This conference will be streaming in real-time. And you can attend it virtually from anywhere, online.   You can ask questions to the speakers live by tweeting your questions with the #beatthegmat hashtag.

I’m not sure whether they’d broadcast it and live-stream it online (via webcam?) but I think they should.

Shout out to all those living in San Francisco/bay area especially near San Mateo, you can attend the conference in person, it’s free seminars, free consulting/advice, free opportunity to network & make new friends & of course free lunch. So dont miss this event. Click here to RSVP and attend the conference in person.

The event is arranged in progressive order, first you’ve GMAT prep tip and tricks, GMAT strategies, then applying to b-schools strategy covering most important aspect ie. ‘admission essays’. Then in afternoon, a story of a successful applicant and finally a glimpse of how it feels to be an MBA alum. All in one day free of cost! it’s a complete package that only a foolish can miss.

Here’s the detailed all day agenda for the conference:

I’ve always been attracted to Delhi, maybe it’s because Hindi language, nation’s capital, great history & legacy or Punjabi pop music influence on bollywood; it doesn’t matter, the point is I always ^tried to love^ Delhi….. whenever I go there. Yes, it’s not the first time I been there, so here we go. In red bold words are the top things I noticed in Delhi

Society, Culture & People:

If I visit new place, I love to get lost! (but fortunately/unfortunately I never got lost!) I love to explore cities, & when I went Delhi I see no beggars. There’re no beggars. At least nobody begged me! and it’s not that I wondered only in ^posh areas^ of city.  On bus station, auto rickshaw stand, railway stations, in the train, all possible public places, I never seen a beggar, it could be that everytime I went Delhi it was cold winter, but what would beggars do in cold? where do they go? & why should they come in summers anyways? it’s unbearable in New Delhi during any month of the year. I guess that is the reason why there’re no beggars, you cannot afford to be shelter-less in Delhi. Winter is freezing cold, summer is boiling hot & negligible rain during monsoon. Forget about beggars I wonder how normal people can live in that city! I observed very odd pattern and lifestyle at residential areas. In Delhi you buy a plot and build your own house. Landlord most of the cases gives on floor of the house/building for rent/lease. There’s no concept of equal people living together in a building owning flats like co-operative housing society, have common area, facilities like an apartment or sharing toilet and gallery like a chawl. Thus, every plot owner thinks selfish way. They have colonies consisting lots of grid-plots, where one plot ends and other starts sharing same compound fence. To utilise the avail land fully, they build house (?) corner to corner compromising greatly on ventilation. I would not call them houses they are actually small concrete boxes in a big city. There’re no skyscrapers for residents. I rarely seen high-rise buildings but those were corporate offices. I see it more like London than Mumbai. Still it cannot be compared with London, as it’s not a cosmopolitan city.  In Delhi, all people speak in Hindi, (including the staff at the American Library) yes true! I hear haanji (yes sir!), sirji, ji, all the time. Really, once you’re outside your home, all people from boy at tea-stall to rickhaw-wala everybody address you with “sir” or “sirji“, that’s such awkward for Mumbaikar like me, c’mon, sir? oh, & if you want to know how they address here in Mumbai, just watch Taxi No. 9211. In fact most of the bollywood movies are filmed in Mumbai, has Mumbai in its theme and demonstrate Mumbai culture and style. Very rarely, a film is produced with Delhi-theme e.g. Khosla ka Ghosla. Same is with advertising be it print or TV media, since most of the ad agencies that work in Indian advertising industry are located in Mumbai, they have Mumbai flavour in their ads. Anyways before I lose my track, the point is if you don’t live near NCR area, or Northern India in general, you’re not exposed to Delhi culture well; whereas you get glimpse of Mumbai’s lifestyle and culture by watching TV & Bollywood movies. For instance I was not aware of Delhi’s clothing sense, fashion etc. & I must tell you I’m impressed. Not just girls are good looking they dress well, I think girls from Pune should learn something Delhi and Chandigargh. Sigh!

to be continued read part-2 transportation

For more details visit the official announcement, & if you’ve further questions, please divert them to the forums. Thank you.

That doesn’t mean that end of this blog or website, but I’d add posts here when I have something significant to say. In fact I’m in the process of adding many static pages to blog. Notice resources, & GMAT books recommendation pages? they are in html, I’ll add them in this blog and also, many other resourceful webpages in pipeline.

On personal front: We’ve got new puppy (male dog). He’s cute & looks just like fantya, the dog we had 10-15 years back. I named him twitter. For naming actually I used the social media. Asked this question on Gtalk status, orkut etc & got tons of responses….(Ah now I feels like Chris Pirillo ). My cousin suggested that name & I really liked it. So I’m not acting like a zombie anymore. yep check profile page to know my current hobby/habits/interests

On Amrute’s website front: I’ve just renewed my domain to year 2012. So we dont have to bother much about those issues now.  Also I just had shoutout at Amrute orkut community to invite amrute to this website. So I expect some signups as well.

On beat the GMAT front: yes, Eric & David are fine tuning the website & new revamped website will be open by this weekend, 15 Nov. For time being you can check getting started at Beat the GMAT page.

~Enjoy~

Beat The GMAT has recently launched three features related to your regional/city specific GMAT needs.

1. Directory of free GMAT events

2. Directory of GMAT coaching classes near you (in your city)

3. Directory of city threads of local study group

Let me talk about it in detail,

The live GMAT events are mostly (I am most certain that they are free) available for free, maybe a trial class or a free workshop hosted by big GMAT coaching institute or MBA admission consultant. Take a sneek-peek of a sample description of live events at North River Chicago by ManhattanGMAT. Then there’s region wise classification of GMAT classes (read: point no. 2). See, for example GMAT test prep courses abailable at NYC New York city.

You will notice that the first two links/points are only available for US of America. However, in future it would show events across the globe. We’ve seen overwhelming response to our Lets meet up forum & thus to make this easier for our members searching for the local study group, I’ve created a directory of city threads. Check out the thread, you’ll be surprised we’ve covered more than 70 regions (& still counting). People have formed study group and I think, they meet occassionally to discussi GMATF strategies and their MBA admission blues.

Exciting isn’t it? So what are you waiting for? Find your regional thread for meet ups and more.

Being the prospective MBA students, I hope you all know what business case study means. (& what it meant to be the case study itself ) Definitely a proud moment as I consider myself once associated with pagalguy forums…

I heard last year that IIM Banglore is making a case study on Pagalguy.com. but it was not made open to public. Now it’s available & you can read who document here: http://www.iimb.ernet.in/~gprabhu/pgcase.pdf

There’re a lot of take aways from this document a lot to learn for any dot com startups or those who want to build a social networking sites etc. Although I already knew alot about it, as I’ve been watching the site closely since years, there’s great analysis and data in there. worth reading.

For those new to this site & pg, I’m tempted to write more about this company and its founder Allwin Agnel. So I’m just gonna copy-paste the stuff I wrote about him sometime back…

Allwin Agnel is one of the most dynamic entrepreneurs I have ever seen. His innovativeness on launching an online forum at the time when such technology was not much known to the audience & his creativity of constantly adding new features/tools to the portal & forums, Pagalguy.com, made it one of the MOST INFLUENCIAL websites for MBA aspirants. It’s not just a forum; it’s more of a community which go beyond online sharing of knowledge. I personally, made (a lot) more social contacts via pagalguy forums than all other social networking sites combined. And without selling any product to its members, he made a business model which is generating revenue & positive cash flow. (Something which web2.0 founders stuck to figure out). He’s an excellent motivator and a role model. Despite the fact that handsome jobs are raining in India, I am astonished to see, how successfully he created a great team at Inzane Labs and attracted more talented HR. It’s always a dream to work with him.

Yes, you can see the new box on the right column & see some people already joined it. & did I tell it’s Day 1 of this blog… (Obviously I asked them to join ) check this short and quick video to find out what exactly I am talking about:

Google Friend Connect is not just new for my blog but it’s new for the internet. It’s recently launched and has much to evolve. I’ll make it more interactive, may be enable facility to make comments or give 5 star ratings etc. But that depends on how this box grows at this site.

It’s in a way a small online/virtual social networking among the visitors of this site. So what are you waiting for? hit the “Join” button. If you’re a regular visitor, just do it. If you think you’re not gonna visit this site again, just do it leaving your footprints. Yeah, both ways “join” it’s hassle free. Now why I encourage you to join because it needs no-registration. All you need is already-existing-id with one of the big players: GMail, Yahoo or AOL. thats it.

It’s competition to mybloglog but I think google went a step ahead in terms of features, though they launched it later…

yes that means I can add some sites in the list or can remove some depending upon your choice. Obviously I’ve made that list for your convenience so if there’s no-one among my readers visit LinkedIn, there’s no point in listing it here. Also if large percent of you have MySpace account I can add my link in the list. Got my point?

So do comment & let me know if you think I should edit this link.. whichever social network or forum among the listed you’re associated with , feel free to add me there…

See you later