We sat down with Justin F., Cynthia, Justin T., and Aaron – the winners of PBSN’s 2013 Case Competition – to see if they could share advice for this year’s competitors. Last year’s competition featured a case with Bitmaker Labs, asking competitors to create a solution to close the gender gap in computer science. We’d like to thank all 4 tea0m members for agreeing to chat with us. Below is the transcribed interview, edited for clarity.
Can you guys walk us through your thought process as you went through the case last year? How did you go about tackling it?
Justin T.: We approached it by coming up with a creative solution first. After that, you have to back up your claims with facts and see if your argument was correct.
Justin F.: The key here is that you only have 4 hours to go from scratch to a complete presentation. Organization is important. You have to know what you have to get done, and get it done. We first identified the problem, and the areas that were causing that problem. In last year’s case, we learned that a lot of women can feel isolated in the computer science department. We focused on how to tackle this issue, and strung ideas together to create the essence of our presentation.
Cynthia: For me, it was an issue I had heard about. It was an issue I could potentially relate to, which made it easier to think about it from a personal perspective. I think it’s very important to put your personal touch into a solution, or else all the presentations will look very similar.
Because of that, we wanted to take a bit of a unique, creative approach. I feel like that showed in our PowerPoint. We wanted to not only show our ideas to the audience, but also prove that they would visually appealing.
We remember your PowerPoint last year was very visually appealing. At the same time, you guys clearly had strong analysis to support your pitch. Would you recommend this year’s competitors to find teammates with different strengths, and not necessarily people that they’re friends with?
Cynthia: Absolutely. I actually didn’t meet the 2 Justins until the day of the competition. Although I think it’s important to find people who you know you’ll work well with, it’s also important to know that those people might not necessarily be your friends. Try to find people who have different strengths – and even weakness – than you, because you want to balance each other out.
Can you guys think of a time when it was frustrating for you last year? Were there any low points?
Justin F.: Not eating started to get to me. The competition was definitely a time crunch. Towards the end, when we were planning on heading back, we still needed to make last minute changes. Before we went in to present, we were busy rehearsing our lines. The timing was one of the biggest challenges.
Cynthia: For me, it was memorizing my points while not appearing like I was reciting my lines. We had very little time to make the presentation sound natural, because you do have to spend time making sure the solution is well-prepared. You definitely have to plan out your time so you have room to do everything you need to.
Justin F.: It’s important to make sure the entire team arrives at a collective consensus. We had to make sure we all knew the idea we were trying to sell, and that we were on the same page. When we went out to pitch the idea, our enthusiasm for our collective solution showed.
Aaron: I believe there was a time when we were over-analyzing the case and not focusing on the problem itself. While it’s good to do a strong analysis on the material provided, time is definitely against you. You need to move forward to come up with a solution.
You can’t get caught up in analysis paralysis, right?
Definitely.
You were announced as one of the top 3 teams last year, and eventually as the winning team. Can you talk about the experience of presenting your solution before representatives from Bitmaker Labs? What was it like to have the chance to have your ideas implemented by the company?
Justin F.: I always remember walking into the competition the morning of, and thinking: “It would be really funny if we won today.” I went in with that mentality, and so it was fantastic when everything unfolded. I actually recently visited the website of Bitmaker Labs and saw one of our suggestions implemented. One of our recommendations was to feature more women on their website to encourage more females to join computer science, and they did exactly that. It was really cool to see your ideas come to life.
Cynthia: When we were announced as one of the top 3 teams, I was really excited. I looked around at all the people in the room at the time, and I was just excited to share our ideas with them. I also really enjoyed the chance to answer questions that the Bitmaker Labs judges asked us, because it was great to hear their opinions on what we came up with in the short span of 4 hours.
Justin T.: It was a valuable experience reading about the people in the case, and then seeing their reactions to our suggestions when we pitched it to them in the final round. It was cool to hear them say, “Hey, this is an idea that we’ve been thinking about too.”
Aaron: “When we were announced, I was more focused on ensuring I remembered all my lines! It was important to not hype up our presentation too much, and focus instead on explaining our ideas objectively.
You guys were all in first year when you won the 2013 Case Competition. When you looked around in the room, I’m sure you saw a lot of older students. The 2014 Case Competition might be the first competition for many of the participants. Do you have any advice for the younger competitors this year?
Cynthia: I’d say that age is really just a number. I feel like everyone is able to create great ideas and present effectively. If they’re willing to sign up and compete in extracurricular case competitions like these, then they must have the drive and initiative to come up with really great ideas.
Justin F.: I definitely agree with Cynthia. Age is just a number. Maybe some of the older students will go into this competition feeling more confident because they have more experience, but that’s almost an advantage for you, if you’re a younger student, because you really have the drive to do well.
Justin T.: I would encourage younger competitors to be confident. The guys who are feeling the most confident about case competitions might be reusing what they've been taught in school. You have the chance to introduce some new, creative ideas. I don't think age or experience is going to be a problem. It's simply about being creative.
Aaron: Going into the competition, I was actually not too worried because of the fact that we were in first year. We didn't have anything to lose, so we just gave it our best. Actually, I think that this year will be tougher for us with higher expectations going in!
On that topic, you guys are defending your titles in the 2014 Case Competition. What would you say to this year's competitors?
Cynthia: We're honestly so excited to compete against the participants this year. We've had a lot of people approach us for advice, and what we say is: "What worked for us might not work for you." Don't necessarily follow in our footsteps just because we did well last year. It's a different case, in a different year, with different people. We look forward to seeing what people come up with.
Justin T.: We love competition!