Young Leaders in FIRST

[Ellery]

Ok Since Alex personally asked for me to post my thoughts on this I'll give it a whack.

As in any recruiting activity from my experiences in a high school organization, college fraternity, FIRST team , or work there's one thing in common - the "what's in it for me?" mentality.

1) ROI - If you want to successfully attract supporters and participants you have to sell them something that's the best thing since sliced bread, whether it be an experience or some "ROI - Return on Investment" (Business slang).

2) Target Audience - As in Alex's scenario I would advise to focus on an audience subset that would more likely be interested versus just having a grand display for gazillion folks. That's why Marketing has target audiences at specific age groups, or categories.

3) Timing - Some students already have tons of stuff they already signed up at the beginning of the school year so you should plan on targeting your audience either at the end of the season for the following year or over the summer before classes start. One example I've used in college for recruiting new fraternity members was soliciting freshman via mail and addressing their parents about the history and mission of the organization.

4) Buy-In - Besides student buy-in you also need school administration and parental buy-in. If the parents aren't willing to drive the potential member to /from the meetings then the member is a bust. Also if the school administration doesn't support it they won't allow any meetings or facilities to be accessible.


I can probably go on and on with some of the past experiences I've encountered but the above few are probably some of the big hitters.



This may be the last posting I make for the next 2 years since I'm heading back to grad school to pursue my Masters in Product Development at RIT and have handed over the RochesterFIRST/ FLRC/ XEROX FIRST Program/X-CATS reigns to my fellow teammates.

But all in all I'm always open for consultation...

[Jaine Perotti]

There have been many good points made in this thread, and I don't want to re-iterate them. So, I am going to stick to just a few different problems I have come across (that haven't been mentioned specifically, I hope).

Mentorship Problems

There are often problems enough with trying to recruit students, especially dedicated ones. However, my FRC team and FLL teams have had more difficulty stemming from the lack of adult mentors (especially ones which are good at organization, communication, etc.).

When I was on my FRC team, there were some very talented mentors (Hi, Andy Brockway!), but just not enough of them. Those mentors found themselves spread too thin because there were too many students in the shop,too many organizational problems to deal with, or too much communication burden on just a few people.

Also, we had a few mentors who were great at coming up with good ideas and goals for our team, but weren't very good at actually following through with them. The "following through" part of the job was sometimes dumped on the shoulders of other mentors, and created a lot of stress for them.

It would have easier to run our team if we had had more mentors to cover all the bases, and not get spread too thin or overworked. However, recruiting new mentors was hard because the amount of work needed to lead our team was scary to most adult newcomers. So our lack of mentors actually made it more difficult to get new ones because of the overwhelming nature of the job.

I think we would have had an easier time if we had gotten the school to pay a stipend to the adult mentors of the team (creating some more incentive). It also would have been easier if our system of communication/paperwork/treasury was more organized, and less confusing to hand over to or explain to a new mentor.

In managing a team, I think it is important to clearly define the role of each mentor, and to distribute the responsibilities evenly and according to the amount of work each mentor is capable of taking on. This makes it easier for a new mentor to walk into the system and still feel comfortable. They can be clearly told what they are supposed to do (people need guidance in a new surrounding!), and they are aware of what everyone else is doing and what their responsibilities are.

There were too many instances on my old team where an important job never got done because everyone assumed that someone else was doing it or had it taken care of. If there were some better communication about how everything was being handled, those situations would have been avoided.

Sometimes, it's hard to define a team philosophy and get all of the mentors to adhere to it. You may get a new mentor who doesn't exhibit gracious professionalism, or doesn't believe in following the rules, or who treats students badly, or who favors their own child. Maybe they are irresponsible at handling team organization, or lack the ability to teach new skills. What do you do in that situation?

First, I think that the existing mentors need to make it clear to the potential mentor what qualities are necessary for the job (and what qualities make one a poor candidate for the job). They also need to train new mentors - explaining and demonstrating the proper teaching methods.

In starting FLL teams, my mother and I have held workshops for parents and other potential mentors. We not only teach them about how to build and program Lego robots - we also try to teach them how to teach. In some cases, this has been very successful, but in others, my mother and I are frustrated because we have gotten a few low quality mentors. What's harder is the fact that they are trying - but just aren't good at it. We can't just say "You are a bad mentor and you have to give your job to someone else" - but we don't know what else to do.

There are people out there who are natural teachers, and they will make the best technical mentors. What a team needs to do is find a way to attract the natural teachers, and avoid the bad teachers. However, there is no real method for doing this, and alot of teams are forced to rely on the luck of the draw. My FRC team was very fortunate to attract several mentors who are excellent teachers - but not every team is. My FRC team still needs more good teachers in order to distribute the teaching burden. I still don't know the proper steps a team needs to take to overcome this, and if anyone does - I would appreciate your advice.

-- Jaine