The good (?) news is that Geoffrey and I won third place in the university category for the MAS competition for our paper on currency liberalization. The first and second places went to an MAS local scholar and a pair of postgrads (NUS MSc and NTU doctoral), so I think we did fairly well considering we’re both prefrosh. However, the relevant benchmark is Judith who did the same thing, except she won second place and did it at 19 – we should have done so much better. I feel like I’ve let both of us down.
The bad news is that I didn’t get as much out of the prize ceremony/official dinner as I thought I would have. I got to hear Rodrigo de Rato’s speech, take a picture with SM, and chat with a couple of ministry officials, but I didn’t manage to get feedback from the judges on our paper – double-blind judging. Not much of a learning opportunity if there isn’t feedback, and considering that the prize money is far from commensurate with the effort Geoffrey and I put into producing the paper, learning from what went wrong is so much more important.
I think the most interesting part of the evening was when the MC introduced herself and mentioned that she knows Geoffrey, because she interviewed him for princeton. I suddenly remembered that a couple months ago he called me to tell me about his “awesome princeton interview” and started gushing about how cute the interviewer was.
The other bad news is that I failed to win the Speak Out on ICT contest, and from the feedback I got after the competition, I was probably 2nd or 3rd in a close race. The worst part was that I was ahead on content but lost out on delivery – I guess that’s why I never made it anywhere in the debate circles. Considering that I spent most of the time preparing the content and only started practicing delivery on the way to SMU, I missed the opportunity to speak at the main conference, which would have been a surefire way to secure a summer ‘07 job in tech/KM consulting. I also missed out on getting 500 dollars closer to my T60.
Key takeaway: Public speaking will now be a priority development area for me, since making effective pitches and presentations are part of my desired skillset. It was also a learning opportunity in alternative approaches to slide presentations – instead of the “pyramid principle” corporate template I used, I should consider a more creative approach. Which is ironic since creativity is supposed to be my core strength.
heyhey… nice blog! and no, i would disagree it is your delivery that got you down. In fact, i would say you were easily one of the best ones in terms of delivery. It was your content that got you down — too heavy! Yup, work on giving simple, clear cut presos, and you would be the best.
What’s your plan for working on presentation. Think i will work on that area too. And I agree that presentations should be kept simple (less jargon) especially if paired with a paper The presentation is meant to persuade rather than boggle, that’s for the paper