ugeman229 wrote:
- The "raw cases": I understand these are web-based but am still having trouble understanding how they fit into the overall curriculum. The class I attended didn't seem to incorporate any raw cases - the professor did solicit some feedback for the last five minutes on cases, but this was literally it. Not sure if there is any actual class time devoted to discussing these cases or if it was purely an extracurricular exercise.
The raw cases (as opposed to the "cooked" cases that HBS and Darden put out) are awesome. I have really like what we have done with them so far. They are quite labor-intensive to make, so we haven't done a ton of them, (our other cases have largely been HBS and pre-"raw" SOM, with a few Darden and INSEAD), but I've been thoroughly impressed by how the raw case mimics today's research experience. They basically give you a prompt for discussion, and then more data than you and your team could EVER CONSUME in the amount of time you have. You have to divide and conquer, sift through financials, press, research papers, and expert testimony, (including a lot of varied media: video, podcasts, schematics, etc.), in order to find the best answers possible by the time class rolls around. This is usually within 48-72 hours, btw. It's actually really fun, and makes me really excited for the
Global Network for Advanced Management expanding on this practice. They also continually update the cases each year, and none of them have been fully resolved, so the Zynga case that we did this year in Competitor will likely be completely different by this time next year.
Hope that helps!