On Wed, Jan 05, 2011 at 10:57:10AM -0600, Aaron McCaleb wrote: [SNIP]
> (Also, pleasepleaseplease don't put me in the position to have to > name-drop LOPSA. I'm still a touch embarrassed that I'm a member of a > "League" of professionals instead of a more common "Association" of > professionals, i.e. "AOPSA" or "APSA". Yes, it shouldn't matter. > Intellectually I know that. But I guess I suffer a few conformist > streaks in my character. Sorry!) So, does this mean the League of Women Voters is an organization to be embarrassed about or devalued? What about the National League for Nursing? Are they embarrassed to be a member of their organization? Let's not forget the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission, which is an officially sanctioned U.S. nursing program accreditation agency. The Anti-Defamation League is quite well known and respected, too. This list continues and this only took a bit of memory and some brief googling about to find these. We aren't the League of Extraordinary SysAdmins, we are the League of Professional System Administrators. There's quite the large difference. [1] If you look at the dictionary definition of the term league, you find it means "an association of persons or groups united by common interests or goals." [2] Which, I believe, defines LOPSA quite well. If we are embarrassed by the name of an organization to which we belong, then we have not invested ourselves in the long term viability of our membership in that organization. Please do some research as to what the name may mean and what other organizations are like that use the word League in their name, too. I hope you will see that it is simply a descriptive word commonly used in English with positive (or neutral) rather than negative connotations. > > I like the idea of LOPSA hosting presentation of research papers in > System Administration, and even of establishing some standard awards > for things like "Best Student Paper/Presentation", etc. Also, for the > sake of visibility it might be a good idea to focus on advocacy in > Academia, first. We could try to establish a scholarship program, for > instance...no matter how small at the start. The idea is that if we > can increase our visibility among students, they graduate and move > into industry and government...expanding our visibility to industry > and government at the same time. It's slow, but it should have a high > likelyhood of success. While this is certainly is a valid approach, it is expensive and extremely volunteer/staff time consuming. This means we don't have the resources available to do a project like this. Certainly not a successful attempt, that is. We would have a far greater and immediate impact on industry, government, and education if we focus on an audience that makes hiring and policy decisions - or at least influences those - in addition to the bulk of the mid-career people that have the largest sway over their peers; usually due to sheer numbers, credibility based on more than trivial professional experience, and not being in a position of moderate managerial power where ideas are enforced rather than socialized. > The only hitch that occurs to me, at the moment, is that I don't > actually know anyone that went to college thinking, "I'm studying to > become a system administrator." Electrical or software engineering? > Yes. Computer scientist? Yes. But not _explicitly_ a system > administrator. That won't largely change until the profession grows up and solidifies more cohesively. Those things won't happen without those already in the profession making that happen. Those people won't make that happen unless organizations like LOPSA help it happen by organizing and informing. Cheers, Jesse [1] I do not, however, mean to imply that any of our members are anything but extraordinary - it just isn't our name. [2] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/league?show=1&t=1294320925 Definition 1b(1). -- Jesse Trucks, GCUX [email protected] Director, LOPSA http://lopsa.org _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
