Where: Class Room – 2, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad

What time: 12.30 AM

Who: 30 people with tired bodies and alert minds, sipping tea and engaged in a heated discussion.

Thus went one conversation,

Kartik: No dude! How does innovation as a theme make sense? Have a look at the financial system its tottering due to innovation CDOs, CMOs, CDSs and whatnot. I think we should go with a theme that is more in line with the current mood of the markets and the global economy.

Chaitanya: What you are speaking about is innovation for the creme-de-la-creme going awry. Agreed, that it promoted a credit boom, but ultimately the complex products were for the high-end investors not the aam aadmi. What I am suggesting as a theme is innovation at the grassroots, for the bottom of the pyramid. Incremental innovation that adds value and not sweeping innovations. Are you getting me?

That was an excerpt from one of the several discussions and debates for deciding what the theme of this years Confluence festival will be. Arguments went back and forth with each party, 30 of us in number (whew!), vociferously defending and attacking ideas. All of us had just one intent in mind Confluence 2010, Asia-Pacifics one of a kind management summit organized by IIM Ahmedabad, just had to be different. It had to inspire not just thoughts, but action and more importantly educate people in the process.

At IIM Ahmedabad, Confluence is the biggest festival of the year. During the three days of the event, our campus is flooded with over 2,000 students from nearly 400 b-schools. Some of the students from our exchange programmes with French b-schools too are on the campus at that time, taking the participation beyond just Indian b-schools. The prize money at stake is worth over Rs 20 lakhs and some of the big ticket events are Corporate Combat, Statecraft and Bizquizitive. This year, its even bigger because this happens to be the Golden Jubilee year of IIM Ahmedabads existence.

Since the time our team was formed, we have discussed, planned, fought on and worked for 9 months now, and all these ideas will get executed during Confluence 2010, between 26 and 28 November at the WIMWI campus.

So what is it like being part of the Confluence organizing team? This here is part 1 of a multipart series on what it takes to organize a festival of the scale of Confluence 2010.

Team Confluence 2010? was finalized in the mid-week of February 2010 a committed bunch of 30 people responsible for one or more activities such as the Sessions & Events, Masterplan, Speaker Series, Publicity, Logistics, Creatives and Corporate Communications.

Says Chaitanya Shravanth or Chatty, student of the class of 2011 and Secretary, Confluence 2010, I went about the team selection with the focused intent of taking in people with fresh ideas. Normally, such kind of events tend to be standardized and mundane, partly due to the hangover of organizing similar events during the students undergraduate days. While choosing people, I wanted to create a balance of people who had fresh perspectives and also those who had the experience of handling crunch situations during execution.

The Sessions & Events Cell is the central engine of Confluence 2010 and also the largest team. All the competitive events are conceptualized, designed and executed by the Sessions Cell. This year, the events structure has been revamped to include competitions under verticals such as marketing, finance, operations, HR and Strategy. New and off-beat events like StateCraft, Sectorama and Campaign for a Cause have been introduced in coordination with the academic clubs on campus. The Sessions team comprises 9 members from diverse backgrounds and interests to get in different perspectives to the events structure.

MasterPlan, the Business-Plan contest, is driven by a standalone team in recognition of its special status as one of the most prestigious B-Plan contests in India. The team has 3 members who have handled large events before.

Marquee names such as Mr Ratan Tata, Dr Abdul Kalam and Mr Mukesh Ambani have attended Confluence in previous years. This is the handiwork of the Speaker sessions team. The Speaker Series, the biggest crowd-pulling event at Confluence not only requires astute and smart event managers but also team members with skills in handling large audiences.

The Publicity Team handles the entire communications process of Confluence 2010 with other b-schools. The team draws its strength from a huge and well-cultivated network and strong relationships forged with other colleges over the years.

The Creatives Cell is the face of Confluence. Without them, the events will not have the branding they have developed over the years. The Creatives Cell designs the look and feel of Confluence, including the website, the logo and visual theme.

The Logistics Team in any college festival executes all the months of planning they are the people on the ground. I do not know if it is something ordained by fate but the logi guys are always the most cheerful, patient and helpful lot in the batch. Weve chosen a highly efficient and systematic bunch of guys to handle the logistics.

And then there are the Corp Commers, or Corporate Communication Team, who are the face of Confluence to the Corporates. These are the guys who ensure that Team Confluence is a well-oiled machine. Right from the day the team is announced, this group gets working through alumni networks, sponsors from previous years and drawing benefits from IIM Ahmedabads relationship with the industry. To call the level of accountability and responsibility this team handles phenomenal, would be to understate it.

So thats what Team Confluence looks like. As you can see it is no different from an organization burdened with expectations and performance targets. In the next article, I will explain how we came about making Innovation as the theme of Confluence 2010, how it helped us plan the events and how we work behind-the-scenes to pull it off on the ground.

The author VM Avinass Kumar is a student of the PGP class of 2011, at IIM Ahmedabad and Coordinator, Literary Activities and Sessions and Events for IIM Ahmedabad’s Confluence 2010.

PaGaLGuY is the Official Management Portal of IIM Ahmedabad’s Confluence 2010.