William Judd's Bristol Blog: A man, a plan, a group: OSUM

Hack Bristol has been a long time in coming. It was originally proposed by Gareth Lloyd at the first meeting of the Bristol OSUM as the ultimate OSUM event. We tried many methods of advertising the event -- emails to the computer science department, fliers posted in and around engineering buildings, writing HACK BRISTOL.com in chalk outside university buildings, and giving short talks about the the event in lectures. We also tried but failed to implement a few more advertising ideas: Changing the desktop background of every lab computer to advertise the event (department didn't let us), hiring a billboard or balloon (too costly), advertising in the student newspaper (not newsworthy enough, apparently), and doing prize giveaways (too late, too costly). David Levy, the Sun expert attending Hack Bristol, suggested in future leveraging his own influence and new media presence to attract other universitie's OSUM clubs to join the event and compete.

Overall, the most effective advertising methods were the email and fliers -- dead simple, cheap to implement. I believe the student newspaper would have been very good, as it is a free newspaper available in every university building. This is definitely something we'll push for harder and earlier in the future, even if we have to pay to get in. However, the core of the event will be significantly different, if we're able to bring multiple universities and OSUMs to Bristol -- using the OSUM mailing list will doubtlessly help, and we can all benefit from each other's advertising ideas. I look forward to seeing what new and interesting ways we'll advertise the event in the future!