Christmas

For distributing the Christmas gifts at ANSR Source, we took the leanest guy in the office and dressed him up as Santa - in memory of the Great Recession (hope it's behind us for good) of the recent times. Here's the result. The meanest looking version of Nikolaos of Myra.

Insider leak: The guy on the right of Santa's shoulders missed it by a whisker, in the toss to be the Santa.





And the Elf you see in the background was a prime contender for the top slot. Just because, she came in dressed in red and white. Boy, was she lucky?

Freedom!

Ethnic Day seemed to be the in thing on the occasion of the Independence Day for the last few years in a lot of companies. So we thought we will celebrate it this year with something different - a face painting competition. The theme - India. Here's a glimpse of what came out. Now, we are not quite the O&M variety, but the folks here are creative enough.

Lesson 1

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What do we do for a living?

We have tried to explain this on our Web site. We will give it another shot here.
The content division works with THE leading academic publishers of the world. Chances are extremely high that you have used books from these publishers in your higher education course.
We have three teams:

1. Editorial: The folks here make supplements that go along with the text books. Based on the subject matter given, we create quizzes, powerpoints and other presentations, Internet exercises, instructor manuals and more. We also do a little bit of research and come up with case studies with spine tingling critical thinking and synthesis questions that test a student’s acumen. Subjects handled: Management disciplines (A2Z), Economics, Psychology, Law, Statistics, Engineering, Communication, etc.

2. EDP: The extended version is Editing, Design, and Production. The folks here make sure that all the material that you see in your books – online and offline – are accurate, i.e. they convey what they were meant to convey. Proofreading, accuracy checking, tagging, mapping-all of it happens here. Everyone needs attention to detail, but if any team had to have that as a drop-dead requirement, ladies and gentlemen, it’s EDP. Nothing escapes their prying eyes.

3. F&A: We toyed with different names for this team in the past, but it looks like F&A (Finance & Accounting) may just stick. F&A is the cornucopia of core expertise. People who are good at accounting related subjects wishing to pursue a career in education/knowledge management will find this team a tailor-made solution. We make/revise solution manuals for F&A books, create algorithmic excel templates, accuracy-check books and online testing platforms, and create supplements that aid learning. Some F&A fellows have become so good that they are threatening to write books on these subjects.

Hope that was clear!

Why we are not interested in that photograph in your resume?

Why oh why should we know how you look like while glancing at your resume? To get this straight, we are not an ad agency or a movie studio. We develop content. And our screening discussions do not have a script that reads “Is he a cool dude?”

Accept it, there is no such designation as a cool “looking” professional in our system. The only time cool comes into our lexicon is when you work-we love people who have a cool mindset. Despite that statement, we have uber-hyper individuals here and we get along well.

Now we do understand that certain “management” colleges where you may happen to study insist that you put your picture out there for recruiters to see. Trust us – ignore that instruction. Sing a Pink Floyd song to them if you like.

Why people are our numero uno asset?

We work in what is called the clichéd knowledge management space. But we are different. A lot of work that we do cannot be put into a trainable process that can be force-fed to a legion of new recruits over a period of two to three weeks. We learn over a period of months or in some cases years (and that’s not because we are slow learners). Unlike a lot of KPOs, we create real MC – content that is new, content that’s verified to the Z, content that is used to assess or help students in the higher education space. In other words, content that is a far cry from the Ctrl C + Ctrl V world.

When an employee leaves us, it creates a gap that is hard to fill. Something like what John Donne said:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.

It’s a long period of courtship to find a replacement. Tests, interviews, analysis, offer, and finally hire. Just FYI - for every 30 people who walk into our door, we hire one. It's not because 29 are bad. It's because we cannot live together. We dream of a day when ten good-for-both-parties all in a row walk in to prove historical statistics wrong.

If you need to work and excel here, you need substance, language, and logic. That combination is hard to find. So if you think you’re one, talk to us.

More to come: Tips to crack our interview; Why we are not interested in your photograph in the CV; How to work smart; Know thyself a.k.a do not bluff; How CTC numbers fool you; How good is our food etcetera.

Disclaimer

Disclaimer:
This blog is an informal attempt to recreate what happens in the content division @ ANSR Source India. The initiative is aimed at familiarizing the company, its work and non-work ethic, and general environment to an audience that would be (a) interested in working with us (b) working with us (c) has got nothing to do with us. There are no guarantees that the information presented here is accurate (though we have tried to make it so) or reflects the official position of the company.
Begin Paragraphs of Legal Jargon...
You had to highlight this, didn’t you? Okay, here we go: a fortiori – a posteriori – a priori – a priori assumption – ab extra – Ab initio – actus reus – ad coelum – ad colligenda bona – ad hoc – ad hominem – ad idem – ad infinitum – ad litem – ad quod damnum – ad valorem – adjournment sine die – affidavit – agency – alter ego – a mensa et thoro – amicus curiae – animus nocendi – ante – arguendo bona fide/bona fides – bona vacantia - cadit quaestio – capital – casus belli – caveat – caveat emptor – certiorari – ceteris paribus – cogitationis poenam nemo patitur – compos mentis – conditio sine qua non – consensus facit legem – consuetudo pro lege servatur – contra – contra bonos mores – contra legem – Contradictio in adjecto – contra proferentem – coram non judice – corpus – corpus delicti – corpus juris – corpus juris civilis – corpus juris gentium – corpus juris secundum – crimen falsi – cui bono – cuius est solum eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos – crimen injuria – cuius regio, eius religio – taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legal_Latin_terms
End Paragraphs of Legal Jargon.
Essentially you cannot take us to court for using or complying with any material presented herein. Reader discretion is recommended.

#1

They say that the first posting is the hardest. It isn't. By the way, the title of this posting summarizes our mission statement.