Quote:
Originally Posted by PayneTrain
Dean talks a lot because he always has soemthing big to say. The last two years he has realized that FIRST has almost hit the ceiling on its niche success with its current sponsorship pool and mentorship draw. There are places in these categories where teams have room to grow, but on a greater organizational level it is time to figure out how to make this program a true mainstream success. How are we going to do this together? I honestly have no clue. I mean, even Dean barely knows how and he is far more intelligent than me. What I do know is that the old way of cozying up to x defense contractor and y branch of the army and z school of engineering is not going to do anything else but put FIRST on autopilot until it runs out of gas. I'm willing to try this new way of "convert the pop culture icon to FIRST, then water 3 times a week and watch it grow" and see where it takes us.
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I agree with this sentiment. I think one potential growth path is to get school administrators to buy into the FIRST program as being consistent with their core educational mission. At least in California, they give it lip service, but little actual support for most teams. Michigan appears to be further along this path. Why not try to make FIRST as popular at football? It certainly is more relevant to today's world.
And I agree that FIRST needs to reach out through the pop culture. That might be done better outside of the competition venue, e.g., will.i.am releasing a video using FRC footage backed by his song.