JUNE 14 CANDIDATE Q&A (CONTINUED)

#LOPSA-Live 2017-06-14

scott5	We do not have any questions queued up at present. If any of the candidates has a question they would like to ask, I'm happy to entertain it.	18:57
vt102	What do people feel the biggest NEED for the board is?	18:59
nmswede	May we inquire as to the current board's opinions on some of these questions? I don't think there is just one solution...	18:59
scott5	I don't think we have any of the current board members online.	19:00
atsaloli	I don't have any questions.	19:00
vt102	I get the sense that the members have questions about the relevancy of LOPSA, as touched on in two of the three questions here.  So, I want to work to make the national chapter more valuable to local chapters.	19:01
atsaloli	Thank you very much for organizing and running the session, folks.	19:01
vt102	I personally have found a lot of value in LOPSA, and want to help other people find that same value.	19:02
atsaloli	same!	19:02
penglish1	scott5: I'm here. I can't speak for the entire board, but for a quick answer I can say I largely agree with all of the above, and would add: our current Board size seems disproportionately large	19:02
scott5	I think the short notice and early time may have reduced the attendance. Last year was much more lively. With some extra promotion, we should see more people at the next one.	19:02
atsaloli	yep!	19:03
penglish1	but we DO need time and energy from people - either volunteers, or (as I'm trying right now) paid (as we can't provide much training) marketing intern(s), and a paid community manager	19:03
nmswede	Sounds good. Perhaps have one question that we can prep an answer for? To set off the discussion?	19:03
penglish1	Some hours, every week, on the regular. Board members can't/shouldn't be doing labor - they should be making decisions. And generally don't have time to do a bunch of extra volunteer stuff, from what I've seen/experienced myself	19:03
atsoli	*nods	19:04
penglish1	The listing in the LOPSAgram for the Community Manager position covers a lot of the "just labor" work that we've identified, that is currently being done (or not) by Board members.. and when Board members do it, supplanting the planning/decision making that they SHOULD be doing.. IMHO	19:05
vt102	I have found that lots of people want to volunteer but are then surprised when that requires effort from them!	19:06
scott5	I'm in agreement with that. I'm currently on two boards and we have a disproportionate mnount of work to do. Getting volunteers is difficult.	19:06
penglish1	Okay, my quick answer got long.  I'll stop now, unless there are further questions. FWIW, I expect to put in some volunteer labor hours once my term is up.. possibly more than I've done as a Board member	19:06
nmswede	Having a community manager would be really cool	19:06
penglish1	scott5: getting "the right sort" of volunteers in particular, in our case. We've got a GREAT technical team who put in tons of time and do a fantastic job. Not so much on the marketing, social media etc side	19:07
nmswede	It's hard to get stuff done on only volunteer time	19:07
penglish1	+1	19:07
atsaloli	I'm afraid I have to get to my next engagement.  Talk to you next week?	19:10
nmswede	Definitely	19:10
nmswede	same here	19:10
vt102	See you then!	19:10
scott5	Thanks for participating everyone. I hope the next one will be as informative.	19:10
Trev71	Thanks guys!	19:10
atsaloli	Thank you scott5 and Trev71!  thank you all!	19:11
penglish1	Thank you everyone, candidates et al	19:11
nmswede	!	19:11
vt102	Thank you!	19:11
penglish1	I also need to head off to $NEXT	19:11
druonysuse	Thank you all. This was super fun!	19:11

As mentioned in the beginning of the transcript, we also have Danielle White's answers to these questions.

With the benefit of answering these after the #LOPSA-Live session (and thank you for this opportunity) I see overlap between these questions. 

Question #1: I strongly feel that there exists interest but is from an audience who isn't seeing us right now. In part due to my role change in mid-2016, to a position where I am doing more development than operations, I found local Research Triangle chapters of some groups, such as Girl Develop IT and Women Who Code, of people in similar capacities. Generally, they don't know of LOPSA even though sysadmin tasks are part of their jobs. Locally there are employers where nobody defines themselves as a system administrator even though many are doing so.

My approach to address this is to work on getting LOPSA into those spaces and make the case for our relevance. I feel strongly that we can be of substantial benefit because what I often see there are people who are doing ops work without a lot of support, and there is a solid case that we will make.

A Research Triangle specific note: LOPSA is still listed as affiliated with North Carolina System Administrators (NC*SA) which effectively no longer exists at this point. The other group where LOPSA is known, TriLUG, does not have participation from the individuals I described above and, for a number of reasons, almost certainly will not.

Question #2: If you'll allow me to take advantage of knowing the next question I believe questions #1 and #3 are our biggest at this time. I don't wish to suggest that if we solve them we've solved it all, only that we must focus on those two right now because solving those are critical to anything more.

Question #3: I would love to say that there is a way to make LOPSA-EAST viable but I am doubtful right now. The best approach that I see here is to look for conferences that are gaining and work with them. In the Research Triangle there is All Things Open. Also, there are a number of DevOps Days conferences where we need to be.

Don't forget the second session on June 21 @ 21:00 Eastern