Lofty work and autonomy motivates people: Remind people that they’re a part of something great (in our case, the AI society of one of the best schools in the world) and that they can do anything (Eg: nothing stopping us from getting DeepMind in to give a talk).
Work visibly hard: This is obvious. The rest of the team should be equally invested, but if someone can’t do something (non-technical obviously), the onus should fall on the leader to pick up the slack. They should know they’re supported and not alone. That said, they should be invested to work through it even when it is hard.
Give people autonomy: Give genuinely important (and difficult) tasks to competent people. Give them resources and motivation (through lofty goals). Don’t just pawn off stuff you don’t want to do. Check in frequently, but leave it as theirs. Give them credit every step of the way.
Team
Quality of committee > Quantity of committee. A small team of highly capable and motivated individuals will do far more work than a large team of half-assed mostly-interested people.
Corporate vs. Startup exists in Uni: Corporate vs Startups represents big, slow moving, lots of talk, established, reputable vs smaller, faster moving, unknown etc.. These are traits found in Uni societies as well. EUFS, as great as it is, is a behemoth. They’ve no problem recruiting, but often recruit like corporate. Startups have the ability to only take on cracked people. As a result, they can move at breakneck speed. Both have their place in the world (and in uni as well.)
Organisational Stuff:
Upfront Time Commitment > Aggregated Time Commitment:Students prefer to give up a full Saturday and/or Sunday (combined ~24-48 hours) over 4 hours a week over 8 weeks. Wasn’t intuitive to me, the data proved otherwise. Thus easier to get people to work on a hackathon project over a longer-term project.
When hiring, send rejection letters promptly: Hiring is hard, cos you have to reject people who are great but not quite a fit for you. Be clear, honest and concise in your rejection.
Expo:
Less lanyards
Judge in before the public shows up. Deliberate when the public arrives. Announce winner before public leaves.
Make a good rubric. Don’t doubly weight anything - even if you think it’s important. People learn to play into that.
Having more knowledgeable judges is a lifesaver so they can grill contestants.
Having more authoritative (eg person from industry, lecturer etc.) is also a lifesaver - people value their opinion more (even without basis)