Canada

Slowly but steadily I am getting ready for a lot of changes in my life. In about 2 weeks at this time I will be at Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. While I am looking forward to the excitement an intense MBA program has to offer, I am not really happy about living away from my wife in a different country for a year. However, this is the path I have chosen… The last few days I have spent a considerable amount of my time taking different personality tests, to better understand my strengths and weaknesses, as I prepare for a career in business. I found these 3 tests to be particularly interesting. BCII: the Business Career Interest Inventory will help you discover what your interests in business work are. MPRP: the Management and Professional Rewards Profiles will help you prioritize what really is motivating to you in your work. MPAP: the Management and Professional Abilities Profile will help you identify your top abilities in business work. Here is a highlight of my interests, strengths and weaknesses as identified these tests. It is important to understand that the accuracy of these tests is dependent on my ability to have a good understanding of myself.
Interests
You have a strong interest in Application of Technology, one of the basic activities in business work. You take a systematic, engineering-like approach to solving problems and understanding systems and processes -- regardless of whether you've ever studied engineering. You feel comfortable with the "language" of technology and like to know how things work, and you probably enjoy using technology both in your work and outside it. You may want to express this interest by working in businesses that involve technology, either as a product or as an integral part of the services they provide.
Abilities
You have a number of strengths, including:
· Comfort with Differences: Comfortable and effective in relating to people from many different backgrounds and cultures.
· Creative Thinking: Able to think creatively, generating new ideas and approaches to situations.
· Merit-orientation: Judges ideas and people on merit alone, without bias or favoritism.
· Openness to Criticism: Accepts critical feedback without becoming defensive.
·Projection of Confidence: Projects self-confidence, even in uncertain and difficult situations.
·Resilience: Handles pressure and stress well.
·Respect for Others: Respectful of other people's points of view, as well as their ttime and priorities.
·Self-control: Does not act or speak impulsively; does not easily lose composure.
·Sensitivity and Tact: Sensitive and tacful: promotes an atmosphere of good feeling and mutual consideration.
·Teamwork: A team player: cooperative, works well as part of a group.
·Written Communication: A good writer, expresses ideas and positions clearly.
·Work Ethic: Has a strong work ethic, willing to make sacrifices to achieve important goals.
You also recognize some weaknesses in your business skill set:
· Comfort with Risk: Takes risks when appropriate, isn't afraid to innovate and experiment.
· Day-to-Day Responsibility: Takes good care of the day-to-day aspect of running things.
· Delegating: Delegates appropriately and effectively.
· Influence: Can influence and persuade other people, even without direct authority.
· Motivational Ability: Understands how to motivate different kinds of people to do their best work.
· Power-orientation: Comfortable asserting authority and using power.
· Recognition of Opportunity: Recognizes new opportunities and acts to take advantage of them.
· Sociability: Socially venturesome and self-assured; forms new relationships easily and works to maintain them.
We will come back in a year’s time and see how good I was at understanding myself. On a side note I am going to try very hard at not making this an MBA experience blog. There are enough of these going around…

ENERGY STAR Rated Homes

To find out more about ENERGY STAR rated homes visit http://www.energystar.gov/. Briefly, in a sentence, for a home to earn an ENERGY STAR rating it should be at least 15% more energy efficient than traditional homes. Because most homes use energy from coal fired power plants, about 16% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the US are from the energy used in homes. This raises an interesting point!

With a booming real estate market in India, I was wondering how much thought has been put into building energy efficient homes/offices. Isn’t this really an opportunity to incorporate green ways to generate energy into the very fabric of our society? How about building not just energy efficient but energy sufficient homes? I believe power in India is still supplied by state run bureaucratic, inefficient electricity boards. If an Indian home owner is given the choice of not having to deal with these electricity boards, would he/she not just jump on such an opportunity? Maybe all these things are unimportant in the Indian context. Homes probably emit only a fraction of the green house gases in India.

I doubt if right now global warming is at the top of our list of problems. However, with more than a billion people, it is likely that we are going to be one of the most affected due to climate changes in the world. It is for precisely this reason that we need to find a way to devote the resources, devise innovative solutions and reduce green house gas emissions.

Another Environment Initiative

On March 6th 2007, Bank of America announced an impressive $20 billion ten year environment initiative. Listed below are some of my favorites as part of the initiative.

• EPA Smart Way Transport Program: Under a partnership between the Environmental Protection Agency and the freight industry, the bank provides Small Business Administration (SBA) Express loans with no collateral and flexible terms to small and mid-sized trucking companies to finance fuel efficient technologies. The loan program helps trucking companies purchase Smart Way Upgrade Kits that include idle-reduction devices, low-rolling resistance tires, aerodynamic equipment and exhaust after-treatment devices. The kits can improve fuel efficiency by 15 percent·
• The Green Mortgage Program: Homebuyers will receive a reduced interest rate or $1,000 back for each home-purchase mortgage meeting ENERGY STAR specifications·
• Aggressive, voluntary goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the company nine percent by 2009 and seven percent in our energy and utility portfolio by 2008·
• Active program to reduce paper usage throughout company operations; from 2000-2006, the company reduced paper usage per associate by 40 percent

I really like the Smart Way Transport Program for its collaboration with Small Business Administration. Who better to drive clean energy initiatives than small business enterprises? The voluntary goals to reduce paper usage and reduce greenhouse gas emissions are important to increase Bank of America’s credibility and create an institution wide awareness, commitment and indoctrination towards the environment.

Guilty Conscience?

Do you have a guilty conscience about the carbon footprint that you are leaving in this world? Visit www.terrapass.com. For a reasonable price, without raising a finger, you can claim to have offset your CO2 emissions.

For example, recently Seattle’s power utility company, City Light, claimed to have net zero CO2 emissions because it had paid off various companies around the world to offset its contribution to global warming. But, nothing has changed. City Light still spews about 200,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere annually. Although City Light has been forbidden from purchasing anymore CO2 offsets, talk about passing the buck.

I find it amazing that we can fix our global warming problem simply by manipulating the books. I wonder if the environment sees the difference!

Opposition to Ethanol!

It had to happen 2 days after I make a bold prediction for the future. I am really not surprised considering how many times I have been caught with my foot in the mouth in the past few years.

Apparently, ethanol has a growing list of enemies. Livestock farmers who have been affected by the rising prices of corn, solar and wind energy protagonists who think that ethanol enjoys an unfair advantage in the alternative energy market and the environmentalists who think that the massive production of corn is damaging the environment. Their biggest complaint; the Bush administration is not letting free market forces decide the best alternative source of energy. So these anti-ethanol forces are getting together to eliminate the subsidies on US made ethanol and the tariffs placed on imported Brazilian ethanol.

An Intuition

It is my belief that bio-energy has more potential to solve the world’s energy problems than solar and wind energy can.

Both solar and wind power seem to suffer from similar drawbacks. Because the underlying technology to tap into wind and solar power is unlikely to change in the forthcoming years, it is doubtful that we will see innovations that will significantly change or improve their efficiency. Furthermore, both these technologies are sensitive to the changes in global weather patterns. Considering the fact bio-energy does not suffer from these drawbacks, it offers us the best opportunity to provide reliable sustainable solutions to the world’s energy needs. This should in no way be construed as an attempt to spell the doom of solar and wind power. They will still be a part of the world’s clean energy solution. Bio-energy is just going to be the bigger part!

After a Long Time…

The last month and half, I have been trying to take an informed stand on some of the issues that concern me. However, each time I have sat down to write about some of these topics, I have felt handicapped by an ignorance that has bogged me down. So, I have left these problems alone to be commented upon at a later time. I am sorry that the vagueness in this paragraph astounds you.

Now, here is something that I did not know. Apparently, the global bio-fuels market is bigger than the solar and wind energy markets. According to www.renewableenergyaccess.com, for the year 2006, the bio-fuels market is at $20.5 billion and is projected to expand to $80 billion by the year 2016, while wind & solar expected to grow from $17.9 billion to $60.8 billion and $15.6 billion to $69.3 billion in the same time frame.