On Jul 31, 2014, at 8:05 PM, Skylar Thompson <[email protected]> wrote: >> I think we value community just fine. The problem is we (as an >> organization) give away the community for free so *we* (the org) >> have devalued the community. We've set its value at "zero". >> >> That is not clear to me... nor was it to Hippocrates (or whichever of >> his students penned the oath). There are other ways to set value, ways >> which perhaps *you* are devaluing. > > I agree - open source software is given away freely but in many cases > has tremendous value. The trick is to find some way to get at that value > without charging for the product itself.
So then we come back to the age-old question, which hasn't been answered
satisfactorily in a decade:
"Just what in the hell are we paying for, then?"
Because *ultimately* the key to getting new members (and retaining existing
ones) is answering that question satisfactorily.
You might be getting "goods", or "services" or even "good will" (if you view it
as a charity). But LOPSA has to get its value-proposition above the cost of
membership or it's a losing game. Because for most people, ultimately, that's
how the decision to pay or not is made. And it hasn't been close to "positive
value" in that respect since its inception.
(Note: Platitudes of "it's a small price to pay" or "get your employer to pay"
may form a line over THERE next to that semi-tame singularity. Please form an
orderly queue, everyone will get a turn.)
D
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/
