Conversations with a Magic 8 Ball:

Joana: “Is it time to eat yet?”
Magic 8 Ball: “My sources say yes.”
Eric: “Should we order pizza?”
Magic 8 Ball: “The future looks hazy.”
Mengjin: “How about Thai?”
Magic 8 Ball: “No”
Joana: “Let’s have Chinese then”
Magic 8 Ball: “Maybe another time”
Eric: “Should we order pizza?”
Magic 8 Ball: “Outlook not so good”
…
Although the Magic 8 Ball was surprisingly consistent in predicting that we would not order pizza, we ended up ordering pizza.

After working for almost 10 hours on our presentation for the McKinsey Business Technology Challenge, any excuse not to think was welcomed. The challenge: pick a Fortune 100 company and show how one of four technologies can dramatically improve it. That is a pretty broad topic to cover. The technologies were crowd-sourcing (like this blog), ubiquitous connectivity, virtual worlds and smart network elements. My team’s task was to build a case for the company to adopt a new technology complete with financial models. All that to be reduced into a 12 page PowerPoint presentation due within 48 hours.

Not knowing that it was a long weekend when I signed up for the competition, I was not looking forward to spending it PowerPointing at all. Amazingly, this challenge has turned out to be a lot of fun. I got to brush up on chapter 1 of my Mandarin lesson, made some new friends and learned new things including the risks that a company would consider when evaluating a new technology.

This has been a weekend very well spent. It was intense but enjoyable. I felt that I accomplished something rather than wasting my weekend away sleeping. I would strongly recommend anyone who is interested in consulting to participate in at least one competition. Having participated in both the AT Kearney Case Competition and the McKinsey Business Technology Challenge, I do prefer the shorter case competitions over the longer ones.

Good luck on your case competition!