[aclug-L] Re: ACLUG

["Dale W Hodge" <dwh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: discussion-bounce@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:discussion-bounce@xxxxxxxxx]On
> Behalf Of Tom Hull
>
> My two cents on whatever's going on with ACLUG right now:
>
> David Wiebe's meeting experience seems about par for the course.
> I've been to 10-20 meetings over the 2.5 years since I've been
> in Wichita (got here just as John Goerzen was splitting, so I've
> had a taste of the ancien regime, which I'll return to below);
> some meetings are better, but most aren't. And it's worth noting
> that by far the best presentations I've seen are by people who
> otherwise never show up at meetings -- perhaps because they
> don't realize what the normative standards are?

That could be... :-) More likely it's because they were very familiar with the
topic. It's unfortunate, but as often as not we have presentations on subjects
that the speaker is only a little more versed than the audience. But if we only
go with what we know well, we're going to tire of the same three
presentations... :-)

> The exception to the rule was, unsurprisingly, John Goerzen.
> Goerzen started ACLUG, molded it in his image, and left it to
> his buddies to try to carry on his legacy. Without getting
> into his buddies (who certainly deserve credit for trying and
> for caring), I think this (call it "Goerzen's ghost," or "the
> fading Goerzen effect") has become a big problem for ACLUG.
> Consider these points:
>
>  1) The 7:00-7:30 q&a period worked much better with Goerzen,
>     for three simple reasons: 1) he showed up by 7; 2) he took
>     command of the meeting; and 3) he knew the answers. Drop
>     the ball on any of those three points and the period
>     fails.

I agree. But Goerzen was a student and was on campus. He didn't have to get off
work at 6 and find time to get home, eat and drive across town to a meeting.  He
was also a Linux uber-guru. I don't think we've found one yet to replace him.
:-)

>  2) Goerzen's presentations (at least all that I saw) were
>     pretty straightforward tutorials, and this set the mold
>     for most subsequent presentations, except that Goerzen
>     was much better at it -- probably because he was writing
>     (or at least researching) his book at the time, so he
>     was prepared. There are lots of problems with tutorials,
>     such as finding a common level of interest and expertise,
>     and the right trade-off between compressing a subject to
>     fit the time while keeping it correct. (Just to pick one
>     example, my own C programming presentation would have
>     made more sense as a six week course/study group, and
>     in any case had rather limited interest.)
>
>     In contrast, a good example of a non-tutorial presentation
>     was the one on the Linux handheld, which was basically a
>     participant's report on an ongoing project, and conveyed
>     much of the interest in participating in such a project.

A good example of a good meeting, as was the Star Office presentation.  But
there are only so many non-tutorials that I can think of doing.

>  3) AFAIK, Goerzen continues to control the aclug.com website,
>     which makes it hard for anyone else to contribute, to do
>     anything else with it. Even if the meetings were smashing,
>     the website could still reach many more people, on their
>     own schedules, with a wider range of information, with
>     more flexible access, etc.

While Goerzen does manage Aclug.org, the committee does have some control over
it. We have talked about returning it to Wichita, but so far, there benefits
haven't outweighed the drawbacks.  At best, it's always been a draw. Maybe it's
time to re-think this again.

>  4) ACLUG is rooted at WSU because that's where Goerzen was,
>     and I think that's a big limiting factor (unless, of
>     course, WSU were to really start supporting ACLUG, like
>     giving us decent meeting facilities, even when the campus
>     is out-of-season).

That's not exactly the case.  We've stayed at WSU because it was felt that a
large portion of our members were students at WSU. That may no longer be the
case. If not, then we need to think seriously about alternative meeting
locations.


> Given this legacy, it's not very surprising that maintaining
> ACLUG in this manner has become a pretty hopeless task. Which
> is why I think it is important to go back to scratch and ask
> basic questions about what a LUG is good for, and how to make
> it work. Very briefly, my answer is that LUGs should work to
> build self-help communities first (which includes businesses
> as well as end-users), and second work to expand the community
> through evangelism. And the meetings, the website, mail list,
> etc., should be tailored to work toward those goals.
>
> In the case of meetings, since that seems to be the crux of
> the immediate crisis, this is what I think makes sense:
>
>  1) Only have one general-audience meeting a month, which
>     would feature presenting something of general interest:
>     could be a "big name" guest speaker, could be a panel,
>     could be 2-3 shorter speakers, whatever.

I would favor 1 topic meeting and 1 "social" meeting.

>  2) Schedule these meetings well in advance. I suggest
>     something like 2nd Wednesday of each month; i.e., some
>     date that's unlikely to get disrupted by holidays,
>     weekend travel, etc.

That would be much easier to schedule.

>  3) Get a big enough room -- probably an auditorium or
>     lecture hall that can sit >100 people. (It's ridiculous
>     to try to grow an organization when your meeting room
>     can only hold 20 people.)

The problem has been one of cost. Some of the places we've looked into cost
quite a bit, so there would have to be some way to raise funds to pay for them.

>  4) Have a separate break-out room, for people to continue
>     discussions after the presentation(s), and possibly for
>     socializing before (or during, if the presentation gets
>     dull).

Given the way some of the presentations have gone, maybe we need big room for
the break-out. ;-)  All kidding aside, that's not a bad idea.

>  5) Make sure the presentations are well prepared, and the
>     presentors authoritative. (If need be, help them, or
>     team up someone who knows things with someone who knows
>     how to present them.)

That's obvious, but have you tried finding those people?  The real knowledgeable
people don't seem to see the benefit of showing up and giving a presentation.

>  6) Make announcements at the start of the meeting, but try
>     to handle routine business elsewhere.

Part of talking about regular business at the meeting is to allow other
viewpoints to be heard.  We try not to do too much without the member's input.

> Lots more stuff that could be done: Tutorials should take on
> their own size and shape. Help should be done on Website
> first, then mail list (rather than other way around).

I'm not sure I see how that would work. Care to elaborate?

> I'd
> like to see the mail lists default-reply to the senders
> rather than to the list ("reply all" would still get you
> back to the list).

No, I don't see that at all.  The whole point of the lists is to promote sharing
of ideas. People sometimes learn answers to questions they have yet to think of
by just reading the lists.


>There could be SIGs or BOFs, which could
> have their own meetings or forums. There should be more
> interaction with other LUGs -- my guess is that much of
> what we'd want to do other LUGs would want to do, and
> vice versa.

We've have limited contact with other UG's, but that's not out of the question.

>When I first got here I threw out a proposal
> to certify "Linux-friendly businesses" -- I still think
> that's a good idea. The "committee" could be more open,
> and more aggressive at soliciting help. I could go on
> and on; hopefully you get the idea.

How much more agressive do you want?  We asked, begged, pleaded, cajoled and we
still have trouble getting help.

--dwh

---
Dale W Hodge - dwh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Secretary & Website Maintainer - info@xxxxxxxxx
Air Capital Linux User's Group  (ACLUG)
---


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