In a message dated: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 10:56:03 EST
Ed Lawson said:
>I think the issue rob is point out is that he did ask for help on the
>list. I think the only person other than me who responded was Randy out
>in the pacific. There is no mechanism for getting a few people together
>and mulling over a project, honing the details, and assigning
>responsibility to see it gets done.
What mechanism does there need to be? I'm willing to bet that if Rob
had announced this project to the list, asked for help, then followed
with a scheduled meeting date to discuss, plan, and assign, a few
people would have showed up. But that didn't happen. This is group
is mostly a virtual group. 99% of our activity is via the mail list.
Some of our most vocal members are either not local (Derek is Korea
now, Randy is in the Pacific) or never attend meetings (I'm virtually
unable to make it given my current employment situation, my brother
has never made it to a single meeting). So just saying on the
mailing list that someone has a great idea leads everyone to expect
that there will be some kind of follow-up.
Announce that you have a grat idea, then follow it up with a schedule
of planning meetings, and make them on weekends, and I guarantee
someone will show up. As several cases-in-point:
- The Linux Business Show had more volunteers "members" workin on it
than I had ever seen participating in the mail list. There were
peoples spouses, boy/girl-friends, kids, etc. We gained a lot of
new members this way as well.
- Maddog continually gets people to show up for Hosstraders every
single year. How? Follow-through. He announces the date of
Hosstraders, then states that he will be there, with a table or
two. A few people respond to the mail, and several show up at
Hosstraders.
- Maddog had no shortage of people willing to man the tables at the
PC shows at Rockingham Park. How? He announced the date, told
people what needed to be done, what times needed coverage, and
asked for volunteers. People volunteered, showed up, and got the
jobs done.
Those are just the examples I can think of. Contrast that with what
we've don't recently (i.e. since Jerry left). We spoken of grandiose
plans to formalize, to do 'one outside talk a month', to bring open
source to the libraries, etc. But we haven't stated what needs to be
done, nor actually scheduled any event (e.g. a planning meeting,
etc.). There's nothing of substance to any of these great ideas,
just talk. What we need is follow-through and action.
One person going off and doing it, then saying "I've started doing
this, who wants to join me?" isn't follow-through. And it's not
going to get people to want to help. Why? Because they want to be
*part* of something, and all this tells them is they have to do
something alone. Give them a team to belong to, something bigger
than themselves to contribute to and be a part of, and they'll come.
Tell them they have to give a talk by themselves to a bunch of
strangers, and they'll run away.
We have an awful lot of "organizers" on this '-org' list.
Unfortunately, there's not a lot "organizing" happening. Not only
that, the members of this list haven't really changed over all the
years I've been part of GNHLUG.
I think we're all getting burnt out, frustrated, and disappointed.
Combine that with the precious little "free" time most of have, and
we've got a recipe for disaster.
So, what do we do about it? How do we fix it? Maybe our problem is
we're thinking too big? Should we start with smaller ideas which
might have a better than average success rate? This could build some
momentum which could lead to bigger and bigger things. Remember,
Linus didn't start out to build the OS that would rival Microsoft.
He start out building a better modem terminall emulator...
--
Seeya,
Paul
--
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It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing,
but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away.
If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!
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