EST Book Bounty Prize Winner – Shane Fraser

BOUNTY: Get 250 People to Wear Social Tech T-Shirts and Take a Photo = $5,000

This is the story of how I organized this event and what I had to do to get 250 people to show up for the picture.

I attend Houghton College in Western NY and there are over 1200 students who attend here. Before deciding to take on this challenge I knew that it was going to be difficult to convince a fifth of the college to participate in this event. My first challenge was to find a place to take the picture; since the weather is so bad in NY I chose to take the picture inside the Gym. I had to set up meetings with the Athletic Director to reserve the Gym and get permission to use the bleachers. The next step was to find a megaphone, so I had to contact security and explain what I was doing and request to use it. Finding a good photographer was also an important aspect of the shoot. Luckily I know an art major who is involved in photography and she offered to be a part of this. Once I had coordinated both the use of the gym and the photographer, I decided to move forward and order the 260 t-shirts.

This purchase was a risk for me because I ordered the t-shirts prior to going on a ten day break. I had planned to take the picture before break, but the t-shirts were not finished. Once I returned from break I then decided to start a signup sheet. The goal behind this was to get everyone’s email so I could send a reminder email the day of the event. I also created a Facebook event to make others aware and to take advantage of social media. I had a few friends start spreading the news of event by telling their friends about what I was doing. The hardest part of this whole project was convincing over 250 people to commit to coming. Due to the challenge of generating commitment, I decided to add some incentives for attending the event. I told everyone they would get a free t-shirt for participating and I also purchased a Nintendo Wii to give away as well as two $25 cash prizes. I recognized that taking an hour out of their Sunday night, especially during finals week, is a big commitment. Adding these incentives generated interest.

I was able to get 270 people to give me their email and I encouraged others to simply just show up the day of the event if their schedules permitted. My mother, aunt, brother, girlfriend and a couple friends helped me the night of the event to signing participants in and distributing the free t- shirts. I made up a photo disclaimer form that I required every participant sign to prevent any future issue with the distribution of the photos.

The event was such a success! We had 252 people show up before we started taking pictures and ended with about 255. We took a number of pictures in a variety of different positions. The whole event took about an hour from registration through distribution of prizes. The t-shirts are quite a hit on campus. I keep seeing different people wear them each day. I am sending you a CD with all of the different pictures of the event which can help you understand what exactly we did. There are a number of different configurations in these pictures; I hope you are happy with the outcome!

To try to incorporate a creative aspect to the photo shoot, I asked everyone to bring a piece of technology like a laptop, big headphones, iPads, etc. The attached picture of everyone on the bleachers with their technology is my favorite. We also spelled out the word SOCIAL which did not require all 250 participants to be involved, but is still unique. We also took a picture of all the participants jumping at the same time which was challenging and took many photos, but was a success. The last picture is the winners of the Wii and cash prizes and myself with the whole group behind us.

I really enjoyed this challenge and appreciate you making this opportunity available.