 wish to discuss communication regarding events. So, how many of you have participated in organizing any component of any event? One, two, three, oh large numbers. Are you most of you research scholars? No, some of you are. So, what event? Fundraising. That's a tough job. So, let us write down some of the things. Fundraising event. Fundraising for a particular activity. Any other event that somebody has participated in? Yeah, you can do it. Sorry? Free software? Camp. Okay. You, what have you organized? Sorry? E, E summit. What is that? Event organized by? So, when you say E, E does not stand for electronic, but for entrepreneurship. Right? So, you say entrepreneurship summit, for tech fest, for the multiple, you participated in E summit. Why do you call it summit? And why not camp? Somebody else? Which part? Yeah, of tech fest, what part? Oh, you are chief coordinator of tech fest. Wow. The big one. None of you have participated in organizing paths? Hostel paths, they happen or they don't happen anymore? They happen. But the postgraduate students stay away from them or what? No. As computer science student, how many of the m tech have visited the poster presentations which the research scholars organized recently? Nobody. One, two. Okay. It tells me that you people are primarily not interested in research related communication, but everything else. That is fine. What about research scholars? I hope they at least participated in the poster presentation event. Let me generalize it to say any, now this could include posters, this could include conference, workshops, whatever. Now today, I wish to discuss with you some important aspects of communication or effective communication related to these events. Those of you who have not participated in organizing events would have received communication related to such events. Was that communication adequate? Was it well worded? Did you receive it in time? Did it ask for any immediate action on your part? If you did not fulfill that requirement or expectation, did you get a reminder? There are some very mundane questions and I am a prospective participant in an event. As a prospective participant, what kind of communication I should get? Those who organize the events, most of the time in India is spent by such organizers in handling actual logistics, whether the event room is ready or not, whether the furniture is there or not, whether the speakers have come in time or not, etc. But quite often, the aspect of effectively communicating to those who are concerned with the organization of the event as well as those who are going to participate is often missed out. Unfortunately, the event communication is completely related to and is in sync with the event organization. And more unfortunately, the people who are responsible for organizing the event are also responsible for ensuring that proper communication is done. And these two activities require a slightly different kind of expertise. People who are good in organizing logistics are not necessarily good in proper communication. Now each one of us has to be able to communicate reasonably well under any circumstances that is the objective. So here we will look at the communication aspect of event management. Any event that you wish to conduct or any event in which conduct you are participating, you will have a component related to interacting with people. And that interaction cannot be limited to verbal communication. It has to be written communication of some part. So that question, how many of you have written actually drafted a communication meant for the participants of any event? One. So what was that communication like? Was it an email or was it a poster or was it in NIT? Surat. Surat Kal. Let me repeat this. He participated in organizing an event in his erstwhile college National Institute of Technology Surat Kal, NIT Surat Kal, the erstwhile regional university. And there in one of the events we had to issue a poster regarding the venue of the event, the timing of the event and some basic rules. And he also had to send an email. So what was the email content? So whatever the poster information was and then how do you decide on whom do you send this email to? Did you send it as a mass mailer to all the student community in Surat Kal? Sir, there was a cloud group which already defied university. How many people have there? Sir, these 27... Email IDs you already had as a part of a spreadsheet or something? It was a Google group. One important take from this brief discussion is that when you have to send mails to 20 or 30 or 200 or 2000 or 20,000 people, you will generally not be typing individual email IDs. Because if you did, you will make a lot of mistakes and you will take a lot of time. So he resorted to using a Google group whereas some others might resort to forming mailing groups for example and give a single name to it. An important aspect of effective communication for such event management because without it you will lose a lot of time. Please understand that effective communication and in fact a good event management is ultimately related to optimizing the time that is spent on any activity by the organizers and making life extremely simple and well defined for all participants. That is the objective. So the poster that you wrote, you would have probably written the draft yourself. Was it corrected by someone? You only. It is the right process. A poster is to be displayed. So I decide what should be the contents of the poster and I myself corrected and then put it across. So can you guarantee that the poster had zero errors? Possibly. Nobody complained. So the feedback was nobody complained so therefore it is assumed that there were zero errors. You must have taken pains to ensure that there are no errors from his side. But as we have discussed time and again, it is often so that some others are able to find mistakes in whatever we write and therefore any such communication traditionally undergoes a revision or correction by someone else, anybody other than the person who has written. That is rule number one. Correctness of English language is syntactically important but whether the content convey everything that is required to be convey about the event, how do you ensure that? For example, if there is a contest, you said there will be rules of contest. So are the rules exhaustive? All exhaustive rules, can they be stated in a single poster or would you have a link in the poster saying more exhaustive rules are listed somewhere else? You should refer to them. Perhaps you did not knew them. So let's go to our friend from Anshunash itself. What was the event that you organized? It can be. It can be given multiple sub-events. Some events are idea-critic means the participants have given idea-critic. Then other events have some power. So take this idea. Did you participate in the event with the idea? No, I participated in the lecture. Organizing the lectures. Organizing the lectures. What do you go about? There are multiple lectures. Some have worked in India, some have worked in India. So for each lecture. See, this is not your mind. So let me repeat whatever she has said. For the sake of her recording, she said she was involved in organizing lectures. There were some speakers, she used the term lecturer. The lecturer term is often reserved for people who teach in established educational institutions. The people who speak on events are simply called speakers. So there were some speakers from India and some speakers from abroad. Now did you have already a list of prospective speakers? Oh, so there was a manager. How did the person at the top hierarchy get the list in the first place? Where the next person falls from sky? Someone took the report from the CES last time. Last time he couldn't just pick her. So those are the higher bakaras because we get them. So some of the students are from national engineering. Some is there. Of course they are enhanced by one. She compiled the list of prospective speakers. Let's say 20 speakers from India and 4 speakers from abroad. Arbitrary. Some such numbers. So you communicated with them later? After that, for each speaker, the speakers who were from abroad, they were quite new to this environment. So for each speaker, one of the conduct was assigned. And afterwards, they were beyond their conduct and the speaker was beyond our conduct. So going into these events and we are now concentrating on some particular portion and a sub portion and a sub sub portion of that activity. So this particular portion relates to making life simpler for a speaker who is coming from abroad, who is not familiar with the environment and therefore the event organizers decided that there should be a contact person for each speaker. The same contact person may be there for 2 or 3 speakers but there should be essentially a contact person. And that contact person should make life simple for the speaker to come. So in which way did you make his life, his or her life simple? How do I know that you are coming to receive me or not? Did you not communicate to me that you are likely to come to receive me? No, I just told them that some of us will come there and receive you. So I went there and I was standing with them. So you can see that Rajesh has participated very actively. He has participated in executing the logistic. He has not so much participated in the communication part related to him. No, you are talking about communication which is verbal communication between you and the speaker. I am talking about formal written communication before, during and after. After, yes. Before. But did you see a man which a manager has said to that person? So how was that written? What did he say? He made that much only in the last period in the book. So I did not feel like it. The last minute was the reason this person is out of contact with the speaker. Sir, rule number one is related to communication. While handling any event, all event related communication, unless it is confidential, should be kept at one place and should be visible to each and every person who participates in organizing that event. It should be accessible. It need not be read by everybody necessarily. But suppose I am given the responsibility as she was given to receive someone, then I should know exactly what past communication has happened between anyone from my team and that person. Because that will tell me the exact context which that person will bring in his or her mind when he or she arrives in. You agree? Now this is often not done here but it ought to be done anyway. But suppose you were the manager and you have to frame the initial communication to a speaker. It has been identified. Say, Mr. X from whatever, since he is not himself. So what will you write? No, no, no. We are writing for the first time to that person. He has been referred to you as a prospective speaker. He is well-known in certain areas. Let us say he is a first-generation entrepreneur, a successful entrepreneur. He has just sold his company for 100 million dollars. So he is a fairly rich person. And because he is successful, he is probably eager to share his success with the community. So if I had the opportunity to invite him for an event like this, he might be quite enthusiastic to accept. That is the mindset of Mr. X, possible mindset. Now in this mindset, you are writing a letter to him. Initially, in the first event, I did not directly tell him any questions about the event. But in the initial thing, I mean in the first event, I will try to only tell him about our comments about the event. I will try to build first a relationship, some kind of communication. And then in the further play, I will represent the company. For instance, he will write a letter to him or email to him informing him of the event, informing him about our institute. And generally preparing a background. Suppose I am Mr. X, I will be very surprised and curious to receive a communication, which does not relate to me at all. They are just giving me some information about an event. There are more than 20,000 well-known institutions in the world. So is IIT Bombay. Big deal. I mean Cincinnati. And I get a letter just describing an event that is going to happen. Am I supposed to be impressed? Am I supposed to be interested? Or am I supposed to take this as a scam? In fact, I will get far more intimidated if I get along with the structure of the event. Still, not making a single point as to why this whole thing is happening. So the reason I am giving this up is that all of us have to become managers someday. And the right time is becoming managers in the off. So we are trying to see that if we are managers, if we are in charge, what kind of communication. So when your approach is correct, I would like to suggest that the first... ...must directly send an invite. Otherwise Mr. Rex will not be interested. How will you write that invite is the question. How will you write that invite? Okay, so here is an assignment for the next seven minutes. Firuza, can you distribute those papers? And at the end, don't grab the blank pages. Keep them aside so that they could be utilized for the second assignment. There are some people sort of pages. Here, here, everybody got a blank page? Keep them. Okay, fine. So immediate action, write in the right hand corner of that page, write your name and roll number. That's all. The identity. It also serves as attendance. So we will assume that... ...let us give some name to this Mr. Rex. Rex. So how does Alex sound like? So Alex is an entrepreneur, successful entrepreneur. Do not forget that he has just made 100 million dollars by selling off his company. So he's a rich entrepreneur. And you are inviting him. He lives in some place in Cincinnati. Forget the address. So you are required to write to Dear Alex. So start with Dear Alex. And in less than one side of the page, write your letter. You can say, you need not describe the event in greater details. The event is an entrepreneurship-related event in IIT, Bombay, where young prospective entrepreneurs will come. The details of the event are in an attachment, which is like the event brochure or something, which you are sending along with the mail. You don't have to write huge details. However, you have to describe at least in two to three lines what that event is about and why would you like Mr. Alex to come and address the entrepreneur. What you have to clarify is the date of the event, the talk that you would like him to give. You can decide on some title up front. Or, no, let me say, he's a successful entrepreneur. I suggest this. So you now think about why you would like to call him, on what topic would you like to speak, leave him to speak. You might want to give him a freedom to choose a topic, but you might want to suggest that it would be nice if he could share his thoughts on such and such stuff. But ultimately you can sort of, whatever you wish to write. In one page. Write an invitation to Mr. Alex to come and part with us. Cincinnati. So in Cincinnati in the United States, it is generally traditional to address people by the first name and to say dear. It is only in the prominently ex-European colonies of Asia where you write dear sir or respected sir or something like that. It is not uncommon in the United States to address people as dear sir. Initially I used to get surprised when I would receive letters from people in the United States saying dear Deepak. Now in India you don't address people by first name unless you are very close to each other. But that is the common thing. So even when I write to the Chancellor Stanford University, when I said dear Professor Hennessy, he responded saying dear Deepak can sign that job indicating to me that I was addressing him wrongly. So this is a different tradition, but it is perfectly fine. If you do not want to say dear Alex, that's another important point by the way. It also depends upon who is writing this invitation. So if one of the, let's say the CEO of Sinai is writing that later, perhaps it would mean something else. Otherwise you might write dear sir. Perhaps dear sir is the simplest and most appropriate in the first communication. Fine. Okay. Enough of discussion. Now you apply your mind and write a less than one page invite. You have exactly 10 minutes to do this. Write quickly, but write carefully. Finished? Not yet. Anybody else who has finished? I hope you remember that whatever you write is not actually going to Mr. Alex immediately. So it's okay if, okay. It's 10-10 now, so please stop writing. It's okay if you have not been able to finish it. The idea that you start thinking about it. You have spent 10 minutes doing that. I'll give you more time to think about it later. Just pass on all your write-ups to your right. You pass on all your write-ups to your right and please collect all of them from this row. So whatever you have been able to write is also a test for ourselves on how long it takes us to draft a letter. So that's okay. I hope you understood that it's not a very simple task. A few people completed it fast probably because they have written similar letters earlier. All right. So a couple of quick questions. How many of you mentioned the existence of sign on campus and the fact that there are several entrepreneurs who are already running startup companies in IIT? Sorry? Achai, it would be in the attachment. So a letter which goes for the first time to a successful entrepreneur should not mention even in a single line the important fact that sign exists on IIT Bombay campus. It's a question of relative importance. Please understand it. And this is probably happening because you yourself do not appreciate what sign is. It's regarded as the most successful entrepreneurship incubator in the country. Several other incubators in the country were funded by the government. Only when they modeled the operations of those incubators on the lines of IIT Bombay. Now this fact is probably known or heard of by that person. This is known everywhere. All entrepreneurs look at incubators very carefully in their early career. And they would look at global things. Even if he does not, it is important for you to state that. Second, how many of you have hinted that he should bear his own travel expenses? You're a hundred million dollars person. I have a heart. So e-sell, forget many of you may not know what e-sell is, but knowing that there is a student's body which is organizing that event and knowing how much mara-mari you have to do to raise resources to run an event, would it not be useful if some rich people spend their own money from their own pocket? But how do you write it cleverly such that you don't offend that person? The trick that is often used is you say that you are slightly low on resources and only where absolutely essential you would be able to fund the travel. And then hint that of course the great Mr. Alex does not meet this kind of travel support and would be very eager to come and contribute to the discussion that the students in IIT Bombay are motivated by his activities, something of that. You can use a bit of a flowery language. I said one page because you don't have time more than ten minutes here to write that draft. But when you have more time, you can write slightly longer. I would like you to do two things. One, discuss it among groups of you, your four people, in your hostel, in your wing, on the lunch table, wherever, more than five, ten minutes. But about the points that should be included in such a letter. Each one would have some idea. I have shared a couple. Each one of you might have idea on the language to be used this way. Just spend ten or fifteen minutes. That's all. And then write an individual letter. Type it directly and submit it on the mood. This will not take more than about forty minutes to write that. But it will take forty minutes. So ten minutes of discussion among you as group. So it's perfectly fine to plagiarize ideas. It is not plagiarism. It's collaboration. You collaborate. Discuss it with four or five friends. If you want to take twenty minutes to discuss, take twenty minutes to discuss. That's absolutely fine. You should benefit from the ideas that other friends have. However, when you write, it has to be your own draft. There should not be any plagiarism in the writing that you do. Is that fair? So do that. And the deadline would be tonight. Because given more time, the work always expands to fill up available time. So midnight, tomorrow night. Okay, tomorrow night. I wanted to save your time because of something else which is coming up now. We'll decide the final thing. Number one, submissions on literature survey are due on Monday, 24th March. So like I already explained, those who are submitting a seminar report or an R&D project report or any academic report of a kind or their regular academic load should extract the literature survey part of that, complete it and write it. It should be written exactly in the form in which you will actually like to submit a detailed report. Your actual report in seminar may be a short report, but literature survey should be well written here. Let me tell you this is going to be the most important and probably most advantageous part of this course for you. As we agreed, those twenty or people who are not doing a seminar may do a survey on MOOC's literature. Please do not spend too much time because MOOC's literature is vast, but I'll leave it to each one of you to concentrate on any one aspect of MOOC and do a literature survey like you would do for a seminar. Please submit the literature survey along with the list of references. The references should be cited in your survey and the references should be written in appropriate IEEE format in the department of CSE format which has been put up on the web. It should be a perfect report as if you are submitting it to your final examination. You should be proud of that. That is the objective. Now that deadline is Monday 24th March because I would like to read some samples and comment on these on the next two days. So I would not like that to be midnight because I may not be able to read most of the samples from midnight till morning or I can actually. So alright, 24th March midnight. That's the deadline. Now in the light of this deadline, I wanted to save you from wasting your time in writing this letter. The letter is important but not as critical as this assignment. So that is why I was suggesting tonight. But you are saying tomorrow night. We have exactly two minutes to resolve this because given more time, you spend more time. That much is obvious. So on the other hand, it is important for you to ensure that you are able to draft such letter. Please remember that whenever in future you will write such letters, there will be much more wider consultation. But you would agree that this small ten minute effort which has kindled your thinking on how to write a letter followed by a group discussion among you for 10-15 minutes over lunch or whatever dinner followed by writing a letter would perhaps make your writing instinct better. That's the idea. So what would you have it? Alright, should we find a wire media? Not midnight tonight, not midnight tomorrow, but sometime noon tomorrow or it doesn't help. Sorry? Give me some opinions at least. What should be the deadline for this letter? Yeah? Sorry? You can just survey that by any amount of time. The reason I have put this date is because this will give you enough time, at least one week to discuss this literature survey with your own guide and make it a good part of your report. That is the idea. If I extend it further, then you will not have sufficient time to incorporate that. Please remember one thing. At least I recall it from my days and my research scholars and my M.Tech students. Whenever I think I have completed my literature survey and write a final report, it is at that time it dawns on me that perhaps a couple more references I should have studied in greater depth. Perhaps when I show it to my guide, my guide will say, Lallu, this paper you are missed. And I might have to read that paper. And to read that paper, to understand it and to incorporate it in my final report will take some time. That's the only reason I am saying. You have been on Friday for 100 years. Business will continue in life by the time. I am not around the satellites and everything will start soon. So, tell me what they have to do. I have no problem. I can make it, for example, which one? Friday. Next Monday. Friday. Next Monday. Next Monday. What is the date of next Monday? End of financial year. So, submissions on literature due on Monday 31st March midnight. But these are hard deadlines. The later due, so then we can make it tomorrow night. What is tomorrow? Friday. And what is the date tomorrow? Midnight. These are hard deadlines. And now I am making something which is, which my heart does not permit, but my mind says I must do it. Not only these submissions are mandatory, attendance in all classes from now onwards is mandated. 100% attendance is required. Now, one important announcement is related to use of visuals in communication. So, I have my colleague, Sameer Sastav, who can just stand up and face them. He has been with us for many years. He was the creator of our distance education program infrastructure for synchronous communication using e-sats and so on. He is an animator of repute. He is credited with being part of a team which made the first full-length animation film in the country. It was in 2002. It was a long time. He just finished his PhD. He has yet to defend his thesis. I call him Professor Sameer because I invite him to give talks. He is also an expert on animation. So, blander animation is his good old. However, he is also a designer. So, I requested him to conduct two lectures, which will have, first lecture will have some assignments. It will have to do some work. So, this is use of visuals in communication. So, how you can make your communication more effective by using visuals and how randomly using any visuals do not really add a value to communication, but in fact, it can make it worse. So, these are some fundamental useful aspects which we will discuss in the two lectures on Thursday, 27th March and Tuesday, 4th March. In the first week of April onwards, we will start formal presentations by people. They must be attended by all students. Those formal presentations, which will be based on your literature survey. So, that is one of the reasons why I wanted it earlier. But since we have delayed it, we will delay these formal presentations. All right. Thank you so much.