[Lopsa-regional-project] Another local leader chimes in

[der.hans]

Am 14. Jan, 2006 schwätzte Adam S. Moskowitz so:

moin, moin AdamM,

> As de facto leader of the second-oldest US-based "user group" (Back Bay
> LISA, or BBLISA), let me offer a few thoughts . . .
>
> BBLISA has its own domain, server, bandwidth, web site, and mailing
> lists; we are considered to be enough a part of "The MIT (*) Community"
> that they give us a meeting space at no cost. Unless we were to lose our
> donated colo/bandwidth I can't see us giving up our server; I can't
> imagine why we'd ever give up our domain.

A perfect example of an existing group we'd like to work with, I think.
BBLISA is established and doing quite well, as I understand it. It doesn't
need much from LOPSA.

Hopefully we can still work together.

> We have no dues, no formal membership, no governing body, no officers,
> no charter or by-laws, and we're not incorporated. We have no assets;
> legally the domain belongs to one of our members, the server to another
> member; both offer these for our use at their expense and out of the
> goodness of their hearts.

I'm certain there are lots of similar organizations out there. For
instance, PLUG is somewhat similar except that we have a steering
committee and still aren't as organized as BBLISA seems to be.

> We have 'formal" affiliations with SAGE, Boston User Groups (a local
> "umbrella" group that provides nominal support to high-tech "user"
> groups in the greater Boston area), and O'Reilly (the publisher). The
> latter gets our members discounts, and gets the group plenty of free
> books that we give away as door prizes at our meetings; the other two
> don't help us much at all, but it doesn't cost us anything to be
> affiliated with them nor does it hurt us in any way. We are happy to
> consider other affiliations if appropriate.
>
> So what would we like to get in terms of "support" from an organization
> like LOPSA or USENIX? Primarily, money; specifically, money to cover the
> expenses of a non-local speaker. In the past we have been lucky enough

Or ways to not have those expenses :).

> to find speakers who were traveling to Boston for other reasons, and
> who have been willing to extend their stay or time it to coincide with
> our meeting. Some speakers have paid their own expenses, others have
> used funds from their companies or universities that were available for
> this sort of thing. Once, a few years ago, USENIX said they would
> consider giving us a "grant" for this but the speaker couldn't make it
> so it never happened.
>
> It might be nice to have access to some sort of "speakers bureau," that
> we could use to find people to speak at our meetings; on the other hand,
> I don't know how much more useful that would be than just posting to the
> various mailing lists.

I don't think LOPSA has spare cash right now, but another project we have
is a speakers bereau. It should get underway soon.

I'm also hoping that the event calendar we haven't yet built will help
regional groups with promotion, just as mentioning LOPSA at regional
groups helps us with promotion. Thanks for mentioning LOPSA and LOPSA
news, BTW.

> When it comes to things like participating in events sponsored by groups
> such as USENIX and LOPSA, well, for us it works like this: If someone
> approaches us with an idea, we send an announcement or call for
> volunteers or whatever to our membership; if one of our members wants to
> get involved, then that member pretty much has free reign to do whatever
> s/he thinks is appropriate; if no one responds, so be it. We will
> announce such events at our meetings but that's about it. I don't mean
> for it to sounds like we're not interested or hostile to such things,
> but rather, we have no formal organization -- and we like it that way --
> because it allows each person to put in only as much time and effort as
> they want. If no one wants to put in the effort, well, that's the way it
> goes.

That's essentially how it works with PLUG as well.

> As far as promoting LOPSA at our meetings: Most of the people who attend
> our meetings already know about (and are probably members of) LOPSA (as
> well as SAGE and/or USENIX). We usually make some sort of announcement
> about "the state of LOPSA" but we don't concentrate on it and we
> certainly don't dedicate whole meetings to it -- primarily because
> that's not what our members want to hear. We do encourage our members to
> visit the LOPSA web site and to consider joining (although I'm often
> hard-pressed to say why they should join -- but I had the same problem
> with SAGE). On the other hand, if enough people said "I'd come to a
> meeting to learn more about LOPSA," we'd be happy to hold such a
> meeting.

I wish I could say that many PLUG members are also LOPSA members...

Michael and I are working on it :).

> So there you have it. I've joined the lopsa-regional-project list and am
> happy to answer any questions people might have.

Thanks for joining and bringing up such a great example of a group we want
to work with!

ciao,

der.hans
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