LUG meetings and topics

[Joseph Smith]

On Tue, 11 May 2010 06:42:37 -0400, "Jon 'maddog' Hall" <maddog at li.org>
wrote:
> 
>>   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.
> 

I would be willing to do a coreboot presentation, if it sparks some
interest?

-- 
Thanks,
Joseph Smith
Set-Top-Linux
www.settoplinux.org