Facilitating the 30 Days of Google Cloud Program
The whole thing started back in the summer of 2020 when a rather simple text message reached my phone. I was a huge enthusiast in Google and what Google did and was very intriguing why they did what they did and more over how they did it. So, this messages was about the applications being open for GDSC KSSEM Core Team 2020–2021. This made me get on it and apply for it right away and the next thing I knew I just finished my interview and was on the team. Oh my, what a journey it was under Sameer Kashyap a well deserved position for a capable man who’s sense of management and a overall skills made him a few among those I admired and looked up to.
A true sense of leadership, a profound sense of management and a overall persona of Sameer Kashyap made me learn a thing or two about managing and organizing a event and much more. The 30 Days of Google Cloud event came around the month of May which was facilitated by our lead at the time, it was a tough time for everyone and Covid -19 was at it’s peak. It was difficult to make people participate in events especially when it was GDSC KSSEM’s first year and the knowledge about GDSC KSSEM wasn’t much well established. But at the finishing of the event we had 120+ registrations for the program. 50+ students completed at least one track of the program and 36+ students completed the ultimate milestone by completing both the tracks.600+ badges were earned and 80+ students are eligible for goodies. This numbers were pretty astonishing for me as he with a single hand took the game to a whole new level. It was a hard thing for the whole team to live up to the standards he set upon us or the legacy he left behind.
The whole pack of managing a team and organizing a event came from something much more than your skills or knowledge about tech and especially during the Covid -19 times it was a huge challenge for those who wanted to organize an event. It made me catch a thing or two about management and organizing event and all other things that go with making it into a successful event.
It was exciting to receive a mail saying I had been selected as the 30 Days of Google Cloud Facilitator. The journey of meticulous planning and a those things I learnt about making the event a successful one came into play. I organized everything the old fashioned way. Now most of you know about the well curriculum of the program. The primary focus of this blog is not about the curriculum but how we at GDSC-KSSEM strived to make it a successful event.
The first phase: PLANNING
Like said it was planned the old fashioned way, It was well prepared to make the plan flexible, meaning it was structured in such a way that the plans had a plan for the worst case scenario and a best case scenario. For example, our seminar hall could seat up to 120 students or so, if the event went on like a previous 30 Days of Google Cloud event it would be a tough time for us handling such a crowd. So the whole plan was laid out in such a way that the Track 1 and the Track 2 event was spread among different years of our department, meaning a event separate for the first year, a event separate for the second year and a separate event for the third year and a separate event for the final year students with the same venue but a different timings and a different approach to each year, since their induvial knowledge of the program was spread on different levels, hence the approach had to be different. This was how the plan was flexible and we were prepared for every possible scenario.
The second phase: APPROACH
This phase was structed into two parts.
The level of knowledge we should establish our event for the final year had to be much less compared to the level of knowledge we should establish our event for the first year. What does knowledge mean in terms here? The final years should and have a clear picture of the what Cloud is and what the 30 Days of Google Cloud program offered, whereas the first year students had little to none knowledge about the program, GDSC KSSEM and cloud. So we had to adopt a different level of approach to each induvial years. So it was structured in a way best suited to the whole department’s level of knowledge.
The second part was the finer details like prepping the material for the session, the necessary tools for the presentation, drafting the request letter for the sessions, establishing which core team member should talk in the session and much more. This was the real work we put in making sure it was well established. But the crucial part came just right after planning was how will 100% of the students in the department know about this event? How do we make sure they had a clear understanding of what the program was about? Keeping this whilst portraying what we did in GDSC KSSEM, we split the team into groups of two and went by to each class and we made sure we had the best wordings to clearly establish our GDSC KSSEM whilst giving out appropriate information to the students to ensure that it is just right to fire up that curiosity in them.
The third phase: EXECUTION
After the venue was set, the approaches set, the timings, the permission, everything set, we made sure we had enough room to improvise likely it was like our backup plans had a backup plans. Top notch!!
The first session focused on covering the track 1 of the program and was conducted by our data analysts lead Deepika Naidu and our lead Dhanush V. It was a partial success as the numbers we expected failed us. The class we aimed at for attending in full strength was the class with the least strength. This was because the class was divided into three batches of twenty students each of which two batches had free batch and one batch had a lab session so the numbers which were available for us to interact was just 20 students from this particular section, so numbers, 40 students missed out on the introductory and the first session. This was improvised by sending out the session’s recording and informing the students who had attended the session to personally share their experience with other students. We had over 96 registrations out of the 100 registrations that were allowed to our campus.
Our base of starting an event was to first celebrate and elaborate GDSC KSSEM and what we did, and how it would benefit the students and how they could make use of it.
We were required to improvise on this session about the students we missed out so that it wouldn’t happen again. So how did it take place? We started looking into the different classes timetable’s before or scheduling the sessions. We made sure the class would have a good strength so that the sessions could go as planned and no one would miss out on it.
The second session or the second track focused on covering the second track of the program. It started out with the elaboration of GDSC KSSEM and ended with a Q/A session.
The final phase: Crowd Maintenance
Although the name isn’t best suited to this phase the work was not only we ensuring the involvement of the crowd into the program but we had to make sure they’re curiosity was fired up at just the right level and such that the flame didn’t subsidies along the way. To put it in numbers, we maintained a Google Sheet which was formed of the responses from the RVSP form that we sent out to the students when they registered. We asked the appropriate questions to make sure we had sufficient data to keep updated on the progress they made and what made them sign up for this event and amongst other things. So we monitored individual progress and made sure they met their deadlines. We personally spoke, were approached, we sent out friendly remainders and we made sure they had the idea as to how to complete it which was on their side and we made sure we kept that flame of curiosity going in them.
The lessons and the Gratitude
The tremendous support awarded by the team is something to remember years ahead. Everyone was onboard for the plans drawn and all the times we had to improvise on. They gave their everything in order to make this into a successful event and it turned out to be one!!
The best things learnt were the plans need to improvise at some point in their lifecycle, it was a innovative approach rather than being the drone approach. The constant hunger to triumph combined with proper management, the right tools to involve the crowd to keep going. I thank Sameer Kashyap for getting me on the team and fueling me, I thank our lead Dhanush V for his dedication and Deepika Naidu for being the strength to this journey of Facilitating the 30 Days of Google Could Program. Importantly, my utmost gratitude to the whole GDSC KSSEM Core Team and all those participants that participate and completed the program. The numbers aren’t included here, the focus of this was to elaborate the cost of making a event successful, not by numbers but by a profound sense of organizing and management.
