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CONTENTS
LifeNMore strives to encapsulate and express the NMIMS culture. With interviews, news items and features on hot issues, it reports the contemporary campus with a punch.What we aim to do is keep a healthy mix of pressing topics as well as issues light enough to circumvent the serious tag. What does the future hold for this magazine? The answer is you. As we say, this reflects the life at NMIMS and all are invited to share their thoughts and ideas. While many say there remains a huge gap between NM and the ones with two Is, the former has still managed to make a significant impact in the business world.

TEAM PRESSBOX
Editorial Board Kumudini Manda Shubham Prakash Anupama Sridhar Mohita Jajodia Harsha Haridas Shreyans Shah Ninad Karandikar Nitin Amlani Manas Sarath Bhaskaran Harsh Sethia Designing Pranjal Kumar

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he first trimester of the management degree has come to an end and there have been a lot of things to capture our attention: exams round the corner (they always are), presentations, final project reports to be submitted and last but not the least the big summers equation to manage. The various things that one has to look at while getting oneself up for summers: The key specialization viz. Marketing, Finance, HR or Operations The profile that one would like to pursue The right kind of companies for the same

Summers Preparation
Ninad Karandikar

person in his locality who owned a workable, efficient cricket bat and hence the daily cricket contest in his area would basically depend on his presence. He would in a way organize the cricket game every day with his contribution of having the piece of wood everyone desired of. The CV Builder phrased this as: Organized district level Cricket competitions for 5 years in the Nagpur belt of Maharashtra. Case 3: During his short stint at work, Mr. X was involved in a acquisition meeting where a deal of close to 50 million US dollars was to be finalized. Mr. X was given the responsibility of managing the food and the taking care of the clients, so basically his involvement would be to call for tea, attend any calls during the meeting etc. The CV Builder put it as: Provided key inputs and data analysis for the acquisition of Keystone. If only all of us had a magic wand with us to create a CV with some sort of brilliance .But alas, not of all us have such outstanding feats to report from our lives. But do not despair!All you need is a little creativity and imagination to make the banalities pop.
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Most importantly preparing the CV in accordance with the requirements

The CV finalization and getting it in order is a process in itself. Take the case of Mr. X from division B who had an amazing experience during the CV process. He walked into the CV verification room with great deal of confidence and a page long CV to his credit, however by the time he walked out of the room, he had a half page CV with no achievements and extracurricu-

lar activities on it. He was completely dejected as any efforts at showcasing some credibility and eventually getting shortlisted in the summers process seemed to be thwarted. He was left wondering what could be done now. Enter CV Builder software. Mr.X thought he finally had a solution to his problem. Case 1: Mr.X in his school days had a professor who asked him a random question and if he answered it correctly would reward him with 1 rupee. The next year the quality of the question would remain the same but the reward would increase by some amount. This continued for all 10 years from state government. Case 2: Mr. X was the only

YOUNG TURKS
Nitin Amlani & Manas

You must have read

BQ!

about IQ, EQ. How well do you know your business terms? Lets test your Business Quotient.

Sometimesdo nextyouyour when wonder what to in

life, and you draw a blank. And then there are some who search for inspiration for the next big thing in their life. They prefer to venture out on their own because it affords them a certain level of independence. Often these people go through a period of uncertainty, yet are quite unrelenting in their endeavors. Here at NMIMS, we call these breed of brave young men and women, Young Turks. The Young Turks for this edition are :
1.Abhirup Bhattacharyya, I Year 2.Abhishek Srivastava, I Year 3.Dinesh Yegireddi, II Year www.ideasmakemarket.com Since: December, 2010 Utility: Business articles database Why it is Hot: Distinctive content contributed by top B-School students LIFE N MORE | 4

Abhirup was busy promoting his latest offering, a business article contest, named deasClash 1.0 on social networking forums, when I approached him for an article on his business venture. The diligent NIFT Alumnus offers me his total attention as he starts speaking on the various factors that

1.The marketing strategy of most IT companies. 2.Eating your own profits. 3.Germanys biggest bank. 4.Economics + Statistics. 5.Financial help to improve condition of homes. 6.Selling lower than cost price to wipe out competition. 7.Accounts too small to be named separately. 8.Dream of every entrepreneur. 9.A bond not performing well but did so in the past. 10.Working at times convenient to you. 11.Investment in companies in difficulty is called. 12.System of producing only when needed. 13.Dell pioneered this marketing strategy. 14.When reducing increases your profits, you are effectively doing this.
(for answers turn to page 13 )

influenced his decision to ini- ing live has attracted articles tiate a business article data- from over 50 authors from top base website. colleges like IIM Bangalore, IIM Lucknow, NMIMS, MDI, If you need the best practices IIM Shillong, FMS, NITIE, SCand ideas for launching new MHRD, IITKGP, IIT-D, KJ Soventures, you need to find maiya and many more. The them. popularity of the website can be gauged from the fact that Being an avid coder himself, many professionals from the Abhirup is a regular contribu- field of marketing, communicator to www.topcoder.com; the tions, operations and finance website which he says ignited have contributed heavily too. his interest to create a similar website for business articles. Abhirup has revised his asThe basic purpose of the sumptions and has prioriventure was to create a plat- tized his goals as the web hits form for B- School students to swelled. The foundation has contribute and expand their been laid. Now, he is working knowledge sphere. The web- on revenue generation sourcsite, over the 9 months of be- es. Google AdSense and AdABHISHEK SRIVASTAVA Venture Name: Wacky Works Since: February, 2011 Business Utility: Mobile App for better vocabulary Why is it Hot: MBA aspirants!! Wacky Works introduces the word history of laconic thus, The ancient Spartans, who lived the region of Greece known as Laconia, were famous not only for their Spartan discipline, but also for their terse manner of speaking. Just how laconic were the inhabitants of Laconia? When a messenger dispatched by an enemy army announced, If we enter Laconia, we will raze it to the ground! The laconic response sent back by the Laconians was simply - If. Its not unusual to hear people argue that ours is a world without originality, that everything is merely a combination of what went before. We would like to label Abhishek as a heroic entrepreneur. Our professional and personal worlds are less trying than the world of entrepreneurship. He, along with 4 of his friends, has taken the plunge, and has kept himself afloat since. Why Wacky Works? He informs, We knew there was a huge target audience, all the people who were studying for competitive exams and also those who wanted to improve their vocab, and who wanted something more than a normal dictionary. A lot did happen over coffee. Rushing to Barista after office

words are not the source of revenue for his site. Talks are currently underway with a major player in the healthcare sector to bring out a print edition of the articles to be distributed through their network. Revenue through merchandise sales is also being given a serious thought. People, who leave the capsule of prevalent theories and practices, are the ones who create a fresh path for others to follow. This Young Turk is on his own journey of exploration and desires. We wish him God Speed and Good Luck!!!

hours for brainstorming sessions and spending oodles of time fine-tuning their app, they found their creative touch back. And so the first wack-a doodle was formed. It would be unfair not to mention the partners of Abhishek at this point. Sanchit, Neha, Aditi and Stuti, are the co-creative brains behind this venture. Abhishek left his job immediately after getting a final call from NMIMS, to devote more time to his Wacky World. The mobile app boasts of a database of over 4500 words, complete with word history and usage. The team informs me, The Java and the
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Android versions are nearly ready. We have received rave reviews from those who have tested and bought our beta versions, a buzz has been created in our hometown, Vadodara. A website is being built to house interactive games, various fun content and study plans for users depending on their level of competence. How does Abhishek find so much time in such a taxing MBA curriculum? Well, I would love to change the world, but they wont give me the source code, is his reply. A truly wacky answer!! Venture Name: BHELPURI Since: January 2010 Business Utility: Youth Maga zine Why is it Hot: Content, UI, Dis tribution and Price!! In some instances nowadays, youthful exuberance and books are portrayed as an incompatible couple deserving no attention. Why not, we are more interested in what our friends latest status updates on Facebook rather than a recently released book. But now, a very different story is unfolding. Dinesh, in his 3rd year of his engineering, realized the market gap and conceptualized BHELPURI (BP) with two of his classmates, Nishant Sukhvasi and Kalyan Moravineni. When asked about the motivation behind the venture, he informs, After observing that most of the youth these days are not getting exposed to the information of their choice in the right way we (Team BP) conceptualized BHEL PURI to
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provide a platform for youth to express their opinion. BP is a platform to educate the youth about all the trending topics and provide them with varied career choices to help them choose the one of their interest. BP came out with its pilot issue in June 2010 receiving mixed responses. While on one hand, they were praised for their innovative and youthoriented content, they were also criticized for their editing and typographical errors. Being a pilot issue, such mistakes were expected. Still, Team BP was enthusiastic and optimistic. Experiencing failure can temper this surplus of optimism among some entrepreneurs, as did in their case. August 2010 issue was an Independence Day special and presented a more refined and suave outlook. The notable changes included interviews of experts and celebrities like Shruti Hassan, while retaining the BHELPURI ideology of youth-centric content. Grit is a willingness to commit to longterm goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty. Challenges are abound for BP. One of them being the lack of good writers, but this is something which they expect to be taken care of once they establish themselves.

Still, BHELPURI is looking to expand and their Facebook page has over 11,000 likes within 6 months. Moreover they are looking to intensify their reach by launching themselves on various platforms. The content is also being looked upon based on the feedback received by the target audience. The future is unpredictable, but yes you dont need to become a different person to become a more successful one. Its never what you are, but what you do. And Dinesh is the Young Turk of NMIMS, only because he has chosen to follow his passion. Our best wishes go out for him!!

C A M P U S

B U Z Z
Sarath Bhaskaran & Shubham Prakash

Every class has its own interesting character who lightens up the mood in class and makes the arduous task of attending lectures enjoyable.
the class and no class is complete without a couple of jokes about Balajees supernormal capabilities. All this have made him a favorite even amongst the professors. So much so that whenever the professors think that the class is losing interest they dont miss out on a chance to crack a Balajee joke. All this attention has also won him many female fans with one in particular who cheers vociferously when Balajee gives a presentation. To sum it up it is an absolute pleasure to be in the same class as Balajee because as they say ,The only place where A comes after B is BAlajee. Now only if the placement committee considered being in Balajees class an achievement worth mentioning in the CV.

Balajee Sreedharan of division A is one such person. Ask any division A student or any professor who has taught in the class about Balajee and they would have a story to tell you. In fact he is so popular that the students have even created a Wikipedia page on him. Being a south Indian who is not too well versed in Hindi he often manages to bungle up while conversing with the locals in Hindi. In fact he has acquired a Rajnikant-like persona in

If gossip mongers are to be believed, it is believed that Suyash was the one who discovered that alcohol was food well ahead of modern medical thought. This concept was established not just by those in his buddy list, but by one professor who was intrigued by his demeanor in class. This corporate honcho of the future has also mastered the skill to catch up on
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his ZZZs in the class. This is the best utilization of time one can dream of reports the boy never in boots. In spite of the chaos that generally surrounds him, he has the ability to handle difficult situations regardless of the time or effort involved; a skill appreciated by the student council and all those around him. These attributes have earned him the love & companionship of the male and (ahem..) female species alike. He is often deemed too powerful for the professors to handle; one of the reasons why they consider him to be like Mr. Bonds Vodka Martini: shaken but not stirred. He ought to be shaken awake but the brain is stirred at your own risk. For this brain is capable of generating many out of the box ideas which have the potential to either solve the gravest of the problems or to make one drift far away into oblivion.

BIZ SPACE Founded

Marketing, Business Development, Strategic Planning and more. FinalMile states that the only hierarchy which exists in the firm is Knowledge Hierarchy. Biju Dominic spearheads the operations at FinalMile. He brings in an invaluable experience of 18 years in Marketing. CEO of Consumer Marketing of DMA Branding, Managing communication strategies of brands like Pepsi, Pepsodent ,Philips, Managing launch strategies of Axe and Rexona deodorant are some of the prominent assignments of his career. He is also visiting faculty at Railway Staff training college,Baroda and several management institutes in the country. FinalMile team comprises of Mr. Satish Krishnamurthy, Mr. Jayal Shroof, Mr.Ram, Mr.Anand and more. People at FinalMile not only apply Neuroscience principles to solve business problems, but also disseminate their knowledge through the FinalMile Blog.

ployed. FinalMile supports Shoppers Marketing and explains that a Shopper is different from a Consumer. This is because 70% of all buying decisions are made in the store. And while watching advertisements on mass media, consumers are not shoppers, as they are not in buying mode. Thus, Shoppers Marketing is all about designing innovative in-store solutions at the Point of Purchase. FinalMile dissects Zoozoo Campaign:The Zoozoos need no introduction. A highly popular ad campaign designed by Rajiv Rao of Ogilvy India, launched during IPL-2. FinalMile tried to analyse the ROI of this highly innovate approach. Viewing the campaign through the Lens of Shoppers Marketing,FinalMile proposes that though it helped to create awareness, memorability, imagery and preference. But Vodafone forgot to close the loop, again because consumers are not in buying mode while watching their beloved Zoozoos. According to FinalMile, Marketers have to do more than spray and pray. Little nudges like SMS blasts, IVR or Customer Service calls could have helped to gain larger chunk of new subscribers.
Vodafones Point of View:

in 2008, Finalmile is one of its kind Consulting firm. Based in Mumbai, the Behaviour Architects of Finalmile apply principles of Cognitive Neuroscience and Behavioural Economics to provide solutions for business and social problems. Final-Mile for Shoppers Marketing: Shoppers Marketing Men/Women at Work: Peo- is expected to be the nextple at FinalMile have diverse big thing in Marketing arena. backgrounds but a similar Globally investments are bemindset. Architects at FinalM- ing made in Shopper Marketile possess expertise rang- ing and new measurement ing fromSales,Advertisement, techniques are being emLIFE N MORE | 8

Harit Nagpal, chief marketing officer, Vodafone India said, Were acquiring customers at a very fast pace, but a large number of them are unaware of the range of services we offer. I mean, phone backup, which were advertising now, was launched two years ago,

investigation would have looked for answers in different directions. Nevertheless, closing the loop would have been icing on the cake for such a laudable campaign. Our Learnings: As a Bschool students and Marketing aspirants, we realize from this that there are no wrong answers in Marketing. Clarity of goals to be achieved and approach to be taken is all one needs.

If it aint broke, dont fix it and being fixed in your ways both illustrate the status quo bias, i.e. that people prefer things to remain the same. Rule of thumb is a simple way of describing heuristics or the short cuts used in decision making. Out of sight, out of mind describes the availability bias, whereby we are influenced by how easily we can bring something to mind. BE in Action:

The BE Architects
The AH HA Moments: This is what the three Ex- Global leaders of The Futures Company - Crawford Hollingworth, Sian Davies and Sarah Davies have ventured to achieve for their clients. The Behavioural Architects is a global insight, research and consulting firm, based in UK. They have used principles of Behaviour Economies to develop powerful frameworks and thus provide more focussed solutions for business problems. Their Vision Statement fittingly reads Delivering New AH Ha Moments to UNLOCK GROWTH. Behavioural Economics Decoded: The BE Architects unravel the various concepts of Behavioural Economics in a fascinating manner. According to them, the main attraction of BE is that the concepts can be easily related to dayto-day experience. Cometh their blog and one can find the following interesting corelations:

BE serves Dominos: UKs popular Pizza Brand Dominos recently instructed its media agency, Arena Media, to integrate behavioral economics into its planning process. The offers like twofor-one deal or 50% off on second pizza are not unknown to a Dominos veteran. 2.The agency then tried But with BE tools at to create cognitive dissonance. This happens when consumers acknowledge that their behavior is leading to wastage. Due to dissonance, consumers try to resolve it and change behavior. 3.Agency then suggested 3-5 simple ways to consumers to avoid wastage. Consumers were asked to put in practice the feasible changes.

money to be spent on future orders. So, may be next time when we offer a Cheese Burst, with some money credited in our kitty, it wont be a bad deal to get that extra garlic bread (+ cheesy dip) within 30 minutes. The California Energy Challenge: Several initiatives to reduce energy consumption in U.S state of California didnt yield desired results. However, Draftfcb, an ad agency, chose to follow a behavioral path rather than a communication path to achieve the desired goals. 1.First step taken was to identify the consideration bias the bottom line which will provide the nudge across diverse target consumer groups. This was found out to be dislike of waste

4.After this a social-contract approach was applied. This worked as a reminder for consumers to put their plans into action. The results were its dispense, Dominos has then made public among lodecided to provide that nec- cal communities. essary nudge. It is planning to design offers like crediting the consumers account with
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GAS-O-LINE

What I want to say: Hey, the old coffee place is too crowded. We need to find a new joint. How I will say it: We need a blue ocean strategy for our caffeine requirements; the existing market has too many sharks in its waters. What I want to say: If we do not complete the presentation today, were screwed! How I will say it: We need to achieve synergy in our current workflows in order to address a mission-critical task or else we will drop the ball on this assignment. What I want to say: We need to start reading the cases or else we will get thrown out of class. How I will say it: We need to bring about a paradigm shift in our modus operandi for this class in order to maintain our presence in this segment. What I want to say: You need to get a life. How I will say it: In order to build your brand equity, you need to re-evaluate the current state of your personal brand. These are just some frail attempts at improving my own conversational skills in the management school setup. I hope it has been useful for you and I urge you to equip yourself with such critical skills as well. Your future may just depend on it.
Anupama Sridhar

After one year of being in NM, you would think that I would be immune to the ways of intellectual gassing. Hell, by now I should have been one par excellence. But the fact that I havent yet grasped the concept makes me wonder if I have received the desired return on the investment in this institute. I am also worried about how this may be a disadvantage in the long run. The ability to gas will be invaluable when I sit in group discussions, not to mention when I am seated in front of those nice people from all those nice companies. Therefore, I have decided to work on my management jargon.After all, simplicity is pass. The following is an attempt to jargonise a few simple day-to-day conversations

What Ime your assignwant to say: If you give

ment, I will buy you a Bourneville. How I will say it: I will incentivize your involvement in this assignment through the procurement of a Bournville.

petency in Angry Birds. What I want to say: Yaar, Chapter 1 maine nahi padha hai. Toh usme se aaye toh dikha dena. Main sums dikha doongi How I will say it: I suggest we enter into amutually beneficial arrangement during the exam, through the cross-pollination of ideas, which is possible through specialization in Chapter 1 and numerical problems respectively. What I want to say: Lagta hai is kaam main bahut fight maarna padega How I will say it: In order to spearhead this effort, well need to pool in all our resources and optimize our current processes.

What I want to say: Yaar, load kyon le raha hai? Aaram se kaam kar! How I will say it: You are suffering from a lack of bandwidth. You need to triage your tasks What I want to say: This lecture is so boring. Lets play Angry Birds! How I will say it: Owing to the lack of ROI in this lecture, I suggest we utilize this opportunity to build our comLIFE N MORE | 10

MonSoon fury: Bhandardara

The MBA life has played

spoilsport to many a grand plan in the past. In some way or the other, assignments, quizzes, competitions, exams annihilate all possibilities of escape. As always, the plan for Bhandardara was shaky till the very end but somehow the enthusiasm prevailed and we put the MBA life behind us for a day. The bunch of us set off and hired a Chevrolet Tavera & a Pulsar 200 to serve us for the day. Bhandardara is around 180 kilometers from Mumbai and boasts of one of the most pleasing views and monsoon experience in the state. Wilson dam, Mount Kalsubai (highest peak of Maharashtra), Arthur Lake and Ratangad fort are some of the tourist attractions here. In the rain, we decided to skip the trek to Kalsubai and visited the dam, waterfall and the lake. Besides these touristy spots, what we thoroughly enjoyed was the journey to the place. The experience of passing through clouds, chilly winds, innumerable waterfalls, endless greenery and the continuous precipitation is hard to describe in words. We started around 6:20 am, passed Thane by 7:30 and were speeding on the Nashik highway. Speeds in excess of 100kmph were later brought down thanks

to the rain. We had breakfast midway somewhere after Vasind. The first thrill was the Sayhadri ghats. The ghats offer a spectacular view of the valley but today the clouds engulfed us. Driving through the clouds was quite an experience in itself. Though there is a way from Asangaon, we stayed on the NH3 until the small town of Ghoti. Any roads off this highway are usually in a bad shape. The monsoon had definitely taken a toll and it took us

caution, for the winds will try their best to blow you away; whatever be your ride. We hit the village around 10:30. Upon reaching the waterfall tea and pakodas were ordered at a small shanty of a place. The winner amongst my stupidity for the day featured the biggest Rapta of em all. (A rapta was quite a predominant feature in the alluvial plains of North India. Back in those timeswhen bridges were still a luxury,roads often passed

more than an hour to cover the last 30Kms. Though there were some really bad patches of tarmac, we never complained as the lush green & wet surroundings were an absolute treat.One phenomenon that surprises me here are the winds. No exaggerations here: ride with extreme

through flowing rivers or small tributaries. This area of loose rock with water flowing is whats called a rapta) We had encountered countless raptas on the way thanks to the rain but Ill call this one at the dam the Big Daddy.I mounted my machine and drove off after instructing
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life tough. When we finally reached the MTDC resort at around 2pm, I discovered that my hands had shrunk and developed a weird shade of white thanks to the non-stop precipitation of the last 5 hours. The highlight of the process of eating was not the food but the fact that we remained in a dry place for about an hour. We headed back at around 4pm and stopped for coffee at a CCD between the Sayhadri Ghats and Vasind. A word of caution: it is very hard to find a decent place to eat here. There are 2-3 resorts which may or may not entertain you for food and hence MTDC is often the only option. It is not a bad idea to stuff as much food from home; especially if you wish to trek to Kalsubai. Places around: You can try to cover a few more places in case you want to make a trip of more than 1 day: -Nashik : The city with many prominent temples -Shirdi: The Sai temple in Shirdi needs no introduction. The town also offers numerous places to stay depending on your budget -Malshejghat: A hill station with a panoramic view of mountains and valleys. Again, it is difficult to get a confirmed booking in the MTDC resort here

Bhandardara is around 180 kilometers from Mumbai and boasts of one of the most pleasing views and monsoon experience in the state
Nishant to take pics of the victorious me splashing around. As soon as I reached halfway, the engine started coughing. No sooner had it hauled me to safety it died. The groaning of the engine meant that there was plenty of water in both the muffler as well as the spark plugs. We hauled the bike to a small shed (the only sign of habitation/human activity within a couple of Kms) and tried everything. We titled the bike on the rear wheel to flush out the silencer. Opened, Cleaned and dried both the spark plugs.ThankLIFE N MORE | 12

fully, the engine roared and we headed to Arthur lake. The ladies were dreaming of boating all this while and were left aghast as soon as we reached the spot. For waves that would put the shores of Arabian sea to shame greeted us. Again, wind was the culprit. Boating had been suspended for the day and we decided to head out for food. Needless to say, every bone was shivering. Even the ones inin the car wet after the previous excursions and the chilly winds can make

Answers to BQ
1.Business -to- business marketing. 2.Self cannibalization. 3.Deutsche Bank. 4.Econometrics. 5.Homesteading. 6.Predatory pricing. 7.Sundry accounts. 8.Angel Investors. 9.Fallen Angel. 10.Flexitime. 11.Vulture Funding. 12.Just in time. 13.Direct Marketing. 14.Downsizing.

WAYS TO GET THERE

1.Hire a cab from Mumbai: We struck a decent deal for a 6-seater which turned out to be around Rs. 650 per head. 2.Via Igatpuri: Take a train/ bus to Igatpuri. From Igatpuri, you could hire a cab (Rs 500) or take the state transport corporations hourly bus. Economical but you lose time. 3.Drive/Ride: A great drive but do ensure that the vehicle has already earned your confidence. The terrain is quite treacherous and there are hardly any support center/workshops here. Figure out the math depending on the kind of fuel guzzler you plan to take. Places to stay: The MTDC resort is the only economical option but it can be difficult to get confirmed bookings on weekends. You may need to book weeks in advance There are a couple of budget hotels in the nearby town of Igatpuri (40Kms) as well
Shubham Prakash LIFE N MORE | 13

LIFE N MORE | NMIMS

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