Phase II questionnaire travails

Wow.

The project is even more challenging / tough than I'd first anticipated. First off, 'good show' to a lot of teams that came up with credible websurveys of their own.

The job of patching together a 'common denominator' questionnaire for phase II  by picking up the 'best' bits from everywhere isn't easy. Lots of culling and cutting out and rewriting and editing and everything all over the place. And at the end of all that, am not sure what the final product will look like. Time will tell.

And the fact that we lost precious time in simple admin things like group-formation are now coming home to roost. This sort of thing would ideally require more time and thought.

I hope to be done early and on time. Would like to have phase II launch by as early as Tuesday, hopefully. Let us see.

At present, the survey has 34 questions from 8 sections (including demographics).  Have attempted to look more at 'savings in the long-term including retirement planning' rather than retirement planning per se as some may confuse one as very different from the other and get the questions wrong. Many products are being sold through banks as a conduit, it seems. The options available are so wide and colorful, its amazing and disconcerting as well. Am focussing on 3-4 major asset classes - Equities including MFs and SIPs, Housing, Insurance and fixed income annuities including pension plans, FDs and Gold.


Shall post more updates about my thoughts as progress happens.

Sudhir

Good luck.

Update: Alrite, Pls feel free to use this post's comment section for post-midterm post-mortems, if any.
-------------------------------------
[Good luck] for the midterms.

Well, by the time this post goes up, you'd all be in the exam hall only.

Good luck and Godspeed.

Sudhir

Tutorial Thu 9 pm AC2

Update: Some folks have class right till 9.15 pm tomorrow, am told. Well, at most I can move the tutorial to 9 pm. I suspect by the time things get warmed up it will already be past 9.15 pm. So, 9 pm tomorrow it ia, folks.


Hi All,

Tutorial happening. Pivots and SOLVER will be covered. Any other midterm queries are also fine. Bring your laptops. Might upload some more datasets for practice.

Sudhir

P.S.
Update:
 Pls enter the URL of your's group's survey in the google form given at this link:
http://marketing-yogi.blogspot.com/2010/10/phase-i-submissions.html

Midterm related Clarifications

Hi all,

Some quick clarifications re the midterms.

1. There are 3 parts to the midterm - an MCQ part, a short answer part and a laptop based part with marks 25, 35 and 40 respectively. They will also get 30, 45 and 45 minutes respectively. Only the last part is open-book, open-notes whereas the first 2 parts are open-coursepack and cheat-sheet only.

2. Nothing not covered or mentioned in the slides will come for the exam. Look at the textbook only if some slide covered concept is unclear for any reason.The textbook is more for reference - you should know what to look for and where when faced with MKTR problems down the line at work.

3. Hypothesis testing as covered in Lecture 6  will not be covered in the midterm. SOLVER and PIVOT however are very much within bounds.

Any further midterm Q&A, kindly use the comments section below.

Ice-cream dataset homework related thread

Hi All,

I received the following email from Ipsita:

Dear Professor,

I have some doubts regarding the answers put on ice cream survey. Although most of the answers match, the following do not.

·         Ques 1: iii and iv

·         Ques 3:  Edy's is the biggest competitor to Wows, however the uploaded answer shows Turkey Hill.

·         Ques 4: ii (173 fall in the $100,000+ household income, i.e. 34.81%)

Could you please clarify on the same.

If you agree/disagree or better still, have your own answers to share, kindly do so in the comments section of this thread.


I haven't solved the homework myself, so shall appreciate your inputs and crowd wisdom in solving the same. Am still working on the midterm paper here.

Sudhir

General announcements & miscell stuff

Hi all,

A few quick announcements:

1. So it turns out that even the esurveyspro.com free account no longer honors SKIP logic (it did perfectly last year) AND that our LRC has discontinued their surveymoneky.com professional subscription. The school has since migrated to another websurvey package called qualtrics. I've spoken with IT and they say you can make your own account with your ISB email ID. Kindly do so and program your survey there - I suspect it should be pretty much akin to surveymonkey.com/ esurveyspro.com only.

This also means that the *final* questionnaire I'll make will be in qualtrics only, and phase II will be administered in qualtrics.

This is the email IT sent me:

Dear Professor,


Please find the link below for registering  to  Qualtrics survey.

Students can register to  the same using their ISB email id.


isb.qualtrics.com


please let me know for any  further help


Regards

Vijaya Lakshmi
Executive - IT Applications

Hope that helps. Once you have the word doc questionnaire ready, programming into qualtrics shouldn't be too much time or trouble, hopefully.

2. Was asked in class how to subscribe to blog feed for post alerts etc. Vignesh of sec 'D' has been kind enough to share one procedure with the class. I'm posting his email in full.

For both Outlook 2007 and 2010, the process is fairly simple –


1.       Copy the RSS feed link from the blog – in the case of Marketing Yogi, the RSS feed is at http://marketing-yogi.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default. Please note that this is a feed for only the posts on the blog.

2.       In Outlook 2007/2010, right click on RSS Feeds in the left navigation bar, select Add a New RSS Feed and enter the feed address from above.

3.       Click Advanced and select the option to download enclosures (any images in the feed for example) as well as the option to download the full article as an .html attachment.

4.       Click OK, then Yes on the previous window and you’re done.


Thanks,

Best,

Vignesh.

3. Kindly ensure JMP is up and running in your laptops for lecture 6. Might as well try to refresh JMP usage while we are at work on the car survey raw data. Pls also ensure Excel analysis toolpak (that contains Excel's regression function) is up and loaded in your machines.

4. Well, came across this splendid article the other day. IMO, its worthwhile sharing with the class.

On Trading and Markets

I'd say the entire article, based on a speech made last week Thursday in NYC is a good read, but to save time, let me excerpt the course relevant bits here...

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ben Davies ...
 

Economics has sought to blend epistemology, physics, mathematics, and behavioral science to try to measure uncertainty. They aim to try to predict when we might have an economic collapse, but no model has been created that manages this with much confidence, if any at all. How do you measure a risk that is unmeasurable?
No, there is nothing certain about economic predictions. Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. defense secretary, unwittingly declared it so at a NATO press conference in 2002, when he responded to a question on intelligence gathering:

"It's not the certainties that make life interesting; it's the uncertainties. There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the things we don't know we don't know."

"Unknown unknowns" -- at the time this was ridiculed as a piece of deliberate and meaningless obfuscation. Rumsfeld even won an award from the British Plain English Campaign for the most nonsensical remark made by a public figure. I would add that he narrowly pipped California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who commented, "I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman."

Ridicule aside, I do think it was brilliant piece of polemic, irrespective of one's political persuasion. Without knowing it, Rumsfeld could actually be the poster child for a new line of economic thought that tries to draw parallels from physics -- the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

In quantum physics this principle states that certain pairs of physical properties, such as position and momentum, cannot be simultaneously known to arbitrarily high accuracy.

And herein lies the issue with macroeconomics. One cannot be deterministic. Events are not causally determined by previous events alone. A known event does not predict a known outcome.

Although much can be learned from this theory, this is where the analogy ends. The act of experimenting with the electron and measuring position did not alter the outcome. In a human system the very act of forecasting or predicting an outcome actually influences that very outcome. This we call the feedback mechanism. It is encompassed in a theory many will know as "reflexivity."

Well, nice to see the 'unknown-unknown' find its origin, form and function out there, eh?

5. Was on the panel for an ITC case contest yesterday. In my interactions with the ITC brass, I told them I teach MKTR and I asked for their thoughts on the current output at B-schools, they said and let me quote as much verbatim as I can:

"You chaps train people to be Marketing vice-presidents, not territory sales managers or brand managers. Many recent MBAs don't know the basic of the craft. How to evaluate the effectiveness of an ad campaign, commission what type of market research with which agency or analyze a Nielsen sales report.  You teach the concept but not the craft of marketing unlike engineers or chartered accountants who learn the craft first."

Or some such flow. Well, I told them my students can do all that and more (or should be able to by the end of lec 10). And yes, it did feel like sweet vindication, external validation if you will - we're doing the practical stuff, the useful stuff. Good. The other day, one Mr, Nithin Vyakarnam, an entrepreneur alum from '06, who sits in on the class with section C also mentioned similar things - that very few MBA folks out in the real world know how to handle pivots or run models. So, we are doing something good after all. Hopefully. Time will tell, I guess.

6. There are folks who come up with good, relevant questions etc after class or in the break and when I ask them to post the same as comments on the blog so that I can reply and the entire class can share, they miraculously disappear. IMHO, positive contributions on the blog should merit some credit - if only as incentive to be a little more open and share thoughts with the entire class.

Sudhir

Caselet 5.1.

Hi All,

We had caselet 5.1. read and discussed in class today (sections A & B). I get the feeling it didn't go as well as I'd hoped. Essentially, the points regarding the caselet I'd wanted to articulate likely did not get across to the class.

Let me try to make amends and write down the main issues in that caselet here, separately.

1. Tech innovation and adoption are often (but not always) a function of the installed base for an application in any market. Hence, breakthroughs in broadband use and businesses built around broadband applications are most likely to come from South Korea than from anywhere else. One big point Shri Baijal makes in the article is that India has already acquired such a technological installed base in telecom and the next big innovations may get implemented here as a result. That is no small shakes.

2. Given that the desi telecom mart may become the testbed of choice for new technologies and business models in the telecom space, the author then goes onto speculate about the effects of what 4G or 5G means in speed terms. The impact, I thought, was simply wow. The amount of potential for disruption, innovation and basic change in the lives of ordinary people I could see there simply blew me over. However, I doubt my enthusiasm carried over as articulation.

3. OK, what was caselet 5.1. doing in the qualitative research section? Recall caselet 2.2 where we first discussed cross-industry disruptive influences. This is similar. From music to movies to education to medicine to personal communication to networking - every big sector I could think of from a consumer standpoint was being impacted. The potential for creation of new ecosystems that supported myriad new businesses and biz models overnight could be seen - the Oasis analogy, I wanted to convey. Then the UID example as an extension of this same phenomenon. End of the day, all this would manifest as latent needs that consumers can't articulate anything about today, requiring methods from the qualitative research toolkit - Indirect questioning, projective techniques, unstructured questioning etc would need to be brought to bear.

Thanks and regards.

Sudhir

Quiz 2 issues

Hi all,

A quiz was planned, based on the Ice-cream dataset for sections A & B today which for various reasons - incluidng ambiguity in the quiz paper and non-correspondence of question numbers in the dataset with Q numbers in the quiz paper -  could not be conducted smoothly.

Well, my apologies. We'll have to scratch this quiz now.

But in general, I should make clear that the raw data from the survey has a different question numbering than in the questionnaire because each column corresponds to an answer option. My mistake, I overlooked that fact. Still, using question headers in the top row of the dataset, one could still have continued but then 10 minutes wouldn't have been enough to manage all this in.

I've released last year's 2009 car survey questionnaire and raw data on blackboard. Kindly go through the same. Familiarize yourself with it. Chances are high that questions based on it might landup in the midterm. The questions would be roughly in the same mould as those for the Ice cream and beer datasets, though.

P.S.
We're now entering a more quantitative phase in the course. It gets difficult for me to judge how much already know -> I'm going too slow and where I'm going too fast. Timely, constructive feedback would be nice, I guess.

A few quick announcements

Update: FYI and just to clarify:
(i) Use the free account of www.esurveyspro.com for your phase I submission, *not* that of surveymonkey.com. (ii) Do *not* attempt to administer your phase I survey to anyone outside of pre-testing. I'll put together a consolidated, final questionnaire for the entire class based on your phase I submissions, on LRC's survey monkey pro account, that we will use for phase II - data collection. (iii) Pls feel free to ask questions and clarifications. Recall that MKTR involves a collaborative process with client input - I'll play the role of the client in case you need clarification on the scope and objectives etc.

Sudhir

Hi all,

Some quick announcements:

1. If you haven't already, pls take last year's project survey ASAP. Every MKTR student should take it regardless of whether or not his/her group-mates have done so already. I plan to release the questionnaire and the results (summary + raw data) over blackboard soon. I strongly recommend having familiarity with this dataset as well.  

*Basically, I cannot guarantee that questions pertaining to this dataset etc will not land up in the midterm.

2. Pls refresh your Excel SOLVER skills. Am told you have done quite a bit of this on DMOP or something. Good, as it saves me a ton of trouble. We're starting out with the Modeling and Solution primer tomorrow for sections A & B. DOn;t forget to bring your laptops, janta.


3. We're racing to complete grading Quiz I as we speak.  Would like to clarify re Quiz I for sections C & D that only people who score 0 out of 8 in the first 2 questions will be eligible and be invited to take a re-quiz for those 8 points. If the eligible folks don;t want to the the quiz, fine. This is a one-time exception only. I odn;t want folks to think such will happen after every quiz or anything.


Thanks and regards,

Sudhir

Some Phase I Guidance

Update: Got this comment which I replied to in an older post but IMHO it bears wider dissemination.
Rajesh writes:

Dear Professor

The explanation of the situation in which the management (XYZ corp)currently is appears very short in the project scope document.
Is the XYZ corp trying to figure out whether to enter into various segment like banking/finance/Insurance which will be available to it post the new license policy or these sectors are just some of the options among others like real estate? Further if the answer to the above question is only the banking/Finance/insurance, then is the management also looking at mapping asset sub classes which it should offer to the target segment ( Retirement planning).

I respond:

Hi Rajesh,

Thanks for the feedback.

XYZ can enter into a variety of sectors based on the current distribution of preferences among *broad* asset classes in the target population. There are some asset classes such as Gold, where XYZ can't do much but the info would be good to know that such % is gunning for Gold.

XYZ can enter the property sector not to compete with DLF or anything but perhaps in housing finance, if housing is seen as sufficiently attractive for a good % of the target population.

Point being that a lot of asset sub-class level detail would probably not be required for this study. XYZ will need to commission follow-up detailed studies if this one throws up interesting opportunities.

Warning: Longish post - but worthwhile read, IMHO.

Hi All,

There've been some queries that might be more widely shared by the class at large. Let me use this post to try to answer some.
Vikram writes:

Sir,

We were discussing the project and have a query:
We want the consumer's requirement at retirement.
But we would also need to present him with the investment he needs to make corresponding to a return.
Will we get information about premiums we can use for this purpose ?

My response:

Hi Vikram,

Kindly look at the comments section of this thread

http://marketing-yogi.blogspot.com/2010/10/phase-i-submissions.html

Maybe some idea of what I have in mind might emerge. In any case, you don’t have to buy into my ideas on this one and can choose to go your own route.
I shall address your post separately and then postthe same on the blog.

Going forward, I'd rather questions of a general nature be taken to the blog (a response is guaranteed within a few hours at most!) where the entire class can access, share and benefit from the same.

In general, I've avoided giving much 'guidance' on the project for fear of biasing your natural thought processes and responses to the scope document. So let me stress, my ideas aren't necessarily the only 'right' approach to this problem. If your approach differs, fine.

People, please lookup the comments sections to different posts for relevant Q&A. Pls use the comments section for follow-up Q&A. Let me first quote what I wrote in the comments section of 1 post below:

Respondents may be unable or unwilling to answer certain questions.

In such cases, we tone down the info content of the questions. For example, instead of asking folks to reveal their household incomes, we ask merely that they pick this off a list of ranges.

Similarly, IMO, since we are interested in the distribution of preferences across asset classes, a rough, relative measure of such allocation might suffice. E.g., "Out of 100% that I put into longterm savings and investments, I'd ideally go with 15% in equities, 15% in a private provident fund, 40% EMI on house loans, and the rest in bank FDs".

IMHO, respondents will hopefully give a true picture, on average, of such allocations. Down the line somewhere, one might casually inquire into current income p.m. range and % of that put into longterm savings.

Again, this is entirely my static view and you needn't follow it 100%. Based on your evolving plan, go with what you think is best for phase I.

Let me add to this now. Think from the Client's perspective also. The client is interested in a known-unknown  - the broad range of asset classes currently (and prospectively) finding favor with the target population, and the current state of awareness and attitude among the target population towards these alternatives.

Some folks may not even have thought about retirements and longterm savings. What is the % of such people in the target population? What markers - demographic or psychographic -  may distinguish them from other folks?

Then again, some other folks may have thought deeply about this issue and planned their retirements in some detail. What is the % of such folks, their motivations, background, Identification markers, and importantly, their current portfolio like?

Some people would be in-between the two extremes above. How amenable are they to the message that retirement planning is important? How best to reach them via media exposure?

In general, how do people view investments such as property, gold, stocks, etc? Long term savings-vehicles?  Inflation hedges? Retirement income sources? I don't know what else you may come up with. These things I am thinking up as I type.

Even more generally, what factors affect the awareness, attitudes, ideas and actions of people vis-a-vis the issue at hand? Is it their age, their stage in the life-cycle, their family size - # children, their employment type, peers and social circle, the influence their parents' choices in this regard had on them, opportunities at hand, etc etc.

If you want to use standard Marketing frameworks you have learnt elsewhere here, be my guest. For instance, I can think of the AIDA framework in Kotler that could be gainfully applied. AIDA stands for 'Awareness-Intention-Decision-Action' and measures where potential consumers are on this continuum vis-a-vis a particular product.Erratum: 'Decision' was previously incorrectly IDed as 'desire'

All these things may or maynot figure in your design of the questionnaire. All of them probably cannot be accommodated anyway in the spacetime constraints we are operating under. This then, is the challenge for you, the call you have to make.

The 15+ person-hours (at least, I expect) your group spends on the questionnaire design should be great leaning in the process of satisficing competing demands and requirements, optimizing available resources within set constraints and all in the framework of a complex issue at hand. This is the real learning the course hopes to impart - the bookish gyan is always there anyway.

Chalo. The post is long enough already. I should stop. Pls feel free to use the comments section for follow-up Q&A, feedback, critique and discussion

Sudhir

P.S. Also meant to mention some best practices from last year that came into handy. Some groups modularized the questionnaire and had subgroups of 2-3 work on separate modules. Apart from the efficiency of parallel-processing that this mechanism gave them, an added advantage was that one subgroup could pre-test the others' modules. Am not sure if this will work for your particular group or not, but something to consider.
Also, let me once again, strongly urge groups to setup and use free Wikis to coordinate activities across time and distance. Pls see the relevant blogpost below for the link to Wiki creation.

New stuff up on Blackboard

Hi all,

Have putup 2 new items on blackboard - (1) Rcode and height-weight data for those among you who may want, for whatever reason, to replicate the simulation exercise we saw in class in lecture 4.

And (2) a sample homework solution that a student sent in and graciously agreed to share with the rest of the class. Now I think except for one question (the price/oz one) the rest of her work seems fine, but I may be wrong. Kindly go through, compare with your own answers and let me know if all is well. BTW, 'top-selling' referred to revenue based, unless otherwise specified.

Am going through this midterm preparation process. Its a thankless job but somebody has to do it. And invariably, I can't get rid of the nagging feeling that the exam is too easy. In any case, typically about 50% of the marks are the peaceful and straightforward variety. Another quarter moderately tough and the last quarter is tricky. Typically.

Sudhir

Phase I submissions

Hi all,

The phase I deadline is midnight (or 11.59 pm) of wednesday 27-oct. It was originally intended to be 25-oct but group formation delays have pushed it slightly further up.


There are 2 deliverables in phase I. A working link of your websurvey must be entered into this google form:



link



Immediately after, send an email to your respective AA with a word doc soft copy of your questionnaire that should also have the URL on it somewhere.

Any doubts, queries, clarifications etc, pls use the comments section of this thread or email me.

Sudhir

Weekend Mailbag

Update: More Mailbag:

V writes:

Could you please post sample questions for both parts of the exams?
 One more que: the MCQs on the slides are any representative (of content and level of difficulty) of the questions you might ask in the exam?

My response:

Hi V,

Am yet to make the main paper itself. The sample paper will likely have to wait. I hope to release a few sample questions at least 24-36 hrs prior to the exam.

The MCQs will be a mixed bag - some easy, some moderately easy and a select few, tricky. The class slides are more to stimulate discussion, critical thinking etc than to 'settle' an issue this way or that. Hence, no, the MCQs in the exam will leave a lot less room for interpretation and controversy, I hope.

Sudhir

Hi all,

Shall keep updating this post with more mail queries that are sharable with the class at large. So kindly check for updates every once in a while.

'S' writes:

Dear Professor,

Would it be possible to please upload the answers to beer dataset practice questions. It will really help us in verifying if we have got the answers right.

My response:

Hi S,

I haven't made any solutions to the beer dataset myself. However if you wish to share your solutions with the class (anonymously, if so preferred), I'll be most happy to do so on the blog so that other people can compare answers and confirm/disconfirm particular solutions.

Sudhir

Exam announcement - the Coop case

Update:
Folks, Piyush has raised an important question regarding phase I submissions in the comments section to which I have replied there. Kindly carry that conversation forward in the comments section in case you have any further queries or comments to add. I shall later make a separate blogpost to provide more detailed info on this matter.

Hi all,

ASA confirmed today that you will all be permitted to take your course-packs into the exam hall for the entire duration of the exam. And with good reason. The chicken coop case in the course pack *might* see some action in the exam. Again, 'might' is the operative word here, no guarantees something from there will land up. But if I were you, I'd not take chances with skipping a detailed read-through of the case. Just saying, only.

Do let me know if you're planning to use Wikis to coordinate group project activity.

And pls ensure JMP is up and loaded and ready before mid-term.

Sudhir.

Final group formation

Pls find the google spreadsheet for final group formation.
MKTR final group list

The allotment is *final*. We have tried to maintain expressed preferences as far as possible.

Ice-cream survey dataset & exercises

Hi all,

The AAs will soon upload a zipped file containing 4 files - (i) soft copy of the questionnaire (ii) practice questions word doc (iii) results summary sheet (iv) results raw data sheet.

Kindly ensure you can solve all the exercise questions. Feel free to email me with questions if any, or meet the AAs with the same.

Even though you already had the hard copy distributed in class, the soft copy of the questionnaire has been put there for a reason. I'd strongly urge each group to use it to practice translating a questionnaire into websurvey. Embed the SKIP logic into the websurvey while you are at it, on esurveyspro.com free account. Do it concurrently with the design and development of the Phase I project questionnaire. Use this weekend to its fullest.

Sudhir

Quiz 1 for sections C & D

Folks,

We had a 10 minute quiz based on the beer dataset for sections C and D today.

There were complaints that some haven't any prior familiarity with Pivots etc and hence are at a natural disadvantage in such a quiz. I broadly agree with the caveat that I'd opened the dataset to the class and the associated homework quite some time ago, put up links and online tutorials to lookup functions and pivot tables here on the blog days ago, and had repeatedly hinted the same might make its way into a quiz or exam. I would expect folks to work these issues out at that time itself.

However, after a conversation with the AA and in the interest of fairness, we have decided to

(i) run a special second quiz on the same topic for people who score between 0-2 out of the 8 marks assigned for the first 2 questions.

This second special quiz will be tougher than the preceding one, mind you.

(ii) have a tutorial based on demand.

Hope that clarifies and helps. Going fwd however, let me clarify that anything homework related should be do-able by you. If you can't do it, ask your group mates or the AA for help.

I shall soon putup raw data for the Ice cream dataset and release a list of practice/homework/ exercise questions. Again, I cannot guarantee that the concepts asked won't landup in a quiz or exam somewhere. For your midterm anyway, you should ensure that all the datasets released are loaded in your laptop.

Exam related mailbag

Hi all,

Shall update this thread with new exam related queries and my replies going forward for the next few days. So pls check this back for new updates every now and then.

Ipsita emailed saying:

Professor,

Could you post a sample excel data and question set for the data analysis part of the mid-term exam.
Also, for the beer data set and ice cream survey data, what are the type of questions do we need to answer.

Regards,

My response:

Hi Ipsita,

The homework questions are lengthier versions of what the exam questions could look like. I plan to open up the Ice-cream survey raw data to the class followed by a series of practice/HW questions for exercise. These shall be fairly representative of what my come for the exam/quizzes etc.

Hope that helps.

Sudhir

General announcements & thoughts

People,

Well well, dekhtey-dekhtey half of week 2 has gone by. Another 2.5 weeks to go. Only. Lots to do and a lot has been done too, if you think about it.

I would urge folk to start thinking in terms of Phases I & II.  Kindly start reaching out to potentials who may ultimately take the survey. Email saying you will be contacting them with a survey and so on. Better to try and recruit as many as possible early on even while the questionnaire design stage is in progress.

Hopefully, we will have sorted out the group formation confusion for the vast majority of people today itself. Again, people, start off ASAP. Do consider launching a group-specific Wiki to help things along.

We discussed a real websurvey launched in the US in 2008 - the Ice cream dataset today. The word doc with the questionnaire plan is typical of how surveys are designed before we transplant the questions online. There is a summary dataset associated with this survey putup currently on blackboard. I will further on also putup a raw data set and give out some homework questions along with it. Again, the homework is for practice only - no need to submit etc. 

I've been getting queries about possible tutorials and solutions to the homeworks. Well, I haven't solved the homeworks myself, and would be quite happy to share anybody's solution up here on the blog. Would be nice to have a homework solution thread where people can share different and hopefully more efficient ways of getting these simple basic analyses done on excel or other software.

Haven't heard about the JMP issue. Pls let me know how that one is going.

OK, the format of the midterm has been finalized with the ASA. There'll be 3 parts to the exam - a 30 minute multiple choice question one, a 45 minute short answers one (case or caselet based among other things), and finally a 45 minute laptop based practical analysis exercises one. The first 2 parts are closed-book closed-notes but have a cheat sheet permitted. Part 3 is open-book, open-notes and open-laptop. You'll have a 20-30 minute break between parts 2 and 3 to ready your laptops and download the dataset.

The blog hasn't found much participation or interaction with the class as yet. I continue to hope that may change in the coming days. In any case, it has reduced the amount of mass emailing I'd done compared to last year.

Chalo, enough for now. Ciao.

Sudhir

Final group formation

UPDATE: Group Formation

Folks, mischief has been afoot. Turns out that at the time I closed the Google spreadsheet for edit access (around 4 am on Wednesday), many names and PGIDs were simply deleted from the spreadsheet. To my untrained eye, this looks more like deliberate mischief than any technical error. 

We're already much delayed in this simple administrative step. I would very much like to close this issue today if possible. Could each group pls email the AA of your section with a cc to all other group members so that we can settle what is settled and allott the other people randomly?

Pls do so positively by evening today - all four sections!

Sudhir

Hi all,

Pls find the google spreadsheet for final group formation.

Google doc link

The allotment is *final*. I've tried to maintain expressed preferences as far as possible. Some group names that didn't comply with stated policy have been changed. Have used the names of some of the Saptarishis to rename such groups.

Any changes to a group (additions/mergers etc) compared to the old spreadsheet have been marked in a yellow cell background.

I wouldn't want to make any changes any more. However, the only permissible case is if two people approach me with wanting to exchange places. That option also expires at 6 pm today (Wednesday) for all 4 sections.

Folks, pls email and setup a group meet as quickly as possible. Setup a wiki, divvy up roles and responsibilities and get the action started. Goodluck and Godspeed.

Sudhir

Lecture 2 practice exercise & related excel help

Update:
Santosh writes:

Sir,
I solved the “Beer Bottle homework questions” . But i have done it brutally(took 1 hour for 1st 2 questions). I probably think there are better ways of looking at the data.
I would like to meet you regarding this and clarify my doubts. What would be the right time to meet you.
Thanks

My response:

Did you use pivots, filters, excel lookup functions ?

IMO, it should not have taken that long once you understood the structure of the dataset.

Folks, more generally, these things - lookup, filters, pivot tables - are fairly basic and are typically assumed known by all top MBA program grads  in the real world outside. Always a good idea to learn if you're new to this. Pls see main post below:


Hi all,

Had some queries on how well to know excel from the course viewpoint. I'd say - know your lookup functions and pivot tables at the least. These things are also hugely useful out in the marketplace. Folks, if someone is not comfortable with these excel tools, pls lend a hand and help out. I'm putting forth a few youtube how-to videos also to help the process.

Pls find below the YouTube video link to understand the use of pivot table and vlookup function in excel, which can be of help to understand and solve lecture 2 practice exercise.
vlookup function
Pivot table function

Also, I'd suggest each group create its own wiki to coordinate group activity.
Here's an easy way to get started:
How to make a wiki (with a simple how-to video)

People, if you're not familiar with Wikis, I would strongly encourage you to view the vid to see the gains for yourself. And use it to get more done in phase I of the project. Besides, making a wiki is free, as far as I know.

Sudhir

P.S.
An excel sheet with survey results for Ice-cream data has been putup on the blackboard. Kindly bring it on your laptops to class for lecture 4. The Ice-cream survey itself will be distributed in class as caselet 4.2.

More project group related queries

Hi all,

Got a few queries in class today that I should discuss.

1. Some groups have foreign students in them who wouldn't have access to India based networks for data collection. Let me assure you that will be taken into consideration when grading for phase II.

2. One good idea I was given today was to randomly allocate all students in each section into groups. That way gaming using past section associations would not happen. I can see why this is a good idea and indeed I would have gone this route perhaps. However, at this stage, I will not seek to further rock the boat. I will randomly assign folks into groups who are left out at the end of the process today.

3. I will collect information about the core sections for the membership of each group. It is no secret that groups where no more than 2 people are from one section contain in them diversity and a prior lack of familiarity with each other. Groups with 3-4 or more people from the same core section, conversely, will have high familiarity with one another and a better team rapport to start off with. Concomitantly, expectations and benchmarks for such groups will be higher.

3. People, the project is more about a learning experience than anything else. A good group helps but what makes a good group is its members. I believe, a sincere set of intelligent folk, which you all are, will be able to make a good group provided you want to. Once you've had a few project meetings, you are a team playing towards a well-defined goal and not just a group randomly thrown together.

Sudhir

An aside

I wrote an aside last year on this exact day 18-oct. Probably the most eloquent piece I've ever written. A bit longish and no relation to MKTR. An aside, basically.

JMP troubles

Hi all,

Anmol of Section B had written to me previously about this issue and he's brought it up today again as well.

It seems that JMP is not working for most people, that a 'license expiry' message comes up. I've written to ITCS about this already and they have confirmed license validity till May 2011.

I'm told that JMP will have to be reinstalled for it to work again. Would be good to get a confirmation of this.

In the meantime, pls use the comments section of this thread to share relevant info with the rest of the class. Thank you.

Sudhir

Project announcements

Hi all,

Its a tad disheartening to see that group formation has remained incomplete across sections despite its deadline slipping by.

1. The deadline stands extended till Tuesday midnight for group formation now. Consequently, phase I deadline (for websurvey submissions) is also pushed to Tuesday midnight next week. This extension comes at the expense of phase III time, I must add.

2. If for any reason you are disinclined to look for a group to join, kindly write 'randomly assign' next to your name in the Google spreadsheet. I'll assign you to a group randomly after that, period.

3. Pls sign up for a free account on www.esurveypro.com and use their question types and their skip logic in making your questionnaire. Phase I submissions will happen in a Google form that I shall create for this purpose.

4. I will add further updates here. Pls check the blog regularly henceforth. In the meantime, it is recommended to take last year's survey.

Sudhir

Project group formation - What's in a name?

Well,

Can't help but notice that at the time of writing, Section C clearly scores in its ability to pick interesting, relevant, thought-provoking names that don't look like IPL spoofs.

'Immortals of Meluha'? Wow. I immensely enjoyed reading that one. (The author is ex-IIMC, from my alma mater, btw). But I'm not sure it would qualify as an 'epic' in the classic sense, would it?

Anyway, its your group folks. Am OK with whatever name you go with. 'The eggplant' however simply does not cut it. Or maybe I'm missing something here.

Chalo, see half of you in class tomorrow. Ciao.

Sudhir

Project Scope feedback and Discussion

Hi all,

Received the following (excellent) feedback from a student on the project scope document. My response is included below. More queries or discussions welcome.

The project scope seems quite interesting although I feel that the scope might be just a little too wide. With a questionnaire as short as you require it to be, we might not be able to do justice to the analysis requirements. The scope document suggests that we analyze the current investments, the likely asset classes they are interested in, their perceptions about, the customers' media habits, perceptions about insurance and relevant banks, lifestyle and psychographic analysis, to name a few. I might be wrong but I feel that the analysis may lack depth if we try to cover everything mentioned here.For instance, assessment of media habits mostly calls for a whole different market research project itself.

Regards,
Romessa

My response:

Hi Romessa,

Thanks for the feedback. In fact, IMHO (in my honest/humble opinion) this comment and subsequent discussion merits a separate blogpost, perhaps.

I did consider making the survey more 'specific' - as in restricted to a handful of asset classes. Turns out that is what I expect will happen anyway, after you've deliberated upon the options available, listed them, shortlisted from among them and arrived at an actionable set based on questionnaire design constraints. This process of creating a wide list and narrowing it down to a handful of realistic options - based on secondary data perhaps, on exploratory conversations with experts in the area, on preliminary conversations with people who fit the target profile, etc - is something IMHO the class should go through in the process of questionnaire design.

15 minutes is usually good enough for upto 40 multiple choice questions of which about 10 are simple demographic information collection. Now, the other 30 questions on topic can reveal quite a bit provided the answer categories have been arrived at and fixed with care and thought.

The websurvey isn't quite administered to total strangers in this project, so typically slightly more leeway in response and completion rates can be expected, based on last year's experience.

Perhaps you could look up what folks did last year to a topic that was just as broad. I have putup links to last year's project scope document and some posts from Oct 2009 talk about questionnaire design travails. In fact, last year's survey should still be on, live. Try to take the survey and see how long it takes you!

As for media habits, yes, it can be made as intricate as necessary. IMHO, here, the point is to get some broad idea about media exposure of the most attractive segments of the target population which is better than nothing. Just a broad idea and not really very precise estimates or anything.

In any case, hang on for lecture 3 to commence and a clearer picture of survey design to emerge. I hope things will become clearer then.

Sudhir

OK, here are the posts from last year's project questionnaire design issues:

The websurvey live link from last year is here. The survey is *still* open. I would strongly urge folk to take the survey and see for themselves the time it takes, the kind of questions we came up with last time, etc.

Thoughts on the project questionnaire. This was in response to Q&A and clarifications on what the criteria were. This one is a recommended read, janta.

Some issues relating to specific questions, wording etc. This one is more to give you a flavor of the kind of issues and details that crop up going forward. This is more in the same mold.

Hope that helped.

Sudhir

Some miscell topics

Hi all,

A few quick discussions.

1. Have had conversations with folk who insist on the need to have class slides available before the lecture. I hesitate for a variety of reasons, including the experience last year. However, as a compromise, this I can assure you - the slides for about 5 lectures on the quantitative side, sanitized for the quickfires, will be made available on blackboard before the start of the respective lectures.

2. Pls bring all handouts and slides, including from previous lectures, to class every time. Consider it a part of the course pack for all practical purposes. There may be occasions when caselets, slides etc covered in previous sessions will be seamlessly referred back to. Also, since almost all pop-quizzes are likely to be open-book, open-notes, it makes sense anyway to get these things to class.

3. Have put up the project scope document. See blog post preceding this one. Would like relevant and constructive feedback and comments. This is your chance to influence the project, I say. Once this thing is finalized and frozen, that is it.

4. I would encourage groups to meet more often and discuss MKTR topics whether or not project related, on an ongoing basis. Make the project group a kind of study circle. if you will.

5. The lec 2 beer dataset based HW is out. It involves essentially basic analysis - summarizing data, aggregating and sorting etc. Very basic stuff that everyone at this level should know without having to think. It involves lookup functions and pivot tables - which are again, essential tools in the workplace which every MBA should know like the back of their hand.

Sudhir

Project Scope Document putup on Google Docs

Hi all,

Pls find the Project scope document putup on a Google read-only word-doc here:

Google doc link

Kindly read through the entire tentative scope document carefully. Comments and feedback are welcome.

If there's something obvious that has been missed, pls let me know. If something asked for is totally unrealistic, again, let me know.

I will freeze and release the final scope document sometime on Monday after collecting feedback.

Broadly, there are 3 phases to the project, all of which are graded. Recall that the project has 40% of total course grade. This is further split thus:

Phase I: e-Questionnaire design. Worth 10% of course grade. Expected to be completed and submitted by the start of lecture 5.

Phase II: Data collection by websurvey. Worth 10% of course grade. Expected to be completed by the start of lecture 8.

Phase III: Data analysis, inferences, recommendations and report (PPT deliverable). Worth 20% of course grade. Expected to be completed and submitted by the start of lecture 10.

Lecture 3 is about survey design. Reading the relevant bits of the relevant textbook chapter would help get a headstart for Phase I, IMHO.

Some of you may have prior familiarity with the subject and could come up with questionnaire inputs directly. Others may try to do a small pilot exploratory study to get to the inputs to a questionnaire and seek help from fellow ISB students majoring in finance, friends, alums and colleagues in the field working on this subject, the management of our own local ICICI branch and their portfolio of products etc.

End of the day, your questionnaire and websurvey design will be evaluated for quality, consistency, and completeness among others.

Pls keep the websurvey to reasonable length! No more than 15 minutes at most should be taken up for a reasonable person with a reasonable net connection to take the survey.

OK, shall stop here now. Will add more updates as and when they occur.

Sudhir

Lecture 2 pratice exercise & groups related info

Hi all,

Pls find below the link to a read-only google doc listing out a practice few questions from the ACN beer dataset we discussed in lecture 2. The terms used in the dataset are standard syndicated dataset terminology the world over. Lec 2 slides are uploaded and you can find some explanation there too.

Google doc link to lec 2 practice exercises

Re group formation:
Have permitted group sizes between 6-8 people to ease the group formation process given that already the within-section restriction has constrained choices.

However, different group sizes poses evaluation issues. Particularly in the data collection via websurvey phase of the project, group size will be taken into account.

Sudhir

Google Doc for Group Formation

Hi Class,

As promised, here's the google doc to facilitate group formation. Pls click on the link below:
Google Doc link.

The final registrant lists are here. We have 56, 68 and 57 folk registered in sections A,B,C respectively, and 66 in Sec D. That means we will have 8 groups exactly in sec A, 9 in section B, 8 in sec C and 9 in Sec D - i.e., 34 groups in all considering on an average 7 people in a group.

Pls reach out to other folk within your sections and form groups. If you're unable to get a group by the start of lecture 3, I will randomly assign you to a group - end of discussion.

Added later:
Ideally each group should have 7 members only. However, 6-8 people in a group is fine as well. This is based on feedback I am getting from folk in the class.

Kindly choose names for your groups. Last year we had folks choose names from among India's numerous small towns and everything from Shahjehanpur to Shillong and Agartala to Ajmer got chosen. This year, I'm asking you to pick names of characters from the Epics - the native Indian classics such as the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Abhigyan Shakuntalam would be an awesome choice IMHO. Else the testaments, the Greek classics or the Bible could also be also possible sources, perhaps. Be creative and let's start off on a light footing.

Pls choose *unique* names for your groups. No 2 groups can share the same name. Also, first come, first serve - Groups that choose a name first, get to keep it.

P.S.
Shall upload a homework based on the AC Nielsen beer dataset that was putup on blackboard for lec 2.

More later.

Aaj ka mailbag 12-oct-2010

Well, I got this email:

Dear Prof Sudhir,

We had bid for section C of MKTR course. We had already formed the group as per the course guidelines with people across sections. But in today’s class you mentioned that groups need to be formed strictly within the section.

At this point in time, we are not comfortable forming the group with people who we have not worked with in the past. Group project makes a large part of the course and hence we need to be really careful in choosing the right group. We would like to know if there is still scope for forming a group across sections, as this would help us in deciding whether to continue with the course.

My response:

Hi,

The group formation is retricted to within-section only.

Sudhir

Well, it is a tricky situation, admittedly. The reason I'd like to have all-within section groups this year is that in lecture 10, space has been made for a few groups to at random, face a live audience cross-questioning of their PPT presentations. Ideally the entire group would need to be present for this.

Now, its entirely possible that things may happen such that there's no time left by lecture 10 to do what I have planned.

A few observations:

1. I understand that one would rather work with people one knows a priori and all. However, in life and all too often in the marketplace, you may end up in a team you did not choose. Would you walk away then also? IMHO, it makes sense to take a chance with a bunch of well-meaning strangers and tough it out. But that's just my opinion, you don't have to agree.

2. I understand there's the danger that some in a group may game the system and choose to free-ride rather than contribute positively. Happens all too often, sadly. Hence, the plan is to have a peer-evaluation setup within the project teams. That way, folk deliberately seeking to free-ride will be in for a surprise.

3. The project last year was somewhat of a messy process. It was the first time I was managing something like that and there were stumbles galore. This time, thanks to the learning curve and all, I expect the process will be much smoother. The project deadline got extended and all last time. This time, we'll finish in week 5.

Shall add more thoughts as they occur. Thanks for your patience.

P.S.
Have sent the lecture 1 slides to be put up on blackboard. My answers to the quickfires are in bold font (again, feel free to disagree with my answers). A dataset which will be put in use in lecture 2 has also been put up.

Lecture 1 mailbag

OK, already have started receiving emails regarding issues. Will post them here for the whole class.

Dear Sir,

I just checked JMP and as I suspected, the license we were issued has expired, effective 31st May.



Regards,

AJ

My response:

Hi A,

Am following up with IT. I'm told the licesnse is there for the whole year. Am copying the AAs onto this as well.

Let's see how this goes. Shall update the blog with this news.

Sudhir

Update:
OK, mail from IT just happened.

Dear Professor,

We are having JMP license valid till 31-Mar-2011. If students are facing any problem with the license they can reach ITCS, we will update the same accordingly.

Hope that helps.

Hello and Welcome

A big 'Hi and welcome' to the class of 2011.

This is to introduce you to the (informal) course blog. A good way to see what role the blog plays is to check out what it did last year.

Pls find the introductory blogpost last year here. Most of the post holds for this year too. There are 4 changes, however:

1. Pls access the blog for information etc on a regular basis - at least once before a lecture and so on. This was 'optional' last year, but is upgraded to 'recommended' this year. IMO, this will save a ton of time, trouble and mass e-mail.

2. Anonymous commenting has been disabled this year. I found last year that it is indeed susceptible to misuse.

3. Your participation on the blog remains entirely optional. However, updates regarding announcements, notifications, clarifications, queries and doubts etc will break first on the blog. So pls check for updates regularly.

4. We'll have a mid-term and no end-term this year. Last year, we had an end-term and no mid-term.

Going through last year's blog posts, here are some typical ones:
Pls find an explanation for lecture slides non-distribution prior to class here.

You can browse through last year's project scope document here. If you browse posts under the 'Project' tag, you can see how things evolved last year re the project. Of course the project topic will change this year.

Some email feedback here and much more here.
Disclaimer: Quiz formats etc may change this year, so the posts for last year are indicative only.

Chalo, that's a start. 9 more lectures to go.

Sudhir

The big day (Oct-11) cometh

Oct-11 shall mark the start of the second time I teach MKTR at the ISB. There is only a touch of nervousness this time, unlike the flood of it last time. Hopefully, things will go smoothly.

Mistakes were made in the first edition. I trust those will be steered clear of this time. Am equally sure despite all efforts new stumbles will happen again this time. The cycle continues. Perfection is ever-elusive, anyway.

Am busy with updating the lecture slides, making caselets, prepping quizzes, the works. That explains the rather slim course manual this time. And that's fine too. A good part of the course manual last time didn;t find use. The relevant bits this time will be delivered as hard-copy in the classroom.

Research work, at a crucial stage in a couple of projects, will now perforce have to tone down. Can't escape the feeling that, well, if I had one more week, I'd have been able to do this and that within that time and send 'em papers out only. That feeling is always there and is probably false comfort.

Feedback from last year I have tried to incorporate - primarily the Indianizing of content, the standardization of software used, a streamlining of the project timetable, and a rebalancing of statistical analysis with qualitative insights. Time will tell how this goes.

Chalo, signing off for now. Adios.