Dean's Homework for 2008

[Nate Laverdure]

I think that this year's assignment will inform some interesting discussion about next year's.

Here's the trend as I see it:
Dean Kamen's yearly homework assignment is becoming more formal, more concrete, and more important. This year, a free and extensive forum was set up to provide support for efforts relating to the 2008 homework assignment: to get publicity. Team 842's winning chairman's submission ("published in Wired magazine, Reader’s Digest ... translated into 4 different languages") shows that success in gaining publicity was a factor in winning FIRST's greatest honor this year.

In the early half of this decade, teams were encouraged to grow the organization by founding and mentoring other teams. In 2006 and 2007, Dean Kamen told us to reach out to our politicians and get them interested in the program. In 2008, the assignment was to get positive publicity for FIRST teams and events.

Here's my question:
If you were Dean Kamen, what homework would you assign in 2009? Now that you have built a large, self-sustaining, and massively collaborative organization, and now that your organization has reached out to government and the media, how should the teams focus their efforts in the next year? What's the next step in reaching the goals of FIRST?

And after describing your own assignment for next year, I would be interested in knowing how would you help to complete YOUR assignment as a student, mentor, teacher, parent (whatever your position is) as a member of YOUR FRC team.