Why do you think Penn EA was sped up by ~4 months?
There are a bunch of caveats; see [3]. Sydney thinks it might be more than this, especially if we permanently added value to the club rather than just providing a speedup. Ashley should probably answer this more.
I’m also quite uncertain about the ~4 month speedup, but my instinct is that if Sydney and Thomas didn’t do the residency, Penn EA would look like what it does now a semester later.
I think the primary value that the residencies provided are points 4 and 5, “being motivational/inspiring, which transmits enthusiasm to organizers” and “connecting organizers to each other and other EAs in the region.” Lowering the activation energy is great, but if you get competent organizers excited enough, it actually isn’t too much of a unique value. Tabling is great, but I think there were diminishing returns and the 80⁄20 would have been just tabling at all of the club fairs and maybe a couple days on Locust—which seems pretty do-able if organizers are excited enough. Essentially, I think “doing things” is generally replaceable and the unique value of residencies is probably getting organizers excited and connected.
Without Sydney and Thomas, I think it would’ve taken me about a semester to get sufficiently “excited and connected” to become a good organizer. I think this would’ve come from a combination of attending many of the uni group organizer retreats in September/October (although it’s unclear how many of these I would’ve attended if I didn’t know Sydney/Kuhan that well—don’t think I would’ve been invited otherwise) and being at EAG. I now feel like I have a sufficient number of high quality connections in EA (people I feel comfortable reaching out to for a favor) and have the resources I need to make Penn EA really great if I put my mind to it. I’ve noticed that many of the other organizers at Penn EA seem to be orders of magnitude more excited about organizing after attending retreats or EAG (ex, one current Penn organizer applied for a CBG after attending the third retreat), which makes me place more weight on this.
Essentially, I think “doing things” is generally replaceable and the unique value of residencies is probably getting organizers excited and connected.
I can believe this. If so, then the most important quality in a resident might be a motivational/inspiring temperament or something. If this is a rare property that Sydney or I have, it might prevent most residencies from being as good as Penn. But even when doing things is replaceable, I’d still be excited by residencies that pour more time into organizer groups at the start of the year at an efficiency level roughly similar to the marginal organizer hour, especially when the school is large enough that returns diminish slowly.
Tabling is great, but I think there were diminishing returns and the 80⁄20 would have been just tabling at all of the club fairs and maybe a couple days on Locust—which seems pretty do-able if organizers are excited enough.
Nitpick, but I don’t think returns were diminishing, unless you think there are diminishing returns to more emails gathered on overall club quality, because we maintained similar emails/hour numbers for most of the 2 weeks we were tabling.
I’m also quite uncertain about the ~4 month speedup, but my instinct is that if Sydney and Thomas didn’t do the residency, Penn EA would look like what it does now a semester later.
I think the primary value that the residencies provided are points 4 and 5, “being motivational/inspiring, which transmits enthusiasm to organizers” and “connecting organizers to each other and other EAs in the region.” Lowering the activation energy is great, but if you get competent organizers excited enough, it actually isn’t too much of a unique value. Tabling is great, but I think there were diminishing returns and the 80⁄20 would have been just tabling at all of the club fairs and maybe a couple days on Locust—which seems pretty do-able if organizers are excited enough. Essentially, I think “doing things” is generally replaceable and the unique value of residencies is probably getting organizers excited and connected.
Without Sydney and Thomas, I think it would’ve taken me about a semester to get sufficiently “excited and connected” to become a good organizer. I think this would’ve come from a combination of attending many of the uni group organizer retreats in September/October (although it’s unclear how many of these I would’ve attended if I didn’t know Sydney/Kuhan that well—don’t think I would’ve been invited otherwise) and being at EAG. I now feel like I have a sufficient number of high quality connections in EA (people I feel comfortable reaching out to for a favor) and have the resources I need to make Penn EA really great if I put my mind to it. I’ve noticed that many of the other organizers at Penn EA seem to be orders of magnitude more excited about organizing after attending retreats or EAG (ex, one current Penn organizer applied for a CBG after attending the third retreat), which makes me place more weight on this.
I can believe this. If so, then the most important quality in a resident might be a motivational/inspiring temperament or something. If this is a rare property that Sydney or I have, it might prevent most residencies from being as good as Penn. But even when doing things is replaceable, I’d still be excited by residencies that pour more time into organizer groups at the start of the year at an efficiency level roughly similar to the marginal organizer hour, especially when the school is large enough that returns diminish slowly.
Nitpick, but I don’t think returns were diminishing, unless you think there are diminishing returns to more emails gathered on overall club quality, because we maintained similar emails/hour numbers for most of the 2 weeks we were tabling.