Below find the transcript of the October 2007 LOPSA Live session, the "World Series Edition".
[9:10p]palmer: evenin' folks
[9:11p]mhalligan: morning
[9:11p]geoff: morning.
[9:11p]pck: evening, all, there are multiple board members here, and we are at your disposal for questions
[9:11p]palmer: Heh. Well that works too
[9:12p] palmer: So at any rate, sorry I'm late, but I am here
[9:12p]You were promoted to operator by allbery_b.
[9:12p]dballing was promoted to operator by allbery_b.
[9:12p]palmer: and we can begin. I don't have a lot of an agenda for this session
[9:12p]geoff: How did Philly days go?
[9:12p]palmer: we have the new board in place, things are starting to settle in
[9:12p] palmer: a lot of things are In Progress, so we haven't finished anything lately, but we're moving along
[9:13p] palmer: I actually don't know, Geoff, I wasn't there.
[9:13p]pck: and we're making some progress preparing for LISA for those that can make it to Dallas next month
[9:13p]geoff: Could you please remind us: who is the new board, and what are the roles/assignments?
[9:13p]pck: http://lopsa.org/about_contact
[9:13p]lopbot: Title: Contact Information | League of Professional System Administrators
[9:14p]mds_lopli joined the chat room.
[9:14p]palmer: The new folks are Bob Apthorpe, Philip Kizer, Derek Balling and Jesse Trucks
[9:14p]geoff: That answers the first half of the question... : -)
[9:14p]allbery_b: @title-off
[9:14p]lopbot: Unknown command, try @list
[9:15p]palmer: the officers are Trey Harris as Prez, Philip as VP, and Stephen Potter as treasurer
[9:15p]geoff: palmer: You still head of Comms?
[9:15p]palmer: I'm here aren't i? :)
[9:16p]geoff: Has the board had its first meet/induction?
[9:16p]palmer: Yes, we met the day before the Philadelphia SA Days workshop
[9:16p]allbery_b: @url-off -- shaddap, you
[9:16p]lopbot: Url disabled
[9:16p]geoff: That would make sense. : -)
[9:16p]palmer: had an all day meeting together with the outgoing members of the previous board
[9:16p] palmer: got things together, realigned some committees, assigned some duties, and the like
[9:17p] palmer: Our major priorities right now are cleaning up and organizing the website, getting ourselves at LISA, and we're working with Tom Limoncelli on some public policy efforts.
[9:18p]geoff: cool. thanks.
[9:18p]palmer: yep. we don't have any major shifts in priorities or direction going on though with the new Board
[9:18p] palmer: apart from some fun with our conference call service, we've been moving along pretty well
[9:19p]tep-mobi1 is now known as tep.
[9:19p]pck: we also must apologize for the lack of minutes on the governance site right now, that is one of the transition duties that did not get picked up as well as it should have and is a priority
[9:19p] pck: I will make a point to get that corrected on the order of days
[9:19p]palmer: Yep, this is our first transition, so we didn't have a process in place
[9:20p] palmer: lots of jobs weren't assigned to officers or positions but instead were "Pat handles that." or whatnot.
[9:20p]pck: or other $volunteer as well
[9:20p]dballing: but, for whomever should follow behind us, we've started documenting "what needs to happen and what knowledge needs to get transferred when the board changes members"
[9:21p]pck: • pck nods in agreement
[9:22p]palmer: any questions from the membership?
[9:22p]geoff: What shape are our finances in?
[9:23p] geoff: Oh, and did we ever hear back from the IRS?
[9:24p]pck: first to the second topic: IRS has noted the delay is extreme and we have entered a different fast-track path, there was another contact taking pace I have not heard back about just yet from sam on
[9:25p]mds_lopli: Do we have any general figures on how we're doing at growing/expanding membership?
[9:25p]pck: as for finances it is as expected for a new organization (greatly in need of assistance), but some of that [pertinent membership question appeared][9:25p]adamm joined the chat room.
[9:26p]pck: is related to another transition topic where renewal reminders were not sent out correctly and that is top priority for the techs to correct and remedy right now
[9:27p] pck: we are still growing, though, even so
[9:27p] pck: and we have not yet entered the large pre-LISA bump we would like to expect fairly soon
[9:27p]geoff: ballpark number of members?
[9:27p]dballing: to touch on the IRS thing briefly, there was also a lot of confusion within the IRS regarding the various different names that were on paperwork.
[9:28p]allbery_b: ...wasn't that their fault to begin with?
[9:28p] allbery_b: (well, partly)
[9:28p]dballing: some of it was, some of it was legacy of "how we started" as it were.
[9:28p]mhalligan: • mhalligan = mds_lopli
[9:28p]pck: as for members: nearing 1000, and we are hoping to make a special note as we get nearer to that number
[9:29p]mhalligan: it would be nice to have an idea of how large the LOPSA community is now, see where it's finances are, and see where it's finances should be.
[9:29p]mds_lopli: pck: Out of curiosity, where are most new members coming from? Word-of-mouth?
[9:29p]pck: that I cannot answer, I have no data on that as I am on the receiving end of the summaries rather than the data-distillation side
[9:30p]ant: what are some avenues being explored for picking up new members?
[9:30p] ant: in addition, it would be nice to see the ROI for each avenue.
[9:31p]pck: in particular there are some ideas for sponsorships related to member drives being kicked around, so if you know companies amenable to helping sysadmins, pointers would be appreciated
[9:31p] pck: obviously LISA will be a drive target
[9:32p] pck: doubtful most would have looked in detail at the vendor showroom list, but we do have a booth there (thank you Usenix on that topic)
[9:32p] pck: and BOF/meeting are planned for LISA as well
[9:33p]mds_lopli: (Any more of those nifty button-down shirts going to be there? :)
[9:33p]dballing: if parter was here we'd probably have a really good answer on that. :)
[9:33p]pck: • pck nods
[9:33p]jgsmith: will we have to register for lisa to attend the member meeting?
[9:33p]pck: he is actively trying to get more made in time for LISA
[9:34p]ant: Could someone clarity the target audience LOPSA seeks for membership? I could use the info before deciding what events to attend in the local area while wearing my lopsa tshirt & hat. :)
[9:34p]pck: I do not remember door monitors keeping people out of BOFs from previous LISAs, and we will welcome all that can attend
[9:34p]ant: s/clarity/clarify/
[9:34p]adamm: == pck on the doors for BOFs
[9:35p]ant: • ant will be at a local Ubuntu 7.10 Install Fest in Atlanta during LISA '07
[9:36p]dballing: In my perfect world, I'd like to see us get some more windows sysadmins, not because I'm a windows fan, but because I think they really don't have a lot of venues to go to for a lot of the same issues we all deal with on a daily basis
[9:36p]pck: as for target audience: [9:36p]• pck nods first at dballing, more admins of Microsoft systems would be good, but
[9:37p] pck: as mentioned on , we seek to advance the practice of System Adminstration
[9:37p] pck: all that see that as a good thing are welcome, from admins to programmers, to managers
[9:38p] pck: not to mention educators, help desk types, politicians and even end users if they were so inclined
[9:39p]dballing: • dballing is a manager, so managers are clearly acceptable. : -)
[9:39p]palmer: heh sorry I disappeared
[9:39p] palmer: father called with a mild family emergency
[9:39p] palmer: (I swear I wasn't watching the world series)
[9:39p]adamm: • adamm is more of a programmer (most days) than a sysadmin so programmers are clearly acceptable : -)
[9:39p]palmer: (well, at least not only watching the world series)
[9:40p]allbery_b: my boss (more manager than the business end of sysadmin) is a member...
[9:40p]ant: all levels of expertise in those or similar positions are targetted for membership?
[9:40p]palmer: I always see LOPSA members, and sysadmins in general, as the folks who deal with the intersection of computers, computer science, and reality
[9:41p]adamm: ant: Of course!
[9:41p]ant: that's generally the axis I have a question about. :) "Do we want to provide more or _less_ technical support?"
[9:43p]mhalligan: ! adamm is a programmer
[9:43p] mhalligan: kick him out!
[9:43p]pck: which "we" do you mean, though...
[9:44p]ant: pck: lopsa members in #lopsa or on the tech + discuss mailing lists mainly. but there seems to be plenty of information to go around.
[9:44p]pck: as for providing more or less support, if more can be idly educated about what it takes to properly run the systems, in an ideal world that might help them give better answers when questions about problems or be able to fend better before needing the support
[9:45p]palmer: yeah. there are different questions for different people that apply to specific technologies
[9:45p] palmer: but what we're really about are professional approaches common to all technical disciplines
[9:47p]n5red-4 joined the chat room.
[9:47p]ant: ok, that answers my question.
[9:47p]palmer: and that extends from newbie help desk minions to people who design Google.
[9:48p] palmer: any other questions? comments, criticism, confusions
[9:48p] palmer: ?
[9:50p] palmer: everyone else watching the Red Sox too? :)
[9:50p]ant: heh ... I don't want to ask too much at once. :)
[9:50p]dballing: I can't watch, it's a new york thing. ;-)
[9:50p]allbery_b: aside from "what idiot scheduled this against the world series", yeh :)
[9:51p]pck: • pck is not a sports person, but has a group playing D&D at the same dining room table he's typing at (and will be returning to when the -live event is done :)
[9:51p]geoff: I personally like being able to make one of these. Keep them at this civilised hour, please. : -)
[9:51p]palmer: Yeah that would be me. The red sox fan. I'm a moron.
[9:51p]n5red-4: What world series?
[9:52p]palmer: I did want to shift around the hour to try to capture more timezones, geoff
[9:52p]ant: How does the board act on some questions that couldn't be answered at this time? Should members expect to hear some news on the finances & membership growth during the next meeting?
[9:52p]palmer: But avoiding major hometown sporting events these days is difficult for me
[9:53p] palmer: Oh for membership we're growing pretty well. we're in the high 800s at the moment
[9:53p]allbery_b: some of that might be candidates for the website redesign (which is ongoing I think)
[9:53p]palmer: Finances, honestly I'm not sure what's public and what's not, and I don't want to blurt anything out
[9:53p]ant: palmer: fair enough.
[9:54p]palmer: we're not quite breaking even yet, but with a good membership push and a few more sponsors we'll be there.
[9:55p] palmer: any other questions?
[9:56p]ant: allbery_b: is there a project/milestone tracker for the existing tasks of web redesign/etc? or is that a private thing? :)
[9:56p] ant: er, palmer.
[9:56p] ant: that's my last question, promise. :)
[9:56p]palmer: You know, someone was talking about setting up a good project management system early on in the Board meeting, and I don't think that went anywhere
[9:56p] palmer: I'll have to dig into that, we could use such a beast
[9:57p] palmer: even if we had something though, we wouldn't have anything yet to show for it, we're still in the gather reqs and learn phase of the website design
[9:57p] palmer: it's really a staggering IT story in itself at how complex and tangled our website became in just two years of operation
[9:57p] palmer: since we had to fling it up in valiant but seat of the pants fashion
[10:00p]dballing: anything/anyone else? :)
[10:00p]pck: well, I'm hearing crickets again
[10:00p]palmer: And it is 10 pm
[10:00p]pck: and it's reached 10EST
[10:01p]palmer: so unless there's anything else
[10:01p]dballing: pck hears crickets, I hear echoes. ;-)
[10:01p]geoff: A big thank you to the new board for volunteering to serve.
[10:01p]palmer: I can go back to giving David Ortiz my undivided attention....
[10:01p] palmer: :)
[10:01p]allbery_b: it's very disconcerning when you bnoardfolk mindmeld in public :)
[10:01p]pck: :)
[10:01p]palmer: it's the infiniband link we have installed
[10:01p] palmer: helps a lot for conference calls.
[10:01p]ant: thanks board.
[10:01p]palmer: Thank you all too
[10:01p]pck: thank you members!
[10:02p]ant: • ant goes to see if launchpad is open source
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