WRITTEN EVENTS

Let’s start out by addressing the elephant in the room: written events aren’t for everyone. They’re a super fun and different way to compete, but they sure aren’t suited for the average member. Written events are a process, and they require months of preparation, all-nighters, and a lot — a lot — of research. If you love solving a challenging problem on your feet, then I’d advise staying away from written events (go for role plays!). However, if you like having a prepared plan and the opportunity to rehearse, go ahead and try a written event!

Before you begin planning out our paper, you must decide which event to compete in! The great thing is that DECA’s Competitive Event series offers a plethora of exciting events to chose from. Unfortunately, you can only pick one. Choosing the right event to compete in is the most overlooked but vital part of the competition process. DECA breaks the written events into four categories:

Business and Operations Research Events

Chapter Team Events

Entrepreneurship Events

Integrated Marketing Campaign Events

Business and Operations Research Events (BOR)

Events in this category have a maximum page limit of twenty pages and allow for a single competitor, a partnership, or a team of three.

There are five events that fall under the BOR umbrella:

Business Services
Buying and Merchandising
Finance Operations
Hospitality and Tourism Operations
Sports and Entertainment Operations

BOR events provide you the opportunity to conduct research with a local business/organization and present your findings to a judge at competition. These events follow a topic that changes from year-to-year. The 2019 topic for every BOR event is as follows:

The 2018-2019 topic for each career category is the development of a cause marketing campaign. Participants will collaborate with a local business or organization to analyze current customer perceptions of the company or organization’s corporate social responsibility. Participants will then present a strategic plan to create a cause marketing campaign that aligns to the company or organization’s core values.

BOR events are a great way to connect with local business and understand how they work! If you like business research and strategy, BOR is a great fit for you!

Chapter Team Events

Like BOR events, Chapter Team events have a maximum page limit of twenty pages and allow for a single competitor, a partnership, or a team of three chapter representatives.

There are six events that fall under the Chapter Team umbrella:

Community Service Project
Creative Marketing Project
Entrepreneurship Promotion Project
Financial Literacy Project
Learn and Earn Project
Public Relations Project

Chapter Team events provide the amazing opportunity to engage chapter members in school-wide/community-wide activities that cover the specific event. Many chapters already put on amazing school/community activities, and the Chapter Team events allow you to showcase your chapter’s awesome outreach/impact! If you like event planning and management and want to have a tangible impact on your school or community, try a chapter event!

Entrepreneurship Events

Entrepreneurship events give you the opportunity to “explore entrepreneurial concepts from idea generation, business planning, to growing an existing business.” Unlike BOR and Chapter Team events, however, the events that fall under the Entrepreneurship umbrella have different rules from one another. All events, though, allow for a single competitor, a partnership, or a team of three.

Innovation Plan (10-Page Maximum)
Start-Up Business Plan (10-Page Maximum)
Franchise Business Plan (20-Page Maximum)
Independent Business Plan (20-Page Maximum)
Business Growth Plan (20-Page Maximum) - all competitors must be documented owners/operators of their own business.
International Business Plan (20-Page Maximum)

Integrated Marketing Campaign Events

A favorite of the more designer minded, the Integrated Marketing Campaign Events provide you the opportunity to create promotional media/content for an array of industries. This umbrella, however, is a hybrid between traditional written events and series events: while you still present a paper to a judge, you/your team must also take a career cluster exam (marketing cluster). If you are competing with multiple people on a team, you take the test individually, and your score is averaged.

The Integrated Marketing Campaign Events will be comprised of three events/categories:

Product (IMCP)
Service (IMCS)
Event (IMCE)

These events have a maximum page limit of ten pages and allow for a single competitor, a partnership, or a team of three.The test will factor into your overall score, and a low test score could spell doom for your Glass hopes. If you are a strong test taker who wants to compete in written events but still wants a taste of series events and has an interest in the marketing field, definitely check these events out!

So Which Is Right For Me?

Now that you have familiarized yourself with the numerous written events offered, you are probably overloaded with potential options and don’t know which to pick. Surprisingly, this is a great problem to have! Unfortunately, there is no binary solution. No formula, advice, etc. can make that decision for you. Go with your gut; ask teachers and fellow members, but the end decision is yours, so own it.

“Choose something you are passionate about. The less passionate you are about your topic, the less productive you will be.”

— Ben Smith; Wisconsin DECA VP of Event Management.

All information on this page has been adapted from Andrew Weatherman, DECA Executive President. Read the full article here:

https://medium.com/@andrew49er1/deca-written-event-guide-9139921e08b0