General Interest Meeting

The RoboJackets General Interest Meeting is the primary member onboarding event for the year. At this meeting, new recruits are invited to hear presentations from the President, each Project Manager, the Outreach Chair, the Training Coordinator (or representative from the training leads), and the Vice President. The presentation covers background information about RoboJackets, the high-level goals of each project for the year, logistics for training, and the requirements for being in RoboJackets. At the end of the presentation, the teams participate in a mini-tabling fair where new members formally express a desire to join and have their questions answered by senior members.

Usually, two GI sections are scheduled, with identical content. While this is subject to lecture hall availability, an effort should be made to schedule them at different times so that most students can fit it in their schedule.

Slides

The presentation slide deck should be created and distributed to all speakers in advance. Ideally, the slides will be reviewed and discussed in the last core meeting before GI. Generally, the previous year's slide deck is copied, and each team updates their section with information and pictures/videos relevant to the upcoming year. All of the title slides should have the name of the speaker who presents at the meeting, and may need to be changed between the two sections.

Apiary

Once the dates of the event are decided, events should be created in Apiary. Please see the documentation for further details, or ask in #it-helpdesk in slack.

Please take note of the "Collecting RSVPs" section on that page. The RSVP link can be distributed to interested students, allowing us to predict GI attendance and plan accordingly. Some years, we decide to use a google form instead of the apiary RSVP link, allowing for collection of emails. In this case, the PR chair or the secretary should use MailChimp to send out a mass reminder email before the event.

At tabling events (discussed below), buzzcard scans can be used to collect emails instead of a google form. Create another event in apiary for the tabling event, and use the mobile app to tap buzzcards of interested students. Afterwards, ask in #it-helpdesk for an email dump, as well as an RSVP conversion so those students will be counted in our GI RSVPs.

Robots

After the presentation, attendees can visit with each RoboJackets team at tables set up near the lecture hall. To facilitate this, robots and tables must be transported from the SCC to campus. The president should coordinate this, ensuring that each team has some robot representation at the tabling. There are folding tables in the shop, ideally one should be brought for each team. Some years, we have used the trailer to transport the larger robots as well as the tables, but this is not always necessary.

Marketing

Marketing the General Interest Meeting is a multi-faceted effort that aims to reach every interested student.

Website

The RoboJackets website should be updated with relevant GI information. The "Join Us" page has two styles, one that is used in the prelude to GI and one during the rest of the year. The PR chair or the Secretary should switch over to the pre-GI style once GI dates are decided, and switch back afterwards to avoid confusion from latecomers.

Tabling Events

The core of marketing is at tabling events during the summer and first weeks of school. The complete list of places we table may vary from year to year, but the following events should all be considered:

• Skiles walkway during the first week of school
• RSO Org fair on tech green
• CoC organization fair
• Graduate student organization fair

OrgSync & Engage

Engage, previously known as OrgSync, is an official Georgia Tech platform used to advertise events. Members may join the RoboJackets organization, and an email should be sent out to the organization roster advertising general interest. A tutorial for sending out this email can be found at How to Send Emails Through Engage. Additionally, events in Engage may be put in the Weekly Digest and Daily Digest for Georgia Tech.

Departmental Mailing Lists

The Promotions Chair page lists relevant departmental newsletters. In addition to these newsletters, cc-newsandevents and news_ugrads (ECE) lists can be requested with a general interest event email (~2 days before GI). This will be sent directly to the students, so make the subject line and email content as if you are sending the email to the general interest RSVPs.

Social Media

We mostly engage with followers via Facebook and Instagram. There should be a post "campaign" leading up to general interest, with the final two or three posts advertising the event itself. A sample post timeline is proposed here:

1. 1 month before general interest - post about the event and put the RSVP link in our instagram bio.
2. 3 weeks before general interest - begin a post campaign, posting 2-3 times per week. Previous campaigns include posting about each team, but member interviews or project spotlights could also be considered.
3. 1 week before general interest - wrap up the post campaign and post 2-3 more times prior to the event for last-minute RSVPs and event information.
4. 3 days before general interest - post general interest information on GT Facebook groups, Reddit, Discord servers, etc. for last-minute event attendees.

Physical Signage

Physical signage may be posted around campus in outdoor areas and bulletin boards. A list of useful bulletin boards includes, but is not limited to:

• HIVE (post with permission from HIVE PIs)
• Klaus ground floor hallways
• Howey front desk
• Student center (give flyers to front desk)

For information on flyers and other signage around campus, see the Promotions Chair's page.

Food

Usually, we organize free food (pizza) for members who come to GI. Advertising free food to freshman is generally good for attendance, so it is encouraged to organize food in advance, and include this in the marketing material such as Instagram posts and flyers around campus. In the past, the College of Computing has paid for GI pizza. Including this line on the yearly CoC budget is recommended, but is likely non required to convince them to pay. At least a week before the meeting, the president should reach out to the CoC to plan and confirm the pizza order. If interest data is being collected (Apiary RSVP links or otherwise), this can be used as evidence for our food order. Generally, 40-50 pizzas is enough to feed the attendees. Once the number is confirmed with the CoC, the delivery should be scheduled 30 minutes before the meeting somewhere near the meeting room.

Sometimes, the CoC food order will include drinks (Usually Coke 2-Liter bottles). If not, the president should use the presidential discretionary fund to purchase drinks ahead of the meeting. If there are not leftover cups/napkins/plates at the SCC, those should be purchased as well.

Attendance

Attendance should be taken at all GI sections. Place some members at the door to the lecture hall with mobile devices logged into the MyRoboJackets app. As attendees begin to arrive, ensure that everyone taps their buzzcard before entering the room and getting food.

The Presentation

Before the event, test the AV equipment in the lecture hall. Ensure every speaker is sitting near the podium as the presentation is beginning. Identify a backup (usually the president) who can step in and present some slides in case a speaker doesn't make it.

At the end of the presentation, ask anybody who did not scan their buzzcards to do so on their way out.

Tabling

During the presentation, team members should be setting up the tables and robots for the tabling section of the event. The tables should be set up near the exit of the lecture hall, usually in the lobby or nearby courtyard. Each table should have a QR code that attendees can scan to be put on a team-specific mailing list. This is the primary opportunity for attendees to express interest in a specific team.

Post-Event Logistics

After the event, a copy of the slides should be posted on the website. The "Join Us" page should be updated to the non-GI page, indicating general information rather than specific GI dates.

Virtual General Interest

In Fall 2020, due to COVID-19 restrictions, we held General Interest online. Here is how processes were changed to accommodate this, followed by recommendations for future virtual GIs (if we need to do this again).

Overall Process

• Website and RSVPs: RSVP was done through an apiary link on the website page. The website join page was greatly simplified to encourage people to join. A pop-up about GI was added to the home page to catch people who did not go to the join page. A page was also added for GI infrastructure, like the BlueJeans links for Q&As.
• Advertising: Advertising via social media and any outlets GT provides is crucial to pulling in attendees. Push the RSVP website page in every outlet possible.
• Reaching RSVPs: An email was sent out ~5 days prior to GI day one, as usual. The email was sent through MailChimp and provided a link to the RoboJackets YouTube channel, encouraging people to subscribe and turn on notifications for the premiere.
• Presentation: Each of the PMs, the president, the vice president, the web app owner, and a training representative recorded videos of their presentations with webcam. This was done through OBS. A meeting was held prior to recording to go over the powerpoint and content, as usual. The PR chair edited together the footage in preparation for the event.
• Holding the event: The event was held as a premiere on YouTube two days in a row. After the event was streamed, attendees were redirected to a website page with multiple BlueJeans links for each team to have a Q&A with the team leads. Once the premiere was over, the YouTube link was embedded into the join page to catch any stragglers who missed the presentation.

Recommendations for Future Virtual GIs

Each presenter pre-recording their content along with their webcam saved time, but resulted in an inconsistent and poorly-framed product. If possible, start preparing content ~3 weeks earlier than usual to allow more editing time, and have each presenter film just their own face. Then, the PR chair can more cleanly edit together the facecams and the presentation slides in a professional way. Also, if the editing is finished earlier, a direct link to the premiere can be sent out in the GI email rather than a link to the RoboJackets YouTube channel. This will result in less clicks and less confusion on the part of attendees.