My Experiments with Competitions

With trembling hands and an accelerated heart beat as that of a marathon runner, she clicked “SUBMIT”. A zillion thoughts rushed across her mind: Was the naming convention correct? Was the submission format adhered to? Will we win this one? Alas! It’s too late to fret over all this. So, she tells her team members, “Chalo. Night canteen chalte hai! Ab yeh toh gaya!”

Most of you would have already guessed what this discussion was about. Or rather might have just come back from one. For those who didn’t, this is a typical after-submission discussion. And not a clichéd case submission indeed. This is one of the most dreaded, the most anticipated, the most tiring submission. Yes. It is the B-SCHOOL COMPETITION SUBMISSION.   

Of late, most of us would have had to answer at least 1 or perhaps all of these questions: How do you make these ppts? What’s the thought process? How do you solve these case studies? I can’t help but reminisce similar discussions last year. And just like last year, we tell them: It’s an experiment with competitions.

An experiment is a scientific procedure undertaken to 

A. Make a discovery, 

B. Test a hypothesis, or 

C. To demonstrate a known fact.

B-school competitions are also experiments. How? They too are undertaken to 

 A. Make a discovery: Of how you underestimated so many people, accurately estimated many others and overestimated yourself.

 B. Test a hypothesis: I would rather put this as ‘Test several hypotheses’

1. The number of likes on a company’s FB page follows a bell curve

I have come across several cases which require us to find a solution to a Digital Dilemma. But web analytics probably never take this factor into account. The number of likes increase gradually once the teaser for a competition is released; reach its peak when the details of the competition are revealed and decline the day the results are declared. Why decline? Because of the disgruntled students unlinking the pages as they aren’t shortlisted for the next round and hence there’s nothing left to be notified about.

2. Multiplier effect is only theoretical

Being a finalist in one competition doesn’t imply that you would be a finalist in the next one and in the one after that. And if you think that winning a competition triggers this effect, think again.

3. N=5 (where N=no. of steps from the time the details are sent to the time when the solution is submitted)

1. How many members (m) are required?

     a. If m=3, your team is ready

           b. If m=4, the search for the 4^th member begins

           c. If m=5, check if the 5^th member is mandatory or can the team be formed  with 4 members as well

     2. Is there a campus round?

           a. If Yes; go ahead, register

           b. If No; go ahead, register (but don’t submit)

    3. When is the submission deadline? Or rather how many days to go before the deadline?  

    4. What is the submission format?

            a. If word doc; how many pages?

            b. If ppt; how many slides?

Oh the joy that comes with the smaller submission format and the frustration that comes later when you realize that there’s so much to write and so little space!

   5. Is there a possibility of a deadline extension?

C. To demonstrate a known fact:

Fact #1: Deadlines are sacrosanct

23:59:59 for an ordinary submission means 00:30:30. But if you think this would work for a B-school competition, it wouldn’t. With a blink of the eye, the uploading link gets disabled.

Fact #2: Surveys are fraudulent, seldom genuine

If you conducted an ‘in-depth interview of 20 customers visiting a kirana store’, you probably got 5 of your friends (maybe the team members themselves) together and had a less than 5min chat on the topic.  

Fact #3: The font size is directly proportional to the slide/word limit

The amount of information that can be filled in a 1 page word doc is equal to

                  1. The amount of information that can be filled in a 6 slide ppt.

                  2. The amount of information that can be filled in a 10 slide ppt.

                  3. The amount of information that can be filled in a 40 slide ppt.

No. This is not a multiple choice question. All the 4 are equal, albeit with minor differences. As the slide/page limit increases, the font size increases, the number of SmartArts increases. But the amount of information always remains constant.

But all said and done, nothing summarizes my experiments with B-school competitions other than these lines of Rudyard Kipling,

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.