doing what I do best, and love most.. creating “Arbit Choudhury”-the 1st ever B-school Comic Character.. A new strip goes up daily.. After the ideas are ready.. about 4 man-hours go into the creation of each strip.. from sketching to scanning to coloring.. Hemant has been taking time off his hectic schedule to help me out with the creative and technical assistance..

Now for the junior team.. MastishK had been coceptualised long before the new batch arrived.. but they have been an intergral part of the development of MastishK.. so much so that it is impossible to imagine the launch of MastishK without their wholehearted participation.. more so as the event is completely conceptualised and developed inhouse.. not a single component being outsourced to anyone...

We have been overwhelmed by the success of the event so far.. With more than 10,000 hits and 2000 registrations.. not just from B-schools across Asia, but also from over 40 corporates.. and junta from more than 20 countries.. MastishK has far exceeded all our expectations.. and it’s not over yet.. Come 12th October.. when MastishK 2004 concludes.. all of us can finally take a deep breath and look back on the results of all the sweat and toil of the last 3 months.. and start the next endeavor.. whose implementation will be the responsibility of the next batch.. MastishK 2005.. bigger and better than ever before.....

The games have just begun...
¶ posted by Wondering Wanderer @ 9:12 PM 3 comments