Published Aug 21, 2004
Friday was our first case competition. First time we had to read about somebody’s business decision and develop an alternative and present that in front of a bunch of people. And you know what? The Ocho rocked! Have I mentioned I love my group lately?
What was best was our approach. Everybody was helpful, everybody was creative, everybody was goal-oriented, everybody was having fun. We made a plan, we executed it, we took breaks, we came together and reinforced each other, we showed faith in each other and finished before the deadline. Then we practiced our presentation together, everybody listened to everybody else’s suggestions, and we went home at a reasonable hour.
In the morning, we nailed our presentation. We came out of the case room knowing we’d advance to the semifinals, and we did. We stepped in front of our core to present and immediately our PowerPoint started getting compliments — I guess all those years of PowerPoint design work finally came in handy!
I was pretty darned scared during the presentation to the entire core, with the dry mouth and everything. About a minute into my part of the presentation I realized that I hadn’t breathed. This did, however, offer me a good opportunity to look around the room and make eye contact with my classmates. Apparently, I looked as if I knew what I was doing; just as apparently, MBA candidates are easily fooled.
The rest of my group looked like they knew what they were doing, too, and we made a great presentation. Unfortunately, we weren’t picked to progress to the finals; given that none of us were experienced public speakers or big, stage-hogging hams, I’ve got to say that we all did wonderfully. And the final winners? I don’t understand why the Strategy profs picked them. I’ll have to ask on Monday. The team that beat us was strong, the teams from cores A and B seemed to me to have better presentations than those from C and D.