How to get more students involved in business?

[DubstepLion1]

Our team has two divisions: Engineering and Business. Engineering has the Programming, Electrical, CAD, and Fabrication subdivisions with Business having the Public Relations, Marketing, and Media subdivisions. For a description of each of the subdivisions, please visit here.

Last year, in order to increase business participation on the team, we tried to do a system of primary and secondary choices for subdivisions. This didn't work as planned because of poor coordination between Engineering and Business. Members only stuck to their primary subdivisions and we couldn't force anyone to do something they didn't wish to.

With recently being elected Team Lead, I'd like to fix this issue in a way in which both Engineering and Business tasks get completed in a timely manner. Currently, we have 24 students on the team with 3-4 who would like primarily work in Business but hope to recruit more members in September.

What would be the ideal method of enabling a member to do Engineering and Business tasks simultaneously? What is the best way in getting more members to primarily do Business?

[MikLast]

Originally Posted by DubstepLion1

Last year, in order to increase business participation on the team, we tried to do a system of primary and secondary choices for subdivisions. This didn't work as planned because of poor coordination between Engineering and Business. Members only stuck to their primary subdivisions and we couldn't force anyone to do something they didn't wish to.

We did this exact same thing and had the same issue. We quickly scrapped it, and started assigning people that we saw as an asset to business, while some had dual roles, many that went to business (we had about 4 new recruits, and about 10 business out of 40 students) created very strong business team. While I havent been able to be a part of it, we have gotten this summer alone to get a couple new sponsors and a local company to help us create a website.

Now, to the main question. We convinced the ones who did join by showing them that theres more than just being boring people who just write letters. Show them that they can be a part of video production, Sponsor meetings, Leaders within the community (hosting events, being speakers at events, etc) graphic design, or anything else you guys may do that other groups cant offer. Make it known that robotics isint all building robots, but theres a whole other aspect that makes everything work. The ones who do join will usually last all years that they are there, and will be the most dedicated (at least in our experience, YMMV.)

[Ringo5tarr]

Do what my team does! Offer more snacks and "brain breaks" to the people who work in business! If anyone from the fabrication side of things asks any questions, turn it around and claim that they aren't doing enough work to DESERVE snacks and breaks!

(Somewhat a joke)

[ASD20]

I would recommend doing as much during the preseason/postseason as possible and avoid build season. That way anyone who is interested in both doesn't feel that they have to choose. That is probably when most of your fundraising and outreach occurs anyways and even awards like Chairman's can be mostly done in the preseason.

A lot of teams also require students to do business things to letter/go to competitions/be on the team at all. Mostly it's helping at outreach events, but some teams require students to fund raise as well. While you probably won't get enthusiastic participation if it's mandatory, if what you need is bodies, this works fine. For more important jobs like grant writing, awards, etc., you need willing participants.

[Brian Maher]

There was a thread a while ago about recruiting business students. From my experience, the most effective way to grow a team's business subteam is to actively recruit students with interest in being part of it. I summed up my thoughts on the matter in this comment:

Originally Posted by BMSOTM

Last year, 1257 recruitment flyers that we handed out at our school's club fair listed a mix of technical (design, programming, electrical) and non-technical (business, fundraising, video-making, PR) tasks that our team would tackle. A lot of people just don't know the sheer variety of skills that it take to run a successful FRC team. Less tech-y students hear "robotics" and think there's no place for them, when that couldn't be more wrong.

In addition, while I strongly advise encouraging tech-focused students to try working with business projects, I would be careful about any policy forcing involvement with business. Some students just aren't interested in business, and making them do it may deter them from being involved on the team as a whole.

[tjf]

To second what BMSOTM said, having someone forced to do something, especially something so crucial, can drain all of the fun out of it, increasing burnout dramatically. Sometimes you just need someone who is willing to make sure both sides are aware of the actions of the other, and to bridge the gap.

[GeeTwo]

The past two years, we have set up our "varsity letter" criteria so that it is impossible to get a "letter" without doing at least one function on each of the technical and business side. Essentially, we defined two technical criteria and two business criteria, and required three of these criteria to earn a letter. Team members can become varsity (necessary for competition) based on either, but cannot get that letter without crossing to the other side. We still had several valuable members who never crossed over, but quite a few more who did.

[BaileyJoseph166]

I think most FRC teams struggle with that dichotomy, where you have the "engineering" kids who do the programming, CAD, and material fabrication and then the business and marketing people who focus on the Chairman's award and other submissions. Going into my senior year, I was one of 166's captains, and we had just lost our entire Marketing subteam. I'm talking every single student in that subteam graduated, all at once. I was left with a dilemma, I needed new Marketing students to work with me for that side of the team.

While looking to improve overall team involvement and recruitment, we decided to market our FRC team to not just the STEM kids in our school. My other co captain and I went around to all the honors classes that freshmen can take, including the honors English classes that we had not directly advertised to before. We also put up tons of posters in our school with big flashy text saying that the team had a nontechnical side to it as well.

Come the fall, we had grown the team from 20 students after graduation to 44. However, we only had 2 Marketing students, and I was one of them! Instead of broadcasting to the team members over and over and over again about joining Marketing, we offered it at a team meeting, sent a follow up email and then starting sifting through essays. Every student who wants to join 166 needs to write an entry essay about "What FIRST means to me?" or some other topic I do not remember. A few mentors and I sat down and started to read through all of them (we usually don't, but now we finally had a reason!) and highlighted bits and pieces of quotations we liked and noted the authors. When we were done, we went up to each students individually and asked them if they would like to join the Marketing team in conjunction with their Engineering work.

Needless to say that worked and now we have a budding Marketing team and I'm sure they will grow larger in the years to come. I think the key to getting business students involved might not be to only look outside the team for growth, but to advertise the non-STEM side to FIRST like leadership, writing, business, marketing to new recruits as well as enforcing it in existing members and showing them that they are already writing really good essays about this program and our team, so why not write a bigger one, a more stressful big time-consuming essay some people like to call "the Chairman's essay".

[anushad]

Another thing 2876 has had success with is marketing the team at school activity fairs, etc. so that they realize that FRC is not just about engineering. Through this, we have recruited a fair amount of kids who are interested in arts/graphic design, business/marketing, and journalism. Through this, they are able to do work in something they're interested and also help the team succeed.

[Liam Fay]

One way that I've seen is having your business department not be an add-on to the rest of the team. Unless you really need to, don't force people into business - you don't want people thinking that it is punishment.

What I think a lot of people not in business might not understand is that we love business just as much as other team members love electrical or programming. Try and recruit specifically for students who will love it as much as you do, instead of trying to pull from a pool of students who joined the team to do other things.

[adciv]

Originally Posted by anushad

Another thing 2876 has had success with is marketing the team at school activity fairs, etc. so that they realize that FRC is not just about engineering. Through this, we have recruited a fair amount of kids who are interested in arts/graphic design, business/marketing, and journalism. Through this, they are able to do work in something they're interested and also help the team succeed.

This is essentially what we've done on our team. You have to get students to understand FRC is more than just the robot and you'll find students interested in the business side. One of our alum from that side is now working at Pixar.

[Aeglos]

Another way to recruit more business students that is an excellent idea (in my opinion) was said by someone a while back, either on my team or on the forums. And the idea was to approach students in the FBLA organization, if your school has one, and see if they want some "real life" business practice, as they'll have to write pitches/ grants for sponsors, manage fundraising, and more. But in regards to making current members of the team more focused on business, I'm sorry, but I have no idea. So while it might be a solution, it might not be the one you want, especially if you want to maintain the current size of your team.

[Red2486]

A good way to get more interest in the "Business" side is to recruit students specifically for that! Make sure you are advertising your team as more than robots.

It is also helpful to start at the top. Mentors and team leaders need to ensure their actions show the importance of things beyond the "Engineering" side of the team. If all aspects of the team are done by team leaders and respected by team mentors, students are more inclined to put work into both areas.

Something else that can cause a lack of cohesion between the two divisions is physically separating the two groups (e.g. Engineering works in this room, and Business works in this room). Ensuring that everyone sees the work that is happening can be really helpful for promoting respect for & interest in Business-related aspects of the team. Make sure the entire team know what both groups are working on as well! Communication is really important here.

Someone also mentioned trying to organize the year so there is little "Business" overlap in the build season. This is really great advice if you want to encourage team members to be involved in all aspects!

[DubstepLion1]

Originally Posted by Red2486

A good way to get more interest in the "Business" side is to recruit students specifically for that! Make sure you are advertising your team as more than robots.

We'll make sure to try the gearing our recruiting towards the Business side more. I was also thinking we can have members assigned to various projects which span across multiple subdivisions rather than restrict them individually to these subdivisions.