[Lincs] Worries About The Future Of The Group...

[Dave Pearson]

* Peter Cooper <peter at petercooper.co.uk> [2004-08-18 11:38:48 +0100]:

> Admittedly, forums still aren't popular in technical circles for the
> reasons you point out, but how many of our members are really technical
> sorts? Perhaps it's the barrier between these two sometimes overlapping
> types of people (the type that prefer USENET, IRC, and mailing lists, and
> the type that prefer forums, IM, and Yahoo Groups) that is the sticking
> point in getting people to communicate? Just a thought anyway.

You've touched on a couple of important points here that I think are a
common problem for any form of vaguely technical group (and it isn't
particular to a LUG, we've got similar but different issues with the
astronomical society I mentioned earlier[1]). The first question that
springs from the above is the question of membership at all; I'm not aware
of any "official" form of declaring membership as such. Personally I'm
subscribed to this mailing list because I'm interested in attending "real
life" meetings but I wouldn't consider myself a "member" of the group until
I've attended any meetings; until then I'm just a member of this mailing
list. I doubt I'd personally bother with web based forumns for the reasons
mentioned earlier.

Another important issue you've pointed at is the whole issue of
communication and what purpose it serves. Generally there's gonna be at
least three reasons to communicate in regard to any sort of group or
society. There's going to be general announcements, they're probably of
interest to the widest possible audience and, arguably, are best done via
some sort of mailing list as it's a push action rather than a pull action.
Secondly there's going to be the need for the organisers to communicate and
that, again, might well best be served by a mailing list. Thirdly there
might be the need for the general membership to communicate with each other
and, as you point out, the media used for that communication channel will
probably be dictated by the needs and abilities of the majority.

Thing is, in the latter case, there's the need to think about what purpose
such a communication channel serves. It won't be about announcing things
'cos you've got the announcement list; it won't be about organising things
'cos you've got the organisers' list. So what is the purpose of a general
communication channel? Help and support? There are far better resources out
there for that sort of thing and, moreover, the quality of help and support
will only be as good as those who are willing to monitor that channel (and
then you've got the problem that those people will be of a technical nature
and will possibly prefer mailing lists or news groups).

Past experience tells me that, generally, how you communicate as a group
seldom has that much effect on numbers of people who actually attend real
life meetings (and that's the real measure of "membership", right?). What
generally affects that is the quality of the content of the meetings, how
regular they are, how well organised they are, how well announced they are
and the general feel of them.

I get the impression from some contributions here that Linus-a-like world
domination is a desirable goal for the first real-life meeting. That's a
pretty unattainable goal. The first few meetings of any group like this
generally tend to be about getting a core of people working on making the
group work and, generally, those people are going to be of a technical
persuasion.

I don't know what that really means for the issue of communication but what
I do know is that it's almost a given that the early days of a group such as
this will involve a not of discussion about how to make things better and
more popular, often with calls for votes about such issues, when in reality
those issues don't really have that much impact on meeting attendance.

In summary: the question at the moment seems to be "how should we
communicate"; I'm suggesting that a better question might be "why should we
communicate". The answer to the latter will probably provide an answer to
the former.

-----
[1]  Do you pitch the talks at your meetings for beginners or at a more
technical level? How do you find the balance? Beginners' talks can aid a
boost in the numbers attending a society but they often turn away the more
involved and competent member. More advanced talks can help retain more
involved and competent members but at the expense of the size of the
society. It's a very old problem.

-- 
Dave Pearson
http://www.davep.org/