10 ways in which IRMA Alumni can try communicating IRMA Vision:
- Getting associated part-time with a MBA entrance coaching institute in your area- in whatever small or big capacity that you can
- Get associated with B-Schools near your place for talks, seminars, visiting faculty assignments, sharing of experiences etc & publish cases, teaching notes, articles jointly with faculty & students
- Present students, faculty & Alumni try to make their presence felt in seminars, conferences etc (e.g: Pratik Modi & Debiprasad Mishra to present a paper in a conference on Rural market potential on April 2008: http://www.iimk.ac.in/conference/markconff08/acceptedabstracts.htm )
- People who publish books/articles like Harsh Vivek (recent Sage Publication with Amir Ullah Khan), do write/expand/talk more on the same at various forums
- The present efforts of participating in B-School events by IRMAns is commendable (of course without compromising in academics) and it should continue
- Those with connections with the media in some form or the other, try to write something about your experiences & also mention about IRMA or try to speak to some of the journalists and let them write an article or 2 if they can. In this, business standard is one newspaper that writes often about IRMA, we should try to reach out to other popular media as well, especially the Television media, where we are quite poor- but for the media to talk about us, we should have news material- which is left to us. In our batch, Gunjan Grover & KVS Choudhary had made it to the media pages & had evoked some very positive responses from the public, when they had opted for lower-paying development jobs, but every news need not be of that kind. IRMA has to work on the media front, we are quite weak on it
- In your profiles in internet/other places, do make a mention that you are an IRMA alumnus & some mention about IRMA also…at least try to put an effort that people know that you are an IRMAn (I am not forcing it on anybody, it is just a suggestion)
- If you are in a position to recruit people for your firm, and if IRMA can also be considered/recommended, do take some initiative in that regard
- Becoming active in internet forums & social network groups which are frequented by Management aspirants, start contributing content, answering queries…To know about the best Management aspirant hotspots, you can look at the blog I started for MBA aspirants which lists out all the popular & less popular sites : http://cat-iim.blogspot.com
- Start blogging about your experiences, your work, your contributions, IRMA’s contribution to your vision & participating meaningfully in other blogs (just to state an example of the same- have a look at http://www.alkadwivedi.net/the-nation-owes-an-apology-to-this-man & scroll down to see the responses including that of our own Desh D Kapoor ji (http://www.drishtikone.com ). The free options for starting your own blogs are: http://www.blogger.com & http://wordpress.com (in this blogger has good option which allows us to incorporate lot of additional stuff like comments, chat, voting, music player, guest book, your flick photos slideshow, page counter etc – have a look at http://cat-iim.blogspot.com to see some of the features narrated + blogger is owned by google hence it always comes high on the google search). In case you want to have a wordpress blog in your own domain like the one I have at http://www.ajuinjesus.info/blog contact me, I will try to help you out on the same)
Now many of the IRMAns, especially the development varieties are of the types where they would like to shy away from public eye, just because they are humble by nature or since too much media attention might hamper their work…I do agree that could be true, but do communicate to the world what good you are doing! The world needs to know, since the present generation is desperately searching for role models & there are not too many around! You & the work that you do is inspiring, so please ignite the minds of the youth of tomorrow with the fuel you have generated from your hard work.
The above mentioned are some of the pointers that came to my mind, surely there would be a lot more which each of you can contribute and try to implement at your own levels. I thank Apurv for giving the truth about the decreasing number of IRMA aspirants. That is a sad state of affairs & if it has to be reversed, it would need concerted effort from all levels. The dream & vision of IRMA of inclusive growth is so much more relevant in this day of greater disparity of incomes. With the present growth phase of the Indian economy, starker disparities of income & distribution of wealth has surfaced. Many of the B-Schools are not catering to address this issue or to sensitize its students of the emerging need or to equip their students to intervene as IRMA has done in the past or continues to do. This vision of IRMA & its model has to be conveyed to aspirants as well as to other Management Institutes & to the public at large, since India needs lot more torch-bearers for effecting lasting change for the millions of poor of India & Asia. The task is so vast that we alone cannot manage it. Even IRMA or IRMAns cannot handle it, therefore the vision, the models & the method have to be transpired & transmitted, that should be our aim. We should be able to use IRMA & IRMAns as successful case studies, so that lot more can adopt & imbibe & replicate this successful model. Ours should not be a selfish motive to build only IRMA. Ours should be a more inclusive one of creating more IRMAs, not directly, but indirectly by passing on the vision. Then only the vision of IRMA for India & the equitable development of the world in general can be achieved, which I believe should be our larger objective. The truth is, the mission of IRMA is greater than IRMA itself...so even if IRMA dies out by any chance, the mission must go on...!
Regards, Aju John.
PRM 23.
P.S: ...this is a truncated version of a mail i recently sent to the IRMA alumni list! ...