Picking the Best Spot for your CIO Table

Everyday, I see CIOs tabling but it wasn’t until after class on Thursday that I questioned their positioning. CIO tables (orange dots) advertise membership and events along the sidewalk between Garrett Hall and Randall Hall (the blue stretch). Often, these tables crowd the top left corner of the South Lawn. Thinking about the example of the ice cream carts in class and how the two vendors would end up in the middle of the beach, I was curious about how CIOs choose their table location. Based on what we learned about multiparty systems and how parties in that system will strive to distinguish themselves, I would imagine that CIOs would want to spread themselves out more than they currently do

The 700+ CIOs at UVA must compete for attention. Two factors are at play. First, ceteris paribus, pedestrians are more likely to engage with tables they walk by first. When students are in a rush, they have limited attention ”currency” to spend and don’t have time to engage with every table. This means that CIOs will target the areas with not only the highest pedestrian density but also the ones where they are likely the first table a student encounters. Intersections are prime spots to increase that chance. Still, we should expect some groups to position themselves in front of Garrett Hall with its influx of students. That brings me to the second factor: food trucks. Food trucks and the crowd of students waiting for their meals add a negative externality in the form of noise, which makes it challenging to grab a student’s attention. Therefore, CIOs are pushed towards the more quiet end of this stretch.

Perhaps every CIO is thinking about their table positioning in this way. Or, more likely, CIOs are simply copying what every CIO has done before them.