Introducing the cyber security pop-up booth
On October 9, IST held its first Cyber Security Pop-Up booth in the Student Life Centre (SLC) Marketplace. The purpose of the event was to raise cyber security awareness amongst the student body on campus while letting students know what IST can offer them in terms of services.
What did the event look like?
IST had a single event booth in the SLC prior to reading week in order to maximize the amount of potential student traffic. The event featured:
- A foam board poster highlighting key cyber security topics (phishing, password management, data security, etc.)
- A large goose print-out to take selfies with
- A 'spot the phish' flash card activity
- Giveaways for visitor engagement (stickers, water bottles, webcam covers, pens, etc.)
- Two service desk staff engaging booth visitors
The finished booth set-up at the beginning of the event
What were the goals of this event?
The main goals for this event were:
- To remind students to be mindful of cyber security risks since online security is becoming increasingly volatile
- To encourage students to take proactive measures in protecting their personal online data
- To bring awareness to students about IST's services
Post-event takeaways
The event was successful in attracting a sizeable amount of visitor traffic and resulted in a significant increase in 'Likes' on our Facebook page. Having a large, steady flow of visitors led to not being able to utilize some of the booth attractions, such as the goose print-out and the flash card activity.
Some key statistics:
- Overall booth traffic: ~60-70 people over the 2-hour duration of the event
- Demographic:
- 95% students
- 5% non-students
- Average visit time: 1 minute
- Visitors' main interest was picking up free swag items
- Gen Z does not really use Facebook
- Further investigation needs to be done in order to identify how to promote and engage with Gen Z students online
Things to do differently
Overall, the event went as expected and the event goals were met. For future cyber security pop-up booths, we may choose to experiment with:
- Event duration - make the event longer than 2 hours
- Event location - hosting somewhere other than the SLC if the audience is to include more than just students
- Different ways of engagement - having more dynamic or interactive activities at the booth
