On Dec 13, 2006, at 9:37 PM, Ben Scott wrote:
The second biggest problem this group has is that all of the
volunteers don't have enough free time. ;-)
Yep. if you find any of that laying around, send some my way :)
From past history, I gather other venues may also be available. I
know we've managed to get use of facilities at SNHU (FKA NHC) and DWC.
In the past, I've said Manchester is the ideal location for us, since
it's centrally located for our membership, and thus equally
inconvenient for all. Thoughts on this?
We have met at other venues, and it's good to circulate. We've had
special meetings in Hanover, Nashua and Manchester last year. I don't
recall a large event at Durham recently, so I suggested that.
Discussion welcomed.
The next question is: What size crowd should we expect?
Let's make an arbitrary assumption of less than 250.
Which leads
me to: Promoting the event.
Thoughts on this? We've had mixed results in the past with this
sort of thing.
It's not something completely under our control. Sometimes you throw
a party and no one comes. But there's a way to minimize that
possibility.
0. First you lock in the location, speaker and topic. Without solid
who-what-where-when, the rest of the process falls apart. Exactly who
will talk, their bio, what they will present (with as much detail as
you can manage on a moving target) and in this case, whether there
will be hardware to oogle. A page of details we can use when talking
up the event helps a lot.
It doesn't matter how much we talk up an event if it's not
compelling. We really need to identify why people should attend.
1. I think we could get most activists to agree to contact their
local media (by phone, person-to-person, as well as web posting) to
see if we could get some media attention. Start a wiki page and post
progress.
http://wiki.gnhlug.org/twiki2/bin/view/Organizational/MediaOutlets
It's been my experience that automated postings do not bring in that
many people. I post regularly to nhevents.com, nhpr.com, the Concord
Monitor, www.eventsalon.com and see very little return on that.
Personally contacting other groups and getting them to help promote
the event to their members is more focused on the people we are
likely to get. If activists can talk up the event with their contacts
at other UGs, schools and universities and the media.
2. Work with the other groups and agencies in the state: SwaNH,
UVCIA, ACM/IEEE, High Tech Council. etc. Work with the staff of the
facility where we hold the event: most have in-house PR and media
contacts; having this event should be something they want to promote.
Also, if we get a speaker from RedHat or MIT, those folks have some
skills in publicity, too.
3. Research new ways to get the word out. Post it to Slashdot. Get
public service announcements on TV and radio. Find out how to get on
public access TV. Find out if NHPTV would cover the event.
Ideas that occur to me:
- Publish on all the websites and web calendars we know about.
- Send email announcements to all the announce lists we know about.
- Include a lead-in that suggests, "If you have associates who might
be interested, please forward this message to them"
- Put fliers on bulletin boards at the local colleges, schools,
libraries, town halls, etc.
- If at a school, we can print fliers and have the Comp Sci department
distribute to all the CS students. Also to students of other
disciplines that might be interest. Pol Sci, Economics, others maybe?
- Can we notify the local geek stores (Best Buy, Circuit City, Radio
Shack, etc.) about the event maybe?
All good ideas.
The size of the facility is directly dependent on the number of
people who will attend, which is directly dependent on the level and
success of promotion.
Now where did I put that crystal ball?
If I can find mine, I'll let you know where yours is.
Ted Roche
Ted Roche & Associates, LLC
http://www.tedroche.com
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