March 03, 2005

Titan War-Gaming with Junior Achievement & UW Eau Claire's Entrepreneur Program

War Gaming with Junior Achievement - March 2005

I don't look that jet-lagged in the picture above... do I?

Considering I'd flown the red-eye back from SFO to MSP the night before (11:45 PM Pacific departure with 8:30 AM Central arrival) and then drove back to Eau Claire (stopping at a rest area on the way to brush my teeth and throw on a suit and tie) for a three-quarter day of war gaming using JA's 'Titan' scenario with 48 high school teams from around western Wisconsin.

Sponsored by Junior Achievement, and heavily supported by UW Eau Claire's undergrad Entrepreneur Program - both of which I'm active with on a pro-bono volunteer basis - the game was based on the Titan scenario from JA and achieving success is challenging to say the least - particularly with such a fragmented market (C'mon, 48 competitors?! That's almost as bad as the CI business...) - click here to take a swing yourself, if you think you're so smart and can do any better. Truly though, it warms my heart knowing we're prepping America's business leaders of tomorrow using tools like Titan.

While my team from Alma Center finished middle of the pack, we had fun getting there, deploying an "experience curve" strategy of massive R&D and capital investment, good marketing spend and a mid- to low-end price point in order to grab market share. We just didn't capture share as fast as some other teams did... we should've spent a bit more wildly, I'm afraid. But the point got across.

Despite my single hour of sleep, we all had a competitively-inspired time... and thanks for all the chocolate milk.

- Arik

Posted by Arik Johnson at March 3, 2005 09:59 AM