Friday, June 18, 2010
Friday brings the second Business Breakfast and presentations to Oasis Center. Students, executives, staff, coaches, and faculty were all in the building by 7:00 AM!
With the first Business Breakfast under their belts, the students navigated this one like true networking professionals. There were more companies represented this time, so there were even more executives for the students to meet and hone their networking skills. It’s interesting to see the different dynamics between clusters of executives and students as they gracefully move from meeting and elevator pitches to the buffet line and then back to the tables to talk at length. After Dr. Burcham and Prof. English made their remarks, the executives made their way out of Owen as the students made their way into Averbuch to prepare for presentations. Side note: The executives were so impressed with some of our students that they have already made note of the students they would like to interview on Career Day! What a great group!
Presentations began promptly at 9:00 AM. The teams are 3/3 for knockout presentations. With their own unique angles, the teams presented their solution to Oasis to connect and engage youth. All of the teams used some form of media to engage youth, but just the variety and creativity at the foundation of the pitches was fascinating to watch. Oasis Center was absolutely enthralled with each of the eight teams and their ideas; during the judging round, Hal Cato, CEO, declared that the Center would be taking something from each presentation and using it in the final product. Like the Lexus presentation, 4 teams received first place votes. However, the margin between first place and last place continues to narrow as the teams continue to improve their presentation skills.
The winning presentation was Team 1’s “Own Yourself” campaign. Congratulations to Danielle Carattini, Nick Corser, Melissa Dahl, Kwasi Kyei, Nehal Mehta, Dave Seelbinder, Ginny Shogry, Kathryn Smith, Taylor Thompson, and team coach Jeff Freude! Their idea centered around a movement to get youth engagement with the community and their peers via mobile and social media. Their Charlie Brown example, implementation plan, and innovative database WOWed the judging panel. Team 2’s “I Am the Change” finished in second place followed by Team 4’s “Generation C (C3)” in third place.
Team 3’s “Swagger” storyboard won over the judges with its graffiti-esque, hip-hop design – congratulations to Maggie Bouscaren, Scott Campbell, Cara Chayet, Meredith Crites, Peyton Davis, Jacob Hormes, Jack McCallum, Nick Morrow, and team coach Sean Cunningham. Team 2 finished in second place and Team 1 finished third.
Team 5 won research again – Andrew Bromberg, Marshall Benson, Bram Chisholm, Maggie Durlacher, Liz Emanuel, Neal Goodwin, Andrew Hawkins, Meredith Price, and team coach Kimberly Cochran are research masters. Team 3’s research effort came in second place followed by Team 7. Team 4 hit on the first 4 places on how the client ranked each of the presentations, which was good enough for first place in the client rank category. Team 1 came in second place followed by Team 7 in third place. A new competition category was added for this presentation that judged how well the teams followed the defined process and if their deliverables met the standards set by the faculty. Team 8 came in first place, followed by Team 1 in second place and team 5 in third place.
MVPs were Melissa Dahl and Taylor Thompson, Joe Delaura, Scott Campbell and Meredith Crites, Mary Brinkopf, Liz Emanuel, Carolyn Murdock, Dani Portugal, and Julia Maas and Aric Zantow.
Prof. Pace conducted her usual presentation evaluations with the students afterward. With her help, the students are improving after each presentation, are becoming more confident in their day-to-day interactions, and are developing their personal brands. We are really looking forward to those borderline-rockstars blossoming into full-on outstanding presenters.
At 1:00 PM, the students had about an hour to decompress and unwind over lunch. They talked about the ups and downs of the presentations, what went good and what went wrong. The students also shifted gears (they are amazing at doing that) and immediately moved their focus to the upcoming Bridgestone session at 2:00 PM.
Michael Fluck and Phil Pacsi from Bridgestone made it around to each of the team rooms to help with questions the teams had come up with and for any additional clarification they may have needed. Even after a packed and eventful morning, the teams worked tirelessly for 2.5 hours developing a consumer campaign to leverage Bridgestone’s sports partnerships. Teams completed their research and began designing and their PowerPoints and storyboards. In under a week, the teams will be presenting their solutions to the executives of Bridgestone. The pace never lets up here at Accelerator.
Prof. Griffith led his third team feedback session at 4:30. The students received their graphical breakdowns of how well they performed in personal, social, learning, and leadership skill areas along with the 5 Practices of Effective Leadership. Just like Prof. Pace’s sessions, Prof. Griffith’s sessions provides constant feedback for the students to grow and develop as leaders AND teammates. The students have already made great strides in just a few days and will only get better by Prof. Griffith’s last feedback session.
A quick dinner followed and then the teams broke for a brief HIMSS session for the rest of the night. They refined their focus and direction of their pitch and began compiling research and brainstorming ideas to take their projects to the next level. HIMSS is a very difficult project and will challenge the students the entire time. It is very important to come up with “the box.” As long as there is a “box,” you can put a “bow” on it. A solid foundation can be turned into a WOW: it’s not as easy going the other way. The students are learning this, sometimes the hard way, but are becoming experts at developing exceptional presentations for the clients. We closed Owen around 9:00 PM, longing for the weekend and for some much needed time to rest.