Today I had the great pleasure of being a judge at the CaseIT 2008 Competition. This is an undergraduate business case competition which has been running since 2004. This year the competition took on a truly global dimension, with teams from South Africa, Singapore, Denmark, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Canada and the US.
The day started with a Judges briefing. The case study which we had been sent earlier in the week centred on the dating site called Plenty of Fish. This site was setup, and is run, by one individual: Markus Frind and seems to have achieved notable success, with $10M of Revenue p.a. with practically no cost. The question is/was whether or not this is sustainable and what Markus should do next.
The competitors were given 24 hours to prepare their presentations and locked away for that time. They did have a laptop and internet access which was very carefully monitored with all sorts of restrictions on what they could and could not look at. This was a very interesting case, addressing topics which are very much in vogue, social networking, online dating and of course, sustainability.
The structure of the day was that first of all the teams were divided in to four rooms, with 4 teams presenting in each room. The timing was strict, 20 minutes for the presentation and 10 minutes of questions. The Judges had a few minutes to ponder before the next team came in. One team from each then went through to the second round where they presented again, this time to all the judges.
As an additional step, following the second round was a lightning round, where four questions were asked and the teams given 60 seconds to prepare a response and 2 mins to answer. All in a big room, with all the judges and all the teams together.
After all this the judges got together and decided who was 1st / 2nd and 3rd. The subject line gives the game away of course, but in all seriousness all the competitors today deserve a lot credit. I know there is a whole circuit of these case competitions and some of the teams were very well practiced, but I have to admire all the participants who stood up there today. Without exception it was clear that they had put a lot of work into this, and standing in front of folk like myself must have been very daunting for them.
In terms of the presentations themselves, it was interesting to see the mix of time spent on presenting the situation and then the recommended actions. Too much on the former, too little on the latter. The standard of presenting was surprisingly good with a good deal less umms and ahhs than you might expect, the majority of the presentations also had a good structure. Generally I think there were too many words on too many slides and not enough pictures, but maybe I'm splitting hairs.
The discipline of having to prepare at short notice for an important presentation is a good discipline to learn. Being able to successfully analyse and interpret data, come up with a strategy and then communicate it are all key skills the students will benefit from in later years. Add to this that many of them had travelled half way round the world and still had to go back and make all their normal term/course deadlines made the whole thing even more impressive.
These students are the future CEOs, CTOs, leaders, Prime Ministers or Presidents. They will be running the world when I'm old and grey (which is probably far sooner than I was planning!). I came away greatly encouraged by this and more so inspired. As one of the speakers mentioned at the Awards Dinner, when I was an undergraduate the most I could organise was an anxiety attack, let alone the job these teams did in the competition.
So congratulations to SFU, who came away with 1st prize. As a judge I had no idea which team was which, until after the placings had been settled. For the record Singapore came second, Calgary third. I also enjoyed the Awards Dinner which had a great buzz. A very enjoyable end to a very enjoyable day - I hope I get invited back next year!
