I dunno; I haven't been part of a user group since Randy Jarnagin shut down Art Software Group (which directly addressed my needs at the time anyway) and am mostly self-taught, so my informational needs are fairly modest, and frankly I'm just not that gung-ho these days about learning apps and techniques on subjects for which I don't have a demonstrated need. So, I guess I fall into that group for whom a mailing list is more than sufficient; the computer does what I need it to do and has for years, and on those occasions when I need to add functionality I can usually track it down on my own. Some of this is probably the by-product of having gotten into personal computing during the bad old days when Steve Jobs was off fiddling with BeOS, Gil Amelio was in the wheelhouse yelling "Hey! We're still viable!" even as the engine room was flooding below, and I was surrounded by PC users telling me "you bought a WHAT? Hahahahahah, you're so DOOMED!" even as I was taking a smug satisfaction in that I was making a living off my machine and they weren't. I ended up learning on my own how my Mac worked, how to use most of my software, and ended up learning how to use first electronic bulletin boards and later the net by the seat of my pants as the lone Mac user on the old Dance of Shiva board/ISP.
Consequently, I rarely think about the LCS, although I see the meeting notices, simply because I haven't found a reason to pay the group dues for a monthly seminar on something I probably wasn't planning on doing anyway and to be frank, I don't know if the group even does anything else because the meeting notices are the only communication I get from them, not being a paying customer. I wander over to the LCS website before I started on this and noticed a signup link for Macgroup, so from that perspective I would guess more people are finding out about the mailing list from them than vice versa. I hadn't looked at the LCS site for some years prior to that and as best as I can recall, it doesn't really look any different than it did then. However, the absence of any obvious signs of life there suggest to me that both groups need to be more proactive in making themselves known to the world. I'm wondering off the top of my head if incorporating what gets said here into a message board format there might not benefit both groups, for instance. (If nothing else, it would help create more of an environment within the user group to challenge the guru types there to share their knowledge.) On Jan 1, 2009, at 9:34 AM, Harry Jacobson-Beyer wrote: > I received the letter and sent a reply directly to the person who > wrote > it and I copied Tom. I suspect, but don't know for sure, that he sent > the letter only to paid members of the user group. > > Harry > > Wednesday, December 31, 20089:32 PMMarta [email protected] > >> Folks, am i the only person that thinks that the Louisville Computer >> Society and the Macuser group go hand in hand and that we are one >> happy family? I do know that you don't get the ACCESS if you don't >> pay >> your fee, but then I thought we could all be part of the larger >> group, >> paying or not, and even were invited to the meetings should we choose >> to show up. So when Tom recently forwarded this letter of some folks >> feeling alienated and with their smallish skills felt out of >> place, I >> marvelled and did respond with a long answer that i did not feel at >> all that way, that I had all my questions answered, if they were at >> all answerable, that I always was able to have Lee's techno language >> translated into bread and butter English and sent it off. Only when I >> noticed that nobody, not even the ever appreciative and thankful >> "Profile" ( I love to call you that - there are so many Johns) came >> out to say a helpful word. >> >> I then realized the mail had apparently not gone to the whole >> group at >> all, and my good advice was probably lost on those who might not even >> know of this email extension group or whatever it is. >> >> And now I am wondering whether these people even know of us emailers, >> and it bothers me. However do people then get to know Lee and his >> immense machine to keep us all under control and keep it all running? >> How will they take advantage of all the tidbits coming from Ed Wiser? >> How will Nolan to be found out in his Sunday night program of >> scratchy >> records? How will they find out about mini dvds, a fact that was lost >> on me? And how will they know to what lengths some of our guru types >> will go to help out? >> >> When the Apple store opened and I wanted to put out flyers to >> advertise our group, they thought i might desecrate their holy altar >> up there, which of course left me speechless, since they could only >> benefit from this set-up. >> >> So- since we are at the start of a New Year, what can we do about not >> leaving any novice behind ---- let us not get a Bush reputation here >> --- Tell, me then, who did get Tom's letter? >> And what do we do about it? >> >> Marta >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will >> be January 27 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane. >> Posting address: [email protected] >> Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup > > > > _______________________________________________ > The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will > be January 27 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane. > Posting address: [email protected] > Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup > _______________________________________________ The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will be January 27 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane. Posting address: [email protected] Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
