Should Chairman's Winners Be Required to Publicly Post Essays?

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I can think of only one potential negative result of sharing a Chairman's Award essay:

Some people will publicly critique, nitpick, or otherwise complain about what a team says it does. This could include accusations of exaggerating or even inventing details. Even if such accusations are without merit, they would still cast shadows over the process.

Though I doubt that would be enough to detract from all the potential positives, I'm still leaning toward leaving things as they are. It seems to me that the teams that truly deserve to be emulated already share their essays.

You bring up an interesting point, Alan!

I haven't written my opinion yet, but this is a big part of it, so I'll throw in another question:

Would the thought of making essays publicly available discourage teams from bending the truth, reduce exaggerations, or in general, create a system of checks & balances? I read a thread on here a while ago about a team discussing something similar to this that made me think about this type of situation. Do people in FRC think that teams who win/submit Chairman's already have the decency to avoid things like this? What about if a student is submitting/writing an award and just doesn't know all aspects of the type of work their team has done in the community? How can it be ensured a student doesn't pass along false information/exaggerations to the judges? (In general, this is the tougher part of the question, in my opinion). Should teams have to present visual evidence of all events/services to judges?

Would teams reading these essays be rude and harass a team about something that is written in an essay, or would they calmly ask questions in private?

Originally Posted by ebarker

If you are submitting for Chairman's, the you are publicly declaring your team to be a role model. What you do, how you act, how you accomplish your work should be visible to all.

....

Someone please correct me but I vaguely remember a statement from FIRST last spring stating that starting in 2013 all winning Regional Chairman's teams essays would be published. But I don't remember and need to research it.

We do not have a problem publishing the essay and it is posted on ChiefDelphi white papers.

Ed, I think I almost totally agree with your first point, with some small exceptions maybe.

As per your second point - if you find a statement regarding this, please do share.

As I said before, some of the questions I raise may sound controversial, so please keep the discussion as civil as it has been!

[PayneTrain]

Maybe I am naive or ignorant, but I have never witnessed any Chairman's Essay that would suggest an exaggeration of truth or a discussion on the veracity of a submission.

Does this actually happen frequently and I have no idea of it?

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

Maybe I am naive or ignorant, but I have never witnessed any Chairman's Essay that would suggest an exaggeration of truth or a discussion on the veracity of a submission.

Does this actually happen frequently and I have no idea of it?

Wil, to clarify, the threads that prompted me to think about this type of stuff were these two, posted by a mentor of 1912. The questions they posted made my think about how far some teams may intentionally or unintentionally stretch details of services to their community. I thought they were two great questions.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...t=Chairman%27s

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...t=Chairman%27s

In these cases, for example, if a team claims to have mentored or started another team, would judges confirm this type of information with the team that was mentored? Do they ask how involved the mentee (is that a word?) team was? I've just always wondered how judges may go about this.

If anyone here is a Chairman's judge at the district, regional, or CMP level, I'd really love to hear about this process as it seems extremely difficult.

And, as always, my remarks are not accusatory, so don't wonder if these questions were prompted because of a team from my area. They are just questions that a few friends from all over and I had and were wondering about. My remarks are also mine and mine alone, and in no way reflect associated teams.

[Kims Robot]

A long time ago, for me, Chairman's was a battle... it was "how to win it" it was "how do we beat XYZ team". And I'd be lying if I said even in more recent years that I didn't research "the competition."

But something in me changed around 2007. Just prior to 1511's first CA, it dawned on me that all of the competition, all of the secrecy, was counter-intuitive to what the whole point of the Chairman's Award was.

Chairman's teams are Role Models for the rest of the community. If we want to rise above having our kids emulate basketball players, actresses and singers... we NEED to get to a point where our Role Models are accessible. Holywood has loads of books published on them, magazines documenting their every move, websites dedicated to everything they do. I can probably go online and tell you what Justin Bieber ate for breakfast yesterday, and I could find out that this basketball player just dumped this actress... yet for many teams applying for the Chairman's award, I couldn't tell you that they just published a childrens book, or they just did a demo for 4,000 people at an event, or they just ran a training session for five local teams. I only find this out if the judges put it into their awards summary.

While some teams are good at publishing what they do online, that is not the case for sooo many teams. In fact if you go on most team websites, its hard to tell that build season has started.

The thing that's nice about seeing other's essays is that the essay is the most concise summary of everything that the team has done. You don't have to dig through hundreds of blog posts, chief delphi threads, photos, videos, etc. The videos are nice, but often don't convey all that the essay does. They are a handful of interviews, or some funny skit and some voiceovers of pictures. All great, but it doesn't always tell you everything special about that team. In order to be a role model and in order for teams to be able to emulate their role models, they need to know what their role models do.

Yes at the lower levels people might just copy the simphone app, or write a sustainability plan like Team 359, or try to create a Girls in Gear program like 341, etc etc... But there are two sides to that. With more resources and programs like that, FIRST and the world WILL be a better place. Even if its just emulation. The other side is that one of the big criteria of the CA is what makes you UNIQUE. Teams won't get to Championship Chairman's status without that. They will have to do something that sets them apart. So honestly, if 50 teams emulate Daisy's Team in a Box - awesome! If 100 teams try and run their own FLL competition... cool! Something good will come out of it.

Personally, I don't get the point in secrecy. I usually say to each their own, but I don't think I would be up in arms about the requirement to publish your essay/video/etc. I could get behind the question of timing (which has been discussed before) ie don't post until after championships for the teams that want the "edge" in their presentations and talking to the judges. But I think once Championships is over, all of the teams that are or wanted to be Chairman's teams shouldn't be hiding what they do or what made them stand out. Role models don't have "secret" sauce. Role models are examples for others to emulate.

Are you more inspired if I tell you I'm a Systems Engineer, or if I tell you that I am a Systems Engineer and walking to the other building yesterday I watched one of the robots my company builds get tested driving across ice? See how the details make a difference?

A perfect example is the year that 842 won Chairman's - they published their essay BEFORE the essays were even due! Any team looking to "get a leg up on them" had plenty of time to do it. They could add to their essay, modify their presentations, prep judge materials. Yet 842 still won. If you want to win, BE AWESOME. Be UNIQUE. But if you want to start heading in the direction of a Chairman's team, emulate them, try out one or two of their programs, see if you can put a spin on their unique style of essay. But if you want to be Championship material... that's when you need to go the step further and do your own thing.

I get it... for many teams, a trip to Championships is on the line. But frankly, it's in the other 300 days of the year that you become a Chairman's team. It doesn't matter if the team down the road knows that you built a microrobot cat toy, or spent 400 hours volunteering at a children's hospital. You need to convey to the judges why your team is truly deserving of the award, and then and only then will you be a real Chairman's team.

[Miss157]

As someone who is currently in the process (almost done!) of writing 157's Chairman's Award essay, having examples that another team has done to look at has helped a lot. We've never submitted for the award before so this is a learning process for not just myself but also my mentors. One of the very questions asked and the main points of the essay and executive summary is along the lines of "What are characteristics that your team has that other teams should emulate", therefore I think in the very spirit of the Chairman's Award, it should be public.

Also, I don't think that there really is any 'special sauce' a team could have. I'm not sure about other teams, but many teams in my area, 467 for example, and my own team included... We're all very public and open with our outreach and operations. We don't really have anything to hide.

Lastly, I think in the very spirit of Gracious Professionalism, a team should be doing outreach to help people or inspire people, not to win an award. Then again, if you're only doing outreach to win an award, I suppose the good that comes from it comes either way?

[Alan2338]

I feel that wining teams should submit their essays to help inspire other non-winning teams. Winners will most likely have content that could give other teams ideas on what to do.

[mathking]

We have posted some of our Chairman's essays in the past and some we have not. Not posting was never an active decision but an oversight due to us being really busy at the end of the build season. Last year in response to this thread I posted our essay along with annotations on how we documented the claims in this post. We will post ours online again this year and plan to do so going forward every year. Each year's essay will be in our book at the iTunes store (a little bit of shameless plugging here) from now on as well. We have been asked to help a couple of other teams with their essays and presentations, and we will always share what we do.

So if publishing all of the essays was required it wouldn't bother me personally. But I am also not sure it is the right thing to do. If a team is sharing with and supporting other teams and the broader FIRST community well enough to win a Chairman's Award, I am not going to judge their motives in sharing or not sharing their essays. As some of the posters have said, I think there is even more value in sharing the activities in which a team engages than in the essays themselves. But the essay is a convenient way to share this.

So I think Rich Kressly's post sums up my belief. We will continue to post our essays unless someone convinces us there is a better way to share. But we will be perfectly respectful of other teams' choices not to share. And if any teams or individuals want help or advice we will be happy to provide it or try to connect them with someone else who can.

[Larry Lewis]

I believe that sharing what your team does to help promote FIRST in your community and to inspire other teams to push themselves is why FIRST created the Chairman's Award.

In order to achieve the mission of FIRST they needed the teams to understand that in order to truly change the culture, the program just can't be about the robot. I needs to be about how the teams promote the vision of FIRST to change our culture. The robot is just the vehicle to get people inspired to carry out the vision.

I think that sharing your Chairman's essay is a way that you can consolidate all the things that your team does to promote FIRST with other teams. By doing this it collectively makes all the teams better, and has a bigger impact on our culture. This is one of the primary reasons why we share all of our essays and videos on our website. I guess I would not make this mandatory but I think there is a lot of value added in sharing what you have done with others.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

Maybe I am naive or ignorant, but I have never witnessed any Chairman's Essay that would suggest an exaggeration of truth or a discussion on the veracity of a submission.

Does this actually happen frequently and I have no idea of it?

I know of one winning RCA essay (not from a team I have been active on) that exaggerated the truth/misled to believe said team did something major that didn't happen.

I believe it should be up to RCA teams if they want to post their essay but I wish CCA essays were posted. Recently our team found 365's 2007 CCA submission and it was very inspiring to see the impact that team has had.

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

... Would the thought of making essays publicly available discourage teams from bending the truth, reduce exaggerations, or in general, create a system of checks & balances? ...

What if I responded to this by saying that I don't care if these things take place or if there is ever a system of checks and balances? I would hope all teams do their absolute best to represent themselves fairly and well, but trying to externally mandate or manage this is a bad idea...

The Chairman's Award is about documenting your team's growth, impact, and outreach so you keep the type of focus in your program that Dean, Woodie, Dr. Murphy, John Abele, and others have envisioned since the beginning. It about managing your team and program in a way that's more concerned with positive culture change than it is with solely building a killer robot every year. It's about being a model for the creation of socially conscious leaders.

You start shifting the focus toward "catching the cheaters" and you'll start creating more teams that point fingers and worry about the blue banner as opposed to worrying about the healthy pursuit of the blue banner.

Do I want every team to be 100% honest (whatever that means, btw) in their endeavors? Yes. Do I want to spend any time thinking about other teams that might not be doing business that way? No. Not at all.

I want to seek out the models in the FIRST community, take previous year's judging feedback given to my team, think deeply about what makes sense in growing my team's program, and then plan a positive course for growth.

This effort is about the mirror test folks; it's not about looking for the "cheaters." I realize that I may be in the minority here, but we're not going to change enough of the culture for the better if we don't start thinking differently and living accordingly.

my .02, take it for what it's worth.

[ebarker]

1) teams that look at and read Chairman's submissions need to understand the architecture of what is happening. In other words, how does their team address FIRST core values without getting too bogged down in the specifics of what the team does to address the points. It is important that people understand how activities ties to the core values.

• mentoring
• helping others
• building a team
• corporate sponsorship
• team spirit
• gracious professionalism

2) public essays does create a system of checks & balances.

3) the business about passing along false information !! - we have a bunch of rookies in 'boot camp' learning about the team. They looked like a bunch of military recruits with the "deer in the headlights" look. We give exam to all team members, rookie and veteran about team history, Chairman's information, and all the rest. The last thing we want is some clown BS'ing to anyone about what is going on. There is absolutely no good outcome to that scenario. If they don't know the answer they need to pass the question to someone else.

Students have to pass a written and oral exam. The written exam will be given in a month. It looks like this:



Teams need to document what they are doing with pictures, news articles, etc. And put it in a scrapbook or some from of communication. We have a scrapbook and a stakeholder report, similar to a corporate annual report.

The issue that we have the most difficulty with is the 'teams started' business. There are other threads that discuss this at some length. We have addressed this issue by stating: "We have directly aided in the development of N new FRC teams", meaning that we have put substantial effort into incubating the team, training the team, helping the team. Figuring out how to assess that is one of the toughest things, what meets the bar and what doesn't. For better or worse, right or wrong our 'bookends' look something like this. A minimal effort is we spend a full day training the team, have them build a kitbot, program it, drive it and phone support thereafter. The maximal effort is we spent 25 or so four hour sessions training the team on everything we could throw at them. There are some teams that spend a few of their build days in our shop getting support. And another team it is completely building their robot in our shop. In every instance there is a guaranteed 8 hour minimum face to face effort, and the instance listed above went up to 100 hours. Phone and internet support always. Agree with it or not that is pretty much our position.

Figuring out contributions like exhibitions, briefings, policy shifts, classroom incorporation, etc is a lot easier to assess.

A team may slip through on occasion by 'cheating' but it isn't going to last long or carry them far.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Would the thought of making essays publicly available discourage teams from bending the truth, reduce exaggerations, or in general, create a system of checks & balances?

I'm not concerned about the already existing possibility of teams stretching the truth. My worry is about an increased possibility of public accusations from others even if the team is blameless. It's not a big worry, but I wanted to express it as the only thing keeping me from fully embracing the automatic publication of CA entries.

[RoboMom]

Originally Posted by ebarker

Someone please correct me but I vaguely remember a statement from FIRST last spring stating that starting in 2013 all winning Regional Chairman's teams essays would be published. But I don't remember and need to research it.

My notes taken from an Oct. 2011 "Ask an Expert" http://www3.usfirst.org/community/vo...training_calls
call on the topic of the Chairman's Award contains the following: The FRC National Judge Advisors stated "RCA winning submission for regionals and districts: their written submission will be posted on the FIRST site within a week of earning at an event."

I added the info to the presentation I gave at a workshop in Nov. 2011 on judging.

In the spring of 2012 I inquired, but told it would not be implemented. There were some personnel changes at FIRST HQ in the fall/winter of 2011, and the new folks were not aware of what I was referring to.
I have no knowledge about 2013.

I was honored to be a RCA judge for 2 years. It was hard work.
I have also helped teams document their experience and submit. It is also hard work.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Rich Kressly

What if I responded to this by saying that I don't care if these things take place or if there is ever a system of checks and balances? I would hope all teams do their absolute best to represent themselves fairly and well, but trying to externally mandate or manage this is a bad idea...

The Chairman's Award is about documenting your team's growth, impact, and outreach so you keep the type of focus in your program that Dean, Woodie, Dr. Murphy, John Abele, and others have envisioned since the beginning. It about managing your team and program in a way that's more concerned with positive culture change than it is with solely building a killer robot every year. It's about being a model for the creation of socially conscious leaders.

You start shifting the focus toward "catching the cheaters" and you'll start creating more teams that point fingers and worry about the blue banner as opposed to worrying about the healthy pursuit of the blue banner.

Do I want every team to be 100% honest (whatever that means, btw) in their endeavors? Yes. Do I want to spend any time thinking about other teams that might not be doing business that way? No. Not at all.

I want to seek out the models in the FIRST community, take previous year's judging feedback given to my team, think deeply about what makes sense in growing my team's program, and then plan a positive course for growth.

This effort is about the mirror test folks; it's not about looking for the "cheaters." I realize that I may be in the minority here, but we're not going to change enough of the culture for the better if we don't start thinking differently and living accordingly.

my .02, take it for what it's worth.

Wish we could spotlight an entire post.

Wisdom.

Jane

[Dancin103]

Well this is a subject that could be debated for hours, but my opinions after reading some of the posts are as follows -

A team should do what they feel is best, and if they do not want to share every little detail that is fine. Chairman's award winning teams should be inclined to help other teams out where fit and if that team feels they do or do not need to fully share their business plans and award submissions, then that is what's best. This is not about copying what the elite teams have done, it's about innovating and raising the bar higher for your team and FIRST how you feel fit.

If publicly traded and privately held companies that have made it to great peaks of success were to release all of their plans, patents, and so on would they be where they are today? The answer is no.

So instead of reading teams chairman's award submissions and even forcing them to post their submissions (btw, ours is on our site somewhere, but when we submitted the process was 100% different), be creative and find ways to show your teams innovations, every team is capable of this. And reach out to teams who have won for guidance, I know personally our team is more than willing to sit down with teams and walk them through the process and help them hone in on what makes them successful.

Each and every chairman's award should be different, not one should be the same because not every team is the same, we all have different attributes that allow us to be the teams we are.

Just my two cents.