ASEC Case Competition

I've been spending the majority of the previous two days at a case competition, where we attended workshops on teamwork, studying, and being professional, as well as coming up with presentations in a short period of time.

Saturday - Accounting

Sponsored by the ICAO, we were given 15 minutes to talk about the conflict of interest between different users of financial statements, and analyze the cost-benefits of having some aspects of the financial statement included, arguing whether they were or were not helpful, especially in the current state of our economy.

I absolutely bombed this section (15 minute preparation for a 10 minute presentation!?). I was unsure of what I wanted to say, and I tensed up, which is weird for me, since I generally do not get nervous about public speaking. The judge was nice, but I could tell he wasn't extremely impressed. I stuttered my way through it, and kept going in circles about the economy. Oh well, it definitely will help me in the future, and I learned from my errors.


Sunday - Marketing

We got into groups of four (randomly, I didn't know anyone in my group) and market a product. We got 30 minutes to create a 10 minute presentation, and we were not allowed to market the randomly selected product for its conventional use. We drew a egg poacher, and turned it into a childrens' lunchbox. I spoke about the current flailing state of our economy, and how inexpensive these boxes would be for the families struggling to make ends meet. We did an amazing job, and finished first out of 24 or so teams. I felt really confident speaking, and we were able to answer questions very well, showing that we had really thought about what we were marketing. It was good too, because the case asked us to consider the current state of our economy and how it may affect spending and marketing, and we really did a fantastic job about it.

Made me feel better after a crappy solo presentation. Too bad there was no monetary prize (the solo accounting presentation had a $400 prize for 1st).