LUG meetings and topics

Jon 'maddog' Hall maddog at li.org
Tue May 11 06:42:37 EDT 2010


>   Tsk.  Brook's Law applies.  Facilities and publication turns out to
> be relatively easy.  Finding speakers is apparently the really hard
> job.

A suggestion here:

What I found as a leader of the group was that it was very hard to
figure out WHAT people wanted to HEAR about.  Therefore every once in a
while I would send out a message to the list asking for topics of
interest.  After accumulating that and organizing that (probably a
half-hour job in writing the email and receiving the results), I turned
that into a list of topics.  I then asked the list for people who were
familiar with the topics to talk about them.  A lot of the time I found
those people.  As you know, we have a range of speakers from "great
speakers" (who have good presentation techniques, do preparation, etc.)
to "not so good speakers"....but the speakers always ignite a
conversation and that is the most important part, IMHO.

"High power" speakers, I admit, are a little harder to find and get.
Working for Digital, having access to DECUS, USENIX and working with
some of the events in the area, I had access to some pretty good
speakers who were "dropping by the area".  Yet, a lot of the people on
the list have "access" to at least one or two people and if they found
out that those people were "coming physically close" they could send an
introduction to the speaker manager to see if something could be set up.

As to the "facilities", I agree that it can be "easier" that speakers,
but if you want to do a "big presentation" (we use to call them
"quarterlies"), getting a facility (we sometimes used Daniel Webster
College) was harder....not impossible....but took a little time and
effort out of the ordinary.  Once it is set up, however, even that
becomes more or less automatic as long as you maintain the relationship
with the facilities manager.

My two cents.

md



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