Going Behind the Scenes — MS XIV Business Team Spotlight Part II
Our Business Team runs all of the behind the scenes operations for the MS XIV team. From reaching out to potential sponsors for donations, both monetary and in-kind, to handling all of the financial transactions and reimbursements, to creating a strong online presence for the team, and even to ensuring that our student members are reaching all of the goals they have set out to achieve.
In part one of our Business Team Spotlight, you heard from our Finance, Sponsorship, and Supplier Interfacing team leads and how they operate within the Midnight Sun Team. In part two, we will focus on our teams who are responsible for the communication with our larger audiences whether that be our sponsors and followers, or the members of our many subteams.
We will hear from the leads of our Marketing Team, our Student Success Team, and our Business Team Lead. They will each share what they have been working on over the past term, and what plans they have for the future of the Midnight Sun Business Team.
What program are you in and what is your role on Midnight Sun (and specifically within the Business team)?
Ryan: I will be heading into my third year of the Global Business and Digital Arts program this fall, and I am the current Marketing Lead on Midnight Sun.
Yasmin: I am the Student Success Lead and I have just finished my first term of my third year in the Honours Arts and Business Program.
Kristen: I’m Kristen, and I’m in my 3rd year of Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo! I’m currently the Operations Manager for Midnight Sun and I manage the Business team alongside our Project Manager, Catherine.
Each of the above Business leads works hard to create the best learning environment for their members possible by creating an easy and inclusive onboarding process, and ensuring the team’s tasks are running smoothly and efficiently.
What has been the highlight of being a part of the Midnight Sun and more specifically, the Business Team?
Ryan: The highlight of being on Midnight Sun and the Business team for me has to be our crowdfunding campaign this past Fall term. Seeing all of the support we received from our generous donors, and seeing all our hard work from the entire crowdfunding team paying off was very rewarding for me.
Yasmin: Personally, my biggest highlight was connecting with Catherine and Kristen and receiving their feedback. Developing communication skills is extremely valuable, but the process can be complicated during a pandemic, and coordinating with the team has undeniably helped me to improve my communication skills a lot over a short period of time.
Kristen: Since I joined in Fall of 2018, I have been a part of four different subteams, and the Business team holds a special place in my memories, as it was the first of the four that I joined! While Midnight Sun is primarily composed of engineering students, the Business team is the home to a diverse group of students studying under various faculties at UW. A major highlight has been seeing an increase in members of these various backgrounds, which is important for the Business team to grow, as they can offer new perspectives. It is incredible to see these members assume more responsibility and leadership positions within the Business team as well.
What barriers have you and your team faced during the COVID-19 pandemic? How have you overcome these barriers?
Ryan: As many of the other leads have mentioned in these blogs, the hardest part of working through the COVID-19 pandemic has been the struggle of communication. We have overcome this by having set meeting times twice a week, where we discuss tasks and have a working session. As well, I try to be available to contact on Slack as much as possible, and through our marketing office hours on Saturdays, so if the Marketing members need any assistance, I can answer their questions.
Yasmin: I joined Midnight Sun in March, so I am not aware of how this team operates offline; However, it is quite challenging to organize events like socials and game nights remotely. One of the solutions was to propose these event nights through Discord and it has worked out fairly well.
Kristen: While the social aspect of being a member of the team is not specific to Business, one of our most recent initiatives to tackle this is led by our Business team. Prior to lockdown, team alumni would visit the team every so often to socialize and meet the new members. The pandemic has created a barrier between the alumni and current members. However, our team has been working to overcome this challenge by hosting Alumni Chats, planning a newsletter with special content for alumni and sponsors (coming soon!), and creating social media posts to recognize graduating members each year. And better yet, these are only a few of many initiatives that we are exploring to connect and reconnect alumni with Midnight Sun!
What projects do you have planned for your team this term?
Ryan: This term, we will continue with our regularly scheduled posts like holiday, member spotlight, and “Sponsor Sunday” posts; However we do have some new content in the works as well. This includes putting out a blog post on our Medium page at least once a month to give everyone a more in-depth look at how our team runs.
Yasmin: This term, we plan on organizing resume critiques, socials, alumni chats, and working on a new mentorship initiative — along with everything we have accomplished during the Winter term. We are taking the feedback we got for the events and looking to improve them to support our student body. As well, depending on the provincial regulations, we plan on looking into the best, and safest way for our team to connect in person again.
Kristen: This term, the Business team overall has started to focus on projects in collaboration with other teams. Some of these projects include moving the budgeting information to an online platform, as Tyler mentioned in our previous blog, while another is to work with the newly established UX Design team to flush out a design system and annotation kit in Figma to improve the speed and efficiency in the operations of both subteams. We plan to work more closely with the other subteams behind the scenes to ensure they can continue their operations without logistical roadblocks.
This concludes both parts of our Business Subteam Spotlight blogs. Keep up to date with us on our social media pages for more content like this!
To learn more about UW Midnight Sun and our cars, please visit uwmidsun.com, follow our social accounts or send us an email at solar@uwmidsun.com.
