I had no idea what to expect when I signed up as a “free agent” for the Innovation and Design Club’s first ever design competition —the University of Chicago Innovation Challenge. Who was my team going to be? What were we going to be doing? The kickoff included free Chipotle and was hosted at the beautiful (and free, we learned) Chicago Cultural Center, which was to be our client organization. I met my team: an undergrad Econ major, a policy student, and another Boothie. Each of us had varying levels of knowledge about human-centered design ranging from “I have no idea what this is!” to “Design? I went to a design high school.”
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The Inaugural Booth TechCon
Part 1: Big-Time Planning
by Shota Ido
On April 19th, The Booth Technology Group (BTG) held our first-ever Booth TechCon, a soon-to-be-annual student-led conference covering various topics from machine learning analytics and biomedical devices to IoT and autonomous vehicles.
First things first – why host a conference? When we assumed the roles as BTG co-chairs, our group wanted to change the perception of Chicago Booth from a “finance” school to one with strengths in technology as well (see this story on the PM Workshop for the kinds of programming we offered).
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Tech Product Management Starter Pack
“Build a better bus system.” In 30 minutes!? Public transportation is a big policy problem in the United States and…Wait, this is a product management interview, the tech industry’s equivalent of casing—trial by fire. In a brief 30-minute interview, case questions are supposed to evaluate your product design sense, your understanding of strategy, and sometimes, analytical skills. As I thought about the hours I poured into interview prep my first year, I knew as Booth Tech Group (BTG) co-chair, I wanted to create an even better Tech PM Workshop this year.
The percentage of Boothies who enter tech has nearly doubled since 2013, from 12% to 20%, and BTG has seen our numbers double, too. We’re proud to say we match Management Consulting Group in number of members. In general, we are seeing more students interested in tech. Specifically, they’re looking at product management, that popular role for new MBAs at Google, Amazon, Facebook, and others. But what is product management? And do you need a computer science degree?
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