Implementing Tech into the Business Fraterity
As the president of Delta Sigma Pi, the on-campus co-ed business fraternity, I am in charge of promoting excellence within the chapter. Since much influence comes with the title, I had the opportunity to try out all of the tech initiatives that I have been conjuring up ever since freshman year. All of my tech initiatives have been fully implemented and most are successful. Hopefully you can pull out some ideas for your student organization.
The use of Google documents was the most successful initiative. I started by uploading the legacy excel chapter contact list as a Google spreadsheet. From that, I made every brother get a gmail account and update their own information. I wanted to give ev
eryone write access because I didn't want just one person stuck with the task of updating information. Half of the fraternity already used Gmail, and a quarter signed up right away. The last quarter was tough to convince, but I am finally at 100% compliance and the contact list is complete. Constant nagging did the trick. Using inputted information, we are able to automatically produce pie charts with relevant information, such as majors, years, and pledge class, that is useful for planning purposes. The location section helps with carpooling, a welcoming alternative to shuttle. If you start from scratch within you organization, use the "fill out a form" feature within Google spreadsheets which will send out a form to your members and automatically populate the data. A good contact list of current members can provide a base for the alumni contact list; therefore, I have a section for non-SJU (permanent) email addresses.
We really get fancy with the Google spreadsheet for attendance events. We have a policy requiring brothers to attend a certain number of events throughout the semester. We maintain a spreadsheet that tracks each brothers attendance at events. It automatically publishes to a read-only version that is available on the "Brothers Only" section of our website. This way, there is full transparency. No brother ever wonders how many events he or she has.
I ran for the President role on the platform of running the chapter like a business. Well, a share drive comes to mind right away. Consequently, I set up an SJU share drive that every brother in the fraternity can access. This is simply a folder on the SJU network that we all can use to store files (executive best practices, resumes, flyer layouts, newsletter layouts, etc.) This will play a vital role in aiding transitions of executive roles since each member will dump all of their DSP related documents, powerpoints, and spreadsheets for the next person. The only maintenance is the twice a year IT task of giving each new class of brothers.
I ran an article last year on text blasting (visit txtblaster.com) and use the free service for cancellations, emergencies, and sober brother contact information. I was unable to reach full compliance since a handful of brothers do not have texting, though it would be a useful tool to communicate last minute messages to those brothers who participate.
Google calendar was helpful but we had to set up two different calendars, one for open events and one for brothers only events. We embed them on the website and the brothers who have their own Google calendars (admittedly few do) subscribe to them. The events automatically show up in their calendar, which is pretty sick.
It was painful at times but worth it. They key is to keep the user in mind. I am all out of tech ideas for the fraternity, which is a good problem to have.
Thanks,
Zach
You can read further adventures of Tech Talk in the SJU paper every Wednesday.
