[Glastonbury] Strode Meeting [LONG]

[Martin WHEELER]

On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, tim hall wrote:

> Martin, wind your neck in.

To answer you in the same ungracious tone - "Wind your own in, mate."

I have bitter personal experience of these people and Linux.  As have
at least four people on this list.  We *know* what we're talking about.
Please permit us to be cynical in the extreme as to their real motives
and modus operandi; and the degree to which petty power politics and
self-seeking interest is likely to be involved here, rather than any
degree of objective interest in technological or educational worth.

> This is a potentially Good Idea.

I totally agree.
_IF_ it is anything more on the part of the College than (finally) being
forced to jump on a rolling bandwagon before being crushed under the
wheels.  (Doesn't Street pride itself on having a dinosaur as its logo?)

And _IF_ carried out by the right people _on both sides_, for the right
reasons.
If not, there is the potential for much disagreement and bitterness down
the road, for all concerned.
Again, please believe me.  I've been there.  (And with the same people
apparently.)


> > (I remember you telling us that was what you intended to do; I don't
> > remember the group giving you a mandate to do it in our name.)
>
> I for one think it would be great if Mike did.

Strange as it may seem to you both, so do I.  As a self-appointed
diplomat with an apparent interest in brokering 'deals' for the group,
Mike knows what he's good at.  (If brokering deals is what we're all about.)
But permit me to say, that as the group's self-appointed cynical critic,
so do I.
But that's only us.
The real question here is: what do others in the group think?
There may be others who have practical, first-hand experience of dealing
with Strode College; or the only member of staff mentioned so far.
(We've already had one other opinion voiced on the subject.)
My personal experience of both the college as a corporate body, and
that particular member of staff, would indicate that their interest in
us (and Linux) may not be as straightforward as it would appear to be
to most other members of the group.

> > What sort of things?  Could we debate this publicly on the list first?
> > Not everyone was at the meeting last night.
>
> Things like Strode College using Linux? (Just a guess ;-)

[Love your naivety, Tim.  You're *soo-o-o* trusting.]
Mike -- what have Strode asked you for?  *Precisely*.
What is their interest in the user group?  What do they want?  Really?
Do they want to be shown what it's all about?  Do they want access to
our expertise?  Do they want to hire staff from amongst group members
(as you intimated)?  Or do they just want to use us as a free source of
information to give them a leg up to developing a teaching curriculum of
their own?
(I ask as one of the developers of the proposed Linux version of the
ECDL; and also as someone who makes a professional living from
delivering corporate Linux training and developing Linux training
materials.)
Do they want to offer us premises and accommodation, or facilities of
any kind?
And who exactly are we [you] dealing with here?  Is it the College as a
body; or just one member of the teaching staff?  A group?
Could we have more concrete information, please?

> > I've no objection to a meeting with representatives from the College --
> > in fact, I'd enjoy it very much, and I think it's a fine development
> > for the user group.  
>
> Good, let's do it then.

As I've already said, that's fine by me.
But that's representativeS in the plural -- not just one lecturer.
Who's there representing the college administrative staff?  The
technical support staff?  (Ferociously anti-Linux only five years
ago.)  The students?  The curriculum development team?  Locally?
County-wide?  Nationally?
All questions I would like to see answered before committing the
group to rushing into anything.

Do[es] Mike's contact[s] have a mandate from the college to do this in
the name of the college; or is this just a private dipping of the toe in
the water?  Are we really dealing with Strode College -- as an
institution?  Or an individual?
Are they looking for collaboration?  In what way?

> > BUT -- if we're going to put on a demo for College
> > staff, it has to be a cracker -- no two ways about it.  And that demands
> > time, preparation and proper organisation.  With collaboration from all.
> > In full knowledge of everything that's going on in the background.
>
> I feel a mountain growing here. I don't feel we need to make work for
> ourselves or build this up into some kind of 'hard sell'.

Tim, if you want a job lecturing at Strode (and I get the impression
you do -- you seem to see it as a glamorous opportunity, rather
than the mindless slave labour of the reality -- ask anyone who's done
it); you've got to show yourself as being more capable than anyone else
there already on post and terrified of losing their job who can say:
"Oh, that's easy.  I can do that.  These guys have shown us what's
what; now we'll do it ourselves."  It's your product familiarity
(personal skills) that has to show -- not the product itself.
Personally, I think your skills are far better employed within the user
group -- but then, these are just my personal opinions.

> I have enough confidence in Linux as a product - insofar as it can be called
> a 'product' - to believe that it will sell itself - it did so for me.

It's not a question here of 'marketing' a 'product'.
There's no sort of 'sell' of GNU/Linux here at all.
(If the college doesn't already know what Linux is and why they need to
get expertise in using and deploying it -- bloody quick -- then they're
more incompetent than I remember them.)
What's going on here is that the college has realised it's got to get
itself up to speed -- "hey, there's a bunch of amateurs at St. Dunstan's
in Glastonbury doing better than we are, we better get our ass into gear
before we lose creddibility -- and clients -- to them".
If the user group has anything at all to 'sell' here, it's our
*expertise* more than anything else.
Hence the need for a cracking demonstration.
We're *proud* of what we do; and of what we _can_ do; and how we do it.
And what we're achieving on our own.

> For anyone from Strode College I would have thought that a look at what Steve
> has set up at St Dunstan's would be a pretty good advert

That's almost certainly what alerted them in the first place ..
(They don't naturally attract the sort of staff to produce a home-grown
effort, unfortunately.)

> also his
> perspective as someone already involved in education, and who has also done
> some sums might be useful information.

Undoubtedly.  (But also available from multiple sources on the web
-- as are the experiences of other FE colleges in this area.)


> I don't remember the group deciding
> that we were going to 'put on a demo' for them either.

Why else would they be coming to visit us?  It's not a question of
deciding -- it's a question of necessity.  No?

> We aren't selling the group to the college.

I beg to differ.
You may not want it; or see it that way; but that's effectively what's
happening.

> We are simply a local resource,
> which they can choose to use or not as they see fit.

I'm too experienced and too cynical to believe that.
They want something from us.  And I want to know what it is.

> Furthermore, here we
> are, discussing the issue openly on the list.

Good.  As it should be.

> I think it's a great idea

 .. so do I.

> & I fully support Mike in taking this initiative.

I support him only as far as I trust Strode College -- and this from
(really bad) personal experience.

Now -- what do others think?

Cheers,
-- 
Martin Wheeler   -   StarTEXT / AVALONIX - Glastonbury - BA6 9PH - England
mwheeler at startext.co.uk                http://www.startext.co.uk/mwheeler/
GPG pub key : 01269BEB  6CAD BFFB DB11 653E B1B7 C62B  AC93 0ED8 0126 9BEB
      - Share your knowledge. It's a way of achieving immortality. -