Is business too overlooked by FIRST?

[Daskov]

In my time with FRC, I have noticed that there is often little focus on business as a part of STEM. It makes me sad to see this, as a huge part of mathematics is business and there is no way a team can run successfully without a strong business side.
Should FIRST be working on creating more of an awareness of business related activities rather than just focusing on the technical and engineering side of things? Engineering is fantastic, don't get me wrong, but there are so many more aspects of FIRST to build upon.
I personally feel a good place to start would be setting up university scholarships for students going into business, rather than expanding more engineering, programming, or other tech related ones.
Thoughts?
ALSO, I don't mean in any way to stop promoting tech related things in FIRST. They are awesome, too.

[Chris Hibner]

FIRST should have an entrepreneurship award...

[dcarr]

I think the Entrepreneurship Award places a great emphasis on business, not to mention it's sponsored by one of Silicon Valley's largest VCs.

I think business acumen is an implicit part of other awards including but not limited to EI and Chairmans - you can't run a successful program without having a mastery of organizational strategies, fundraising, writing, PR, etc.

[Conor Ryan]

YES.

And every team is impacted by HQ's in ability to explain that. Helping run a team is like running a small business, and well almost all aspects are covered. Your product, which is where engineering comes into place is where all the focus is, but clearly all the press we get is about the engineering aspect. I would love to hear somebody at the top of the house discuss how FRC is great for a business career, because I will tell you that it is, and it isn't that hard to sell people on that concept. (Yes I know we have the entrepreneurship award, honestly it doesn't do the business aspect justice)

Also, for as long as I have been involved I haven't heard too much from KPCB and they got one hell of a resume on their hands, they brought you AOL, Amazon.com, Navigenics, Citrix, Compaq, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Genomic Health, Geron Corporation, Google, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Nebula,Netscape, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, Verisign, WebMD and Zynga all at a very early stage, seeing that they back FIRST really speaks to how well the program is designed too.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

YES.

And every team is impacted by HQ's in ability to explain that. Helping run a team is like running a small business, and well almost all aspects are covered. Your product, which is where engineering comes into place is where all the focus is, but clearly all the press we get is about the engineering aspect. I would love to hear somebody at the top of the house discuss how FRC is great for a business career, because I will tell you that it is, and it isn't that hard to sell people on that concept. (Yes I know we have the entrepreneurship award, honestly it doesn't do the business aspect justice)

Also, for as long as I have been involved I haven't heard too much from KPCB and they got one hell of a resume on their hands, they brought you AOL, Amazon.com, Navigenics, Citrix, Compaq, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Genomic Health, Geron Corporation, Google, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Nebula,Netscape, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, Verisign, WebMD and Zynga all at a very early stage, seeing that they back FIRST really speaks to how well the program is designed too.

Not only that, I believe KPCB has been sponsoring FIRST for most if not all of its 25 years of existence.

While it would be easy to troll you by pointing to the Entreprenuership Award, I will say that FIRST could be doing a better job at publicizing literally everything else that goes into running an FRC team besides engineering. On 422 some of the best members have not gone into engineering and do not plan on going into engineering. However every member has learned valuable skills while running the team as well as utilizing their talents from machining to graphic design to marketing to strategy. Whether or not they leave for a STEM field, they all have learned about the benefits of the program.

Without a mostly coherent business plan, 422 would not be able to survive, much less thrive and continue to improve. Our plan has covered many contingencies that have been exercised, like what happens when you don't have a teacher sponsor (we're in year 8! If you would like us to not see this for a ninth straight year, let me know), what happens when a sponsor pulls the rug out from under you a week before your biggest competition, and how to expand the team in a sustainable way should we balloon from 28 to 80 members over 3 years (at least I like to think we are ready).

We love to talk about every part of our team, I just wish FIRST would as well. I know training the next leaders of accountants isn't as sexy to defense contractors that sponsor FRC as the next leaders in ICBM design, but training and education for both those and other fields have a place in our program.

[FrankJ]

Maybe an association of non-engineering mentors to help organize this aspect of the teams. They could call it NEMO or something like that.

[dcarr]

I think it would be great to hear from a KPCB partner at a future CMP - I was at a talk from Mike Abbott that was very compelling.

In many ways, running an FRC team is a lot like running a startup. With each stage of growth come new learning opportunities.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

Maybe an association of non-engineering mentors to help organize this aspect of the teams. They could call it NEMO or something like that.

Speaking of NEMO it does exist. http://www.firstnemo.org/resources.htm

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

Speaking of NEMO it does exist. http://www.firstnemo.org/resources.htm

I believe FrankJ made what is colloquially referred to as a 'joke'

[ehfeinberg]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

Speaking of NEMO it does exist. http://www.firstnemo.org/resources.htm

I think that was sarcasm...

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by dcarr

I believe FrankJ made what is colloquially referred to as a 'joke'

Originally Posted by ehfeinberg

I think that was sarcasm...

Sorry it was hard to tell if he was serious or not.

[Mr V]

I fully agree that FIRST headquarters needs to put more emphasis on the other aspects of FRC. The fact is that the constant hype about making the students into engineers and students working with professional engineers make recruiting team members interested in other aspects of the program and mentors who aren't engineers into the program.

A couple of years ago we were at an event and the father of one of the students was next to me down in spirit alley cheering for the team. He commented that this was so great and quite the mind blowing experience. He then said he wished he could be involved but sadly he was not an engineer he was the manager of a bank branch. I said great that is what we need I've got more engineers than I can shake a stick at and no one to help the team write a business plan.

Sure the country needs more engineers but we need competent people to fill many other jobs in society. Fact is if the world was full of engineers we would have never accomplished anything. You need at least one person with a gun to shoot the engineer so we can get on with the process of building something. It also helps to have people who handle finances, marketing and operations, all things that FRC can allow students to experience if they and potential mentors know of the opportunities.

[waialua359]

I am still confused as to why FIRST doesnt emphasize the Entreprenuership Award as being one of the top awards??

In my 15 years of FIRST, the biggest hurdle or complaints I hear is COST.
There is a reason why many teams no longer do FIRST, especially newer teams once they run out of the initial startup funding support.

I would think that this is FIRST's biggest issue in their quest to get more and more teams participating and that they would put a lot more emphasis on the "business" part.

[guniv]

I definitely think the business aspect is overlooked. The past years our team has neglected the business aspect and this year we really buckled down on it. I'd say now that it's the strongest part of our program. It greatly benefits the team and keeps everyone occupied. Keeping the team visible in the community ends up benefiting all local teams in the end.

Also, shameless plug: if you're in the area, we're hosting a business summit in east Tennessee because we've been aware of this being overlooked for some time. Check out our thread.

[cptopher]

YES. As an engineering mentor and drive coach, I too often think that business is ignored. For my team, I relate FIRST teams to NASCAR teams. Everyone sees the car, the driver, the pit crew and crew chief. But behind every great race team is a substantial business operation. Not just in dollars, but these businesses excel at investment, sponsorship, long term planning and logistics.

I also tell my business students that FIRST and its focus on STEM gives them an advantage in business careers. I feel that a business career in an engineering company can be more fruitful than other business careers. And that being able to talk to engineers about STEM topics would make them better business professionals. I understand that FIRST was created to promote STEM at a time when it wasn't emphasized. But now there are additional opportunities to wrap the enterprise around STEM.

Forget awards. Business is ignored in the fact that there are few scholarship opportunities for the business students. FIRST should actively look for scholarship sponsors for business students that can help tie in their STEM exposure. This would help us recruit business students. I respectfully submit STEM+B.

Chris
Mentor and Drive Coach for Team 3534