I agree that LOPSA has done “precious little” on the “for me” side. I also believe it has done little on the benefit-to-the-profession side. (We can continue employing the "two sides” formulation; But there may well be other ways to frame LOPSA’s directional options.)
The crux of the problem is — as you rightly pointed out initially — LOPSA’s leadership continues to wrangle with the issue of setting direction for LOPSA. So we agree on that. I’m sometimes tempted to cast my thoughts out about “LOPSA should do this, or that…” But then I stop and think: There’s a board and there are people who are setting goals and priorities. Except that I actually have no idea what they’re doing, or what goals they’ve set. (Cue people telling me where to find the board minutes somewhere on the web site…) I’ve long thought LOPSA has a serious communications problem: It lacks a high fidelity leadership voice that communicates clearly. If LOPSA had that fidelity of mission/direction, then we (your pov vs my pov) wouldn’t even have this discussion. We’d know exactly what LOPSA’s goals/direction were. --Craig Constantine, http://constantine.name On May 14, 2014, at 3:55 PM, Derek Balling <[email protected]> wrote: Essentially, I don't think I'm going to agree with you here, and I'm not sure there's a compromise position to be found, so diametrically opposed am I. I think the reality is that depending on member-altruism as a growth methodology is, to me, a fundamentally unsound strategy that nine years have proven to be a failure. If this organization was going to grow based on altruistic membership, it would've done so by now. But membership numbers have -- if you factor out those folks forced to pay for memberships by going to LOPSA-East or CascadiaIT -- been largely stagnant to the best of my knowledge. We are not a political organization where people are paying us money "for what we do for the industry". In part because there's very little agreement amongst members on what we think an organization SHOULD do for the industry, let alone a position they should take in so doing. And if we're not in that category of organization, we're going to fall into the other category you describe, the "what does the organization do FOR ME" category. And on that front, the answer is "precious little", with folks seemingly hell-bent on keeping it that way. D On May 14, 2014, at 3:15 PM, craig constantine <[email protected]> wrote: > People ask themselves two questions when considering joining a professional > organization: > > What can the organization do for me? > What does the organization do at large to benefit the profession? > > LOPSA will grow if it is overwhelmingly awesome in its answer to either of > those questions. > > It’s in our nature (as people sure, but especially as pragmatic technology > workers), to focus on the first question when we first encounter LOPSA. > Unfortunately, it is very hard for a small organization to muster > overwhelmingly awesome benefits that attract members. > > Instead, LOPSA should do great things which are available to as many people > as possible. LOPSA should be so awesome at benefitting the profession at > large, that it becomes the de facto professional organization. Then people > will join just so they can say, “I support LOPSA!” > > LOPSA should make as much as possible of what it does, and provides, free and > accessible. > > --Craig Constantine, http://constantine.name > > > On May 14, 2014, at 2:06 PM, Derek Balling <[email protected]> wrote: > > This still does nothing, then, really, to answer the "Why should I pay money > to join LOPSA?" question which LOPSA boards have been struggling to answer in > a reasonable fashion for nigh on a decade. > > > _______________________________________________ > 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/
signature.asc
Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
_______________________________________________ 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/
