Changes

<span id="docs-internal-guid-942f1406-64a8-8ec4-6896-5ffcd35813e8"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When organizing an event, effective outreach is essential in ensuring strong attendance. Utilizing traditional advertising strategies such as posters and university communications can yield successful results. However, to further engage the potential audience, a more personal approach is recommended. Personalizing the invitation and reaching out to the potential attendees face to face is a useful tactic to ensure high event turnout. Doing so adds a personal touch to the invitation and makes the potential participant feel that their unique opinion and perspective is valued. Also, when inviting individuals to the event, the exact details of the event can be left a mystery. This will create a sense of intrigue and curiosity that will entice the individual to attend.</span></span>

<span id="docs-internal-guid-942f1406-64a8-8ec4-6896-5ffcd35813e8"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Looking back and evaluating the event may seem like a pointless step in a guide to get people to come to your events, but it’s probably the opposite. Macy describes the event that she put on as an experiment, and the results of this particular experiment far exceeded her expectations. So like any good scientist Macy evaluated her results to understand how they could be used in the future. She particularly learned the importance of hearing from a wide variety of people and that some amount of mystery draws people to attend. She can now use these insights as she makes plans in the future.</span></span>

*<span id="docs-internal-guid-942f1406-64a8-8ec4-6896-5ffcd35813e8"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What ideas do I have now to improve on this event?</span></span>

<span id="docs-internal-guid-942f1406-64a8-8ec4-6896-5ffcd35813e8"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This information was gathered by interviewing &nbsp;Macy Tush, a current University Innovation Fellow at William Jewell College. She led a team and selected 20 unique individuals to attend an event at a local pub. Each person was personally invited using a business card with just a time and place to create mystery. The event brought together twenty people, who may not have interacted outside of that event, to voice their opinions and collaborate to come up with solutions to their university's problems. The event had 100% attendance, and the UIF team were happily surprised with the number of problems identified and the quality of solutions proposed. Macy and her team created a movement at her school that elevated UIF on her campus amongst students and faculty. &nbsp;The students who attended were given shirts with a popular joke on it that only William Jewell College students and faculty would understand, which spread awareness about the event and created an outpour of interest in UIF. Seven of the original twenty people who were invited and given a voice at Macy's event ended up being so passionate about making a change they joined UIF in the following semester! This is just one of many examples of UIF cohorts adapting and creating unique events to make a change.</span></span>