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STORY so far: As with the original mafia, there are always those dadas to tackle before getting down to serious business. But why get bogged down by extortion. Bosses with vision find time to think forward — about growth and opportunity. I do a story for InIT after attending the CII conference on IT industry. The chief guest tries to project the State as a brand with the message `ours is a knowledge-based State'.

Episode 41

Conference mood is totally different from the usual grind that we get used to in offices. There is so much variety around and the ambience is more like a marriage pandal, with visitors engaged in conversations, in small groups, eats on one side, opulence on display and cameras eagerly clicking away.

As with any professional gathering, conferences bring together people who have some commonness — be it the thread of industry or profession that binds them.

I have come across CAs who regularly trash conference brochures without even as much as opening to read what's inside, and the common explanation they give is: `Why waste Rs 500 on a one-day seminar? I can read that from the journal or book."

Quite a myopic outlook because conferences yield more than just the folders and pens, or snacks and meals, without counting the countless opportunities to doze off in chairs. A solid benefit for professionals is the interaction with others in the field, the networking as they call it. This is something I profited from when as a CA student, I attended the students' conferences organised by the Board of Studies. Those all-India events attracted some of the best talents from different States and for a nominal fee we got enough inputs to pass the exams, though there used to be those minor irritants in the form of some CAs who used to try so hard to steal the limelight, as if we students were dunces.

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There was a PowerPoint presentation on the application of IT to a public transport system, but sadly the presenter was neither audible nor was he trying to make the subject interesting.

His slides seemed to disobey almost every rule of presentation: Each slide had too much matter, with cluttered lines; font size was small; too many colours were achieving but one purpose — of distracting the audience; and most of us were sleeping. Event organisers were waiting to announce tea break, more as a wake-up call to the participants.

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During tea I went round the stalls. One was from an audit software vendor and I spent time to see what type of queries the package allowed. As if to keep pace with current developments, the CA syllabus has inputs on audit software in more than one paper. The only difficulty is that most CAs never get exposed to how such software works, because the exams are but a test of theory.

Even the demo at the stall had enough razzmatazz to grip. The way the query could zip through thousands of records to yield results matching the conditions, reports that could be churned out and most importantly, the ease of use appealed to me. I picked up the company's business card and told myself: "Should tell Chandru to implement this."

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In the Ball Room, there was great hustle bustle and I could see through the door that corporate captains were around the big table in the centre. I could see the boss studying something carefully. Oh, it is a model on show — not something that you see on catwalks, those skinny ones that I usually pity and the ones that most men look at wide-eyed — but a complete representation of the proposed IT Park in the state.

By definition, a model is a copy of an object, especially one made on a smaller scale than the original, and here was something worked to great detail, complete with roads and cars, buildings and parks, stadia and swimming pools.

"Are you reserving space for our company?" I asked the boss when I reached near the table. "I am trying to buy a whole block, and you know who is trying to outbid me?" he asked in a hush-hush.

"Narayana Murthy? Or Premji?" I hazarded a double-guess. "No, it's Bill Gates bidding on the other side."

(To be continued)

Swati_CA@hotmail.com

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