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 4th member begins
c. If m=5, check if the 5th 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.
