The monsoon’s have hit Mumbai hard, this meant after getting drenched a lot & spoiling health it was time to finally spend good time inside office! I decided its better to show pictures of our office rather yada yada … So, heres a peek-a-boo of PaGaLGuY HQ (aka office). You are always welcome to come a check us out.
Daljeet trying to ‘think different’ with the new Coffee Machine!!
Jamming sessions before we left for AIPGM 2008 meet at Bangalore.
Wide Angle shot of the HQ on a Saturday.
Going away present (wah kya kareegari hai!) given by ultra_lord, whom we miss badly! Sonam, MICA se return maar …
When I was younger, I thought being a pilot would be the coolest thing. No, i didn’t want to be running companies nor getting an MBA and all that. I wanted to fly. Period. By the time I was 10 years old, I was obsessed, or obsessed a 10 year old can get. I used to buy magazines with aircraft pictures on them, used to spend time at the library(!) looking for books on the subject of flying and was generally a fanatic on the subject. So much so that I got together with a friend to work on designing a micro light aircraft by the time I was 14 ..
Well, that didn’t fly too far , but at 16 I went to the Bombay Flying Club to go and check out what it took to learn to fly. They mentioned that flight training was full time and that didn’t bode too well for my college education, so I resolved to take a crack at it later.
Did college, got a couple of degrees and yet the flying bug refused to let go. I finally joined the Bombay Flying Club .. which had 1 aircraft, 1 instructor and around a dozen students - as you guessed, not a very conducive environment to learn. I guess in 3 months, I flew twice and spent the rest of the time on the ground - not too cool. I focussed on other things and kept working on my companies.. then PG happened, then Wharton happened and I still wanted to fly.
I joined up a flight school here in Philadelphia in my last quarter at Wharton and started flight training. Yesterday I took these pictures on my return flight from Cape May to Philadelphia .. and I gotta tell ya .. waiting 18 years .. its been worth it. Its everything I dreamt of ..and more. Oh yeah .. I told my mom, that I am almost a pilot …
Food and us! Us and food! Undisputed, reliable and log lasting relationship. At PG HQ, this is what bonds us among other things, good food. We express through kind of food we eat. When we celebrate, it is through expensive lunches and dinners. I’ve a hunch that getting work done from us might be a piece of cake for some one who decides to buy us a piece of cake
Ok, I (Khushbu - sudoku) am exaggerating! Period!But the exaggeration springs on from an original inspiration. See how I got carried away while talking about it? I personally think food is a part of culture at PG HQ and its position may only get stronger with time.
Anyway, so the time when we have our first big potluck in off is an occasion. We had been planning for it during mundane lunches for two long weeks. And then the perfect occasion came along for us to seal the day. The return of the “Gnrs”. Thursday was the day, when the king of killer PJ’s was to be back in office. We had our first big fortnightly Pot Luck last Thursday, to welcome Rohit Awasthi back to PaGaLGuY.com headquarters.
Even the bachelors who have maids cooking for them were enthusiastic. The menu was sealed well in advance with a healthy participation from everyone and there we had a mix of many cuisines. Let me assure you, South Indian food + Gujju food + Italian food + Chinese food + Non Veg + Dessert = bliss. Try it some time. The before & after pics will speak the rest ;- )
:Burps: :hiccups:
I already can’t wait till next week for this. And all of you are off course welcome to come down to HQ and have lunch with us one of the days.
And oh ya!We missed the chief PaGaL terribly ( who is buzy scrambling his eggs at Wharton and taking flying lessons!). After all he is a chief eater first, and boss later.
Once a year, it is allowed to play pranks on your friends in the name of April fool’s day.PGHQers should have planned a major prank well in advance and should have carefully implemented it. But till March 31st there was no thought of a prank. It was afternoon of March 31st and I, Deepu, was busy converting caffeine to code.
Apurv came up to my table and told he & Rohit planned a prank for the next day and that they need my help to execute it. We all know the pranks that were played on PG (remember Allwin’s wedding prank J ) and I felt very happy that I am getting involved in this year’s prank.
Feeling enthusiastic I asked him about what they had planned. Apparently Apurv and Rohit got everything ready and all I had to do was start a new thread and post the content that Apurv had mailed me.The prank is telling users that the thanks and groan feature will be reset the next day and that everybody will be losing their thanks and groans that they carefully accumulated so far. The only way for that to not happen is they should post their current stats in the thread. Apurv and Rohit are constantly in touch with the whole community so I thought they had carefully planned this.I should have stopped and questioned when Apurv asked me to create that thread in the Chit-Chat section. After all important announcements are made in the Announcements section. I posted and went back to coding.
Opened the thread after some time and was surprised to see that almost everyone was convinced that it is a prank. Well the writing is on the plate. Thread started on March 31st, more importantly thread started in Chit – Chat section. I made some feeble attempts to make junta believe but all were in vain. In the end the verdict is out. IQ of Pagalguy junta is pretty high and that I became a big BAKRA.
There is a certain charm, challenge, satisfaction in trying to build out something this different and seeing it succeed. We have had plenty of positive and constructive feedback on our forums. Come join in
Key Ingredients: 76 schools, 4 zones, 5000+ voters with over 250,000 entries, unlimited coffee, 4 summer interns, a bunch of insane HQ junta, number crunching, statistics, SQL queries, data scrubbing, html designing, a fultoo marketing plan, paymate, serious ingenuity, relentless deadlines and a ton of belief in the community rank model
Lets build out that v2.0 now
On Sunday the 18th of November, we launched our innovative business school ranking initiative. After almost a year of planning, analysis and developing we decided now would be a good time to let the application lose on unsuspecting folks who returned back after writing CAT .
The ranking is based on our belief that every individual who is interested or linked to an MBA, be it an aspirant, student, professor or a recruiter has perceptions about multiple business schools. Our challenge - To utilize the wisdom of these people and build a ranking system that could grow progressively accurate as and when more people participated in the rankings. A detailed methodology, the mathematics and the logic behind the effort can be found here.
This ranking system was conceptualized, thought out, analyzed, tested, rehashed, re-conceptualized, fought over and finally delivered to us by the awesome summer interns who worked for us over the summers. Talk about doing substantial work over your summers . Greetings go out to Aristo Bhupal (GIM), Gauri Shirur (GIM) , Sonali Melmane (SIIB) and Naresh Poonia (SIIB) for working with us to build the ranking system from scratch
And if you are reading this, its also time that you headed out to http://rankings.pagalguy.com and took part in the survey. Your knowledge sharing is what helps us build a ranking - Of the people, by the people and for the people.
May witnessed multiple comings and goings of many an eclectic nature. Resident marketing Chutney-Sandbytch Divya left for her dream school MICA. Her farewell dinner at Leopold Cafe left Rohit bankrupt. Yes, the penalty on cracking poor jokes has finally found its way into the office code of conduct.
But before that, the Chief Pagal, The Boss returned from Wharton for his first year break to spend four months at office. Our new Geekosaurus Rex Rajat (the other phoren-returned) celebrated his first salary by gulping down a Royal Stag deviously passed off to him as a Jack Daniel. “Nothing beats a Jack Daniel!” Yeah right!
Partying is not all we did, though. We launched the PaGaLGuY MBA SMS Alerts, wherein sms-ing START MBA to 09845398453 forever rids you of the headache suffered in keeping a tab on B-school form notifications, application deadlines, results and newsbreaks. All this comes right to your SMS Inbox!
The Pune PaGaLGuY Meet on May 13 was attended by over 35 people including IIM Ahmedabad, Calcutta and Kozhikode admits of this year. Mocha restaurants seem to be turning into regular PG Meet hangouts, thanks to the Hookah lobby within PaGaLGuY (principally grondmaster and profootball25). See pictures of the meet to know what is being talked about here.
Signing off with a BIG CONGRATULATIONS to our Chief Pagal Allwin for being one of the only four at Wharton to get the Ford Fellowship for studying emerging technologies.
PaGaLGuY.com is India’s largest and most influential online youth community with an MBA focus. We focus on delivering unprecedented online products and brand building tools for that rival real life situations using innovative media like blogs, communities, pod casts and the full Monty. We are gearing up with a number of product launches, features and of course hiring a boat load of insane people to create the future face of the web in India.
Find below the openings at PaGaLGuY.com,If this sounds interesting to you, drop us a e-mail at jobs at inzanelabs dot com and we will take it ahead from there!
What is Inzane about it?
1) Pay - (Negotiable), Appraisals every 6 months.
2) Growth - It all boils down to the performance here at Inzane Labs. If you show competency and talent, within 6 months you will be handling entire products independently. You also get the opportunity to network and interact with business leaders in India and abroad.
3) Culture - If you hate processes, abhor pyramid organizations but love creativity, innovation and fun at work, you ought to be with us.
4) Access - to the high spending group in the age group of 18-30 to Entrepreneurs, Industry Leaders and Policy Makers.
5) Elasssstic Culture - A very flexible work environment that treats people like human beings. You may be surprised or be daunted with the levels of responsibilities that you may end up managing.
6) No endless meetings – Screw it, let’s do it. Life is too short.
7) We need dreamers – if you can go ahead and dream of a bigger and better world, you will love this place. We are nuts and we love it.
Correspondent/Content Writer, Indian and International B-schools
No of Vacancies - 2
Qualification: Any graduate
Experience: 0-3 years
Job Description
You will be a part of the Editorial team and will be working on multiple initiatives. Primarily,
Meet with and interview B-school Deans, Admission Directors, Company CEOs and HR Heads, Entrepreneurs, MBA students and Alumni in India as well as internationally.
Report and write regular and exclusive stories on developments in the MBA space, B-schools, admission and recruiting patterns.
Work on exciting projects with our content partners in the print, online and TV space. Learn about content portability between various media.
Manage content publishing on New Media platforms such as online communities, mobile, blogs, wikis and more.
Desired profile
Excellent communication skills in written and verbal English are an obvious must. If you have experience in journalism, even better. Beyond that, we would prefer someone who has MBA aspirations in the long term and has attempted getting into a B-school.
How to apply: Send your resume and portfolio (if any) to jobs@inzanelabs.com
Marketing Manager - Indian B-Schools/Coaching Institutes
No. Of Vacancies - 3
Qualification: Graduates, preferably MBAs
Experience - 0-4 Years
You will be a part of the sales/marketing/business dev. team and will be working on multiple initiatives. Primarily,
1) Marketing & selling our existing products/services to Indian B-Schools and Coaching Institutes.
2) Working very closely with the rest of the team to create more world class services and products.
3) Ensuring that you are working closely with the editorial/tech team.
4) Building a network with other partners in online and advertising media.
5) Identifying prospective clients, making presentations and negotiations.
Desired Profile:
We prefer someone who has worked in the MBA Education industry in India and has a very good understanding and insight of the entire Indian MBA value chain. Knowledge of Internet marketing and online media is essential. Comprehensive knowledge of professional marketing functions is a key factor. You should be driven and have good quantitative and qualitative skills.
Broad communications skill set in direct marketing, both print and online, advertising, PR, sales tools and collateral. You need to be a self-starter who can deliver on commitments, work independently and with a team.
We will require a strong evidence of effective verbal, written, presentation and communication skills.
Marketing Manager - MBA Education Abroad
No. Of Vacancies - 1
Qualification: Graduates, preferably MBAs
Experience - 0-4 Years
You will be a part of the sales/marketing/business development team and will be working on multiple initiatives. Primarily,
1) Marketing and selling our existing products/services to the Foreign B-Schools and Agencies.
2) Working very closely with the rest of the team to create more world class services and products.
3) Ensuring that you are working rather closely with the editorial/tech team.
4) Identifying prospective clients, making presentations and negotiations.
Desired Profile:We would prefer someone who has worked in the realm of MBA Education Abroad and has a very good understanding and the whole Foreign MBA value chain. Knowledge of internet marketing and online media is essential. Comprehensive knowledge of professional marketing functions is a key factor. You should be driven and have good quantitative and qualitative skills.
Broad communications skill set in direct marketing, both print and online, advertising, PR, sales tools and collateral. You need to be a self-starter who can deliver on commitments, work independently and with a team.
We will require a strong evidence of effective verbal, written, presentation and communication skills.
Marketing Manager - Youth Brands
No. Of Vacancies - 1
Qualification: Graduates, preferably MBAs
Experience - 0-4 Years
You will be a part of the sales/marketing/business dev. team and will be working building a profitable relationship between PaGaLGuY.com and major youth brands. Primarily,
1) Identifying and selling our existing products/services to Youth Brands who would like to target our demographic profile.
2) Working very closely with the rest of the team to create more world class services and products.
3) Ensuring that you are working rather closely with the editorial/tech team.
4) Building a network with other partners in online and advertising media.
5) Identifying prospective clients, making presentations and negotiations.
Desired Profile:
We prefer someone who has worked in the realm of Advertising and Marketing in India and has very good understanding and insight of the whole Indian Advertising Industry. Knowledge of internet marketing and online media is essential. Comprehensive knowledge of professional marketing functions is a key factor. You should be driven and have good quantitative and qualitative skills.Broad communications skill set in direct marketing, both print and online, advertising, PR, sales tools and collateral. You need to be a self-starter who can deliver on commitments, work independently and with a team.We will require a strong evidence of effective verbal, written, presentation and communication skills.
Marketing Manager - Ad Publishing
No. Of Vacancies - 1
Qualification: Graduates, preferably MBAs
Experience - 0-4 Years
You will be a part of the sales/marketing/business dev. team and will be selling the ad inventory with major Ad-Publishing networks across the globe.
Primarily,
1) Identifying and selling our existing products/services to Ad-Publishing Networks who would like to target our demographic profile.
2) Building a network with other partners in online and advertising media.
3) Identifying prospective clients, making presentations and negotiations.
Desired Profile:
We would prefer someone who has worked in the realm of Affiliate Marketing and Online Ad-Publishing in India. We would like you to have a very good understanding and insight of the whole Indian advertising industry. Knowledge of internet marketing and online media is essential .Comprehensive knowledge of professional marketing functions are a key factor. You should be driven and have good quantitative and qualitative skills.
Broad communications skill set in direct marketing, both print and online, advertising, PR, sales tools and collateral. You need to be a self-starter who can deliver on commitments, work independently and with a team.
We will require a strong evidence of effective verbal, written, presentation and communication skills.
Again, If this sounds interesting to you, drop us a e-mail at jobs(at)inzanelabs(dot)com and we will take it ahead from there!
On a winter afternoon this January, one Vinu Ranganathan entered our office and started evangelizing mobile phones as Pagalguy’s way forward. We were sure he had entered the wrong office. Fast forward four months and we are all set to go more mobile than ever. This is what Economic Times says about us:
Pagalguy.com, the country’s largest community of MBA’s and MBA-aspirants plans to launch their GPRS-based mobile community in a month. But as of right now, they have launched a simple SMS-based service.
Here you can send an SMS to a single number and all the people that have subscribed to their service gets the same SMS. Apurv Pandit, editor of Pagalguy says that members are using this service to arrange real-world meetings and discuss various topics relevant to MBA graduates. This service is fairly simple and doesn’t require the use of web site and can be operated with any phone that can send an SMS.
Thanks to Vinu’s persistence and the warm and amazing people at MyToday.com, we have active Pagalguy SMS communities in New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Bangalore. Within a month, our community has generated 12,000+ SMSes, all user-generated. More cool mobile tools for CAT and GMAT takers and MBA students are in the offing.
This April, mothers shudder and fathers grow redder to see their young until-a-while-ago promising darlings spend precious hours in trying to win a Pagal Award for themselves. This year we have gone ahead to credit the best posters in separate sections. Since the paths of those who pursue the IIMs seldom meet those who pursue the Whartons and Columbias, we thought that the GMAT and MBA Abroad section deserved to credit its best contributors. More than 80 detailed nominations have already come in by now and the results are awaited any day.
And yes, our most lovable friends a Goldstone Imaging have agreed to sponsor free USB Drives to the winners of the 2007 Pagal Awards.
Glossary:
Pagal Awards - award statuettes that do mad antics when placed on the mantelpiece. Or in this case, annual awards that recognize the most helpful, funny, interesting, imitated and abhorred contributors within the PaGaLGuY.com Community
