Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

Hello all! My name is Lydia and I was one of the Dean's List winners for this year. Yesterday, we had lunch with Dean Kamen, and he assigned us the homework from 2009--to collect all of the FIRST alumni in a single database.

We are currently working on our own project to do this, but we would like to use facebook as a tool to communicate our progress with the past and present FIRST community.

We have made a FIRST Alumni page on facebook that we will be posting announcements to. If you are an alumnus of a FIRST team, please go to the following link and join our group:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/203615639698314/

Thanks!

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

Very interesting! Sounds like a great idea to rally the troops so to speak.

I have a few questions though:

Do you know what this data will be used for (besides # of alumni and announcements). I am very curious (and excited) to hear what this is about!

What type of announcements are we talking about? Teams that need mentoring, events that need volunteers.. etc.

All in all, this could be a great tool to see the size and scope of the FIRST community (and hopefully a way to get more alumni to participate in the Brandeis study)!

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

Some FIRST alumni are not on Facebook. How do you plan to reach them?

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

Not an alumni yet, but I'm definitely gonna pass this over to the alumni I know.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

I will pass this on to all of the Alumni from KING TeC!

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

The FIRST website has a section devoted to collecting alumni information.

http://www.usfirst.org/community/first-community-alumni

Don't know how this information is used.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

Ever consider creating a LinkedIn group or using the preexisting one?

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

I'd suggest joining current Facebook alumni groups (like this one) and inviting those members.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

I like the idea a lot and I think something like a Fan page would be great for such a purpose, but not a group.

First of all, each time you join a new group on Facebook, you automatically get email notifications of everything that happens in that group. You have to turn this setting off group by group.

Second, being in a group creates a chat room. If anyone talks in it, everyone in the group gets an audio notification. People that want no part of group chat will probably be pretty annoyed.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

There is a FIRST Robotics group on LinkedIN with close to 2000 members. You can definitely post this information on that group and find plenty of alumni.

There are quite a few FIRST related groups on LinkedIN that have various focuses, like geographic focus, program focus (FLL, FTC, etc), which is great, and there are plenty of professional on LinkedIN interested in FIRST. The key thing to building a group on LinkedIN is keeping the group interesting with plenty of fresh content.

I would probably post in the existing LinkedIN group and drive people to the Facebook group.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

To help promote the group, I would contact some of the more popular groups and pages on facebook (like the offical and unoffical FIRST pages, i.am.FIRST, various FIRST related pages and some team pages) to see if they can tag the group in their status to get more people aware of the goup. There are a ton of FIRST alumni that haven't even heard of ChiefDelphi, let alone read it it enough to see this post.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

Seriously? That's annoying. Apologies to all the people I just invited.

EDIT: ...the people I just added. Come on Facebook, you don't have to accept membership?

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

I completely forgot the worst part: you can't refuse an invitation.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

I don't understand why there can't just be a mailing list for alumni to sign up for and receive info/requests to help. I'm sure I'm not the only one unwilling to fill out a long questionnaire of info that FIRST doesn't need to collect about me for me to be willing to help out. All I need is an email telling me what's going on this month. If I have time I'll contact and help, if not, I won't, not sure why this needs to be more complicated than that?

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

Just curious, but why do you think that it would be best to drive people from the LinkedIn group to Facebook and not just use LinkedIn groups?

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

But you can always leave sir!

-RC

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

The LinkedIN group is not specifically for FIRST alumni, basically everyone is welcome. The purpose of the LinkedIN group is to post news and articles about FIRST, basically a clearing house about FIRST news.

On the other hand, the FB group proposed in the OP is a water cooler / gathering place for FIRST alumni.

The two groups have different goals and purposes. IMO the technology (FB/LinkedIN) doesn't matter in this case.

So, the LinkedIN group would be used to notify FIRST alumni that happen to be part of the group and direct them to a more focused group on FB.

Hope that helps explain my thought process.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

.... 80% of my emails are from Facebook.

I would prefer a fan page, if possible - or a group where no one really posts anything.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

Not that I like the new facebook group, but you guys are making it sound like an ordeal to turn off emails from groups and pages lol. It takes 2 seconds to do, and a person with eyes should be able to find the "Edit Settings" button.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

You have to do it every time you join a new group, and it's pretty buried. Couple that with other people "adding" you to groups and you'll wake up after a day not on the computer with 100 emails.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

I believe the edit settings button is not at all buried... Its on the home page of the group and you can click spam on the emails. Its really not that bad.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

I would like to reiterate this point for Eric. What is the plan for those who don't have or want a facebook page? Telling us all the emails aren't that bad isn't a good job of convincing.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

Its on the top right, next to the group name when you're on the group page. RC is correct.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

Hey, please don't "add" alumni to this group without asking.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

(Found the edit settings button 15 minutes after I made my post)

Whoops.

Re: Calling All FIRST Alumni!
 

FB offers cake... it fails to deliver. Instead you just get emails and they don't even offer tantalizing images of cookies or cake.

I'll consider adding it.