Kevin K Blog

A Cajun Boil at McDonough

The McDonough Cup, which I’m sure my fellow bloggers are writing about this week as well, is the hot topic on campus this week. Every spring, the three largest “classes” – first-year full time, second-year full-time and evening program – compete for four days in a series of events. The prize is for bragging rights and ownership of the rotational McDonough Cup. In a few hours I’m off to the fields to compete in ultimate frisbee and soccer, for example (a welcome stress reliever two weeks before final exams). This quick blog entry, however, is a review and critique of the first event I participated in – the grill-off.

On Thursday evening (or morning depending on what you count as the kick-off of the event), the three competing teams prepared BBQ meals on the patio outside of the third floor of the business school building. The second-years were smoking meat at around 10am and a few of us first-years were collecting all the ingredients and tools for our concoction in the early afternoon. The judges arrived at around 6pm to sample a plate of each and decide upon a winner. The criteria judged were presentation, creativity and taste.

A few weeks ago a few of us thought it would be fun to do a Cajun craw fish boil in a DC park. We discovered that there is a company in New Orleans that will send crawfish FedEx by the pounds for a reasonable price. One of us (for whatever reason) also had a ginormous pot for such a boil. After discovering that the logistics of putting on such an event were actually intense (park waiting list for reservation space for example) we had second thoughts. The McDonough Cup BBQ, however, was in our minds the perfect stage for a boil.

Due to some shenanigans from the second years treating this more like a “top-chef” match than a true BBQ cook-off (yes, I’m a bit bitter), we only managed to squeak out a second place. Granted, the smoked meat on small plates (not pictured below) was decadent and no doubt won in a taste war. All I can say is that next year, we are going to up the game even more and I’m confident we will win.

 

The Cajun man himself - Jack Clements

 

The Three Prof. Judges Bibbing Up

Case Competition #2 Complete!

Today I helped to lead the second and final case competition I will be part of as a first year MBA - this time for the Technology & Innovation Club. When / if you are beginning an MBA program soon you will discover that there are a good many chances to practice your presentation skills and perhaps influence change at a company through case competitions. Some of you will also be involved in making these events happen. That is where I fit into today’s and February’s competitions.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, this event is the first annual MBA Innovation Case Competition (http://www.innovatewashington.com/). The idea of the competition is to take a real business problem and explore business solutions through the design and innovation lens. The problem statement this year was how to overcome barriers of use of the Metrobus system in DC, Virginia and Maryland. Participating teams provided varied and exciting new ideas which made for a very entertaining afternoon of case pitches – especially for the WMATA team who now has an arsenal of ideas to bring back to the rest of the executive team. 

The winners of the competition today were Georgetown McDonough School of Business School Evening Program students Oz Tolon, Selman Altun, Jeremy George, and Manuel Bueno (congrats again). They wowed WMATA leaders, their Department of Transportation partners, and innovation guru Jeneanne Rae, Founder and CEO of MOTIV, with a new way to streamline bus loading and offloading (among other recommendations).

 

The first competition I helped to lead (in case you are curious) was a Diversity and Inclusion themed multi school competition. The Human Capital and Leadership Club (HCAL) partnered with Deloitte Consulting LLP to run this event. I’m happy to report that a Georgetown team won the competition (nice work again Ema Kamara and James Zimmerman). This was the second annual such event and I look forward to the next HCAL Board taking the reins for a third round.