[Discuss] the state of VLUG meetings at present

[Adam Parkin]

Daniel M German wrote:
> Q&A in a meeting is useless. The first "answer" is usually: "What
> distribution do you use?" for that the mailing list is better.

Agreed.  And that's also what the "food at Boston Pizza afterwards" is 
for as well -- an opportunity to ask less formal questions about Linux 
in general.

> I agree that quality plays an important role, but I also think that
> interest in the topic is another issue.

Agreed as well, and one thing I've noticed is that the last few topics 
I've seen at meetings have seemed somewhat obscure (admittedly though 
it's been a LONG time since I've been to a VLUG meeting).

The problem is though that no matter what the topic there will always be 
some people who will be very interested in the subject, and others who 
simply could not care less about it.  For example, the first VLUG 
meeting I attended was a presentation (by David Bronough IIRC) on the 
2.6 kernel.  I personally found it extremely interesting and very 
helpful as I learned about a number of things I didn't previously know 
about.  OTOH, I remember that there was a Linux "n00b" at that meeting 
who certainly wouldn't have gotten anything out of that presentation 
other than a sense that Linux is for the hardcore geeks of the world.

> In many ways I think that "Linux users groups" need to be transformed
> in "Open source users groups" where the emphasis in the operating
> system is replaced by an emphasis in the end-user applications. This
> is, of course, my view as a non-member (I used to be).

Yes, this has been mentioned in the past on here (by you IIRC), and as a 
non-linux user but avid open source software user I'd be much more 
interested in a group which is focused on *all* open source 
applications, rather than just one particular one.

There have been times I have felt as though I don't belong at a VLUG 
meeting (or on this mailing list for that matter) simply because I run 
Windows on all my machines.  OTOH probably 90% of the software I use on 
a day-to-day basis is open source, and I very passionately believe in 
the philosophy which underlies the open source model of software 
development.

> What is the goal of the meetings, by the way? The last time I did a

That's a really good question.  I think that over the last year or so 
I've noticed a lack of "vision" (for lack of a better word) in VLUG 
proper and the meetings in particular.  Is the goal to convert others to 
Linux?  Is it to have an opportunity to network with other techies in 
Victoria?  Spread the gospel of open source to the masses?  All of the 
above?  None of the above?

One truism about doing a good presentation is that you need to identify 
your audience.  Who is it you're talking to?  What's their background? 
What kinds of things would they be interested in hearing about?  How 
much pre-requisite knowledge would they already have?   I'm not sure I 
could answer these questions about the "typical" VLUG member, as right 
now there's no sense of "okay VLUG is catering to the user who is .....".

For example, I've been attending the Recreational Computer Science 
Society (RCSS) meetings for awhile now and one difference I've noticed 
between RCSS and VLUG is that RCSS has a clearly defined target audience 
-- computer science majors who are interested in learning about some of 
the cool research that's happening in the discipline.  As a result when 
I've done presentations for RCSS meetings I could answer the above 
questions and tailor my talk to that particular audience, which made for 
a MUCH better talk.  I couldn't do that with a VLUG audience.

As well, it's important to realize that presentations are done for the 
audience's benefit and not the presenters (or am I wrong?).  A talk 
where someone just brags about their 1337 obscure projects/work/skillz 
isn't helpful and will likely just convince people to not bother 
attending future meetings (it's one of the reasons I stopped going to 
meetings).

> The meetings are not very useful to the converted. They need to be
> reach-out meetings, where people who might have some interest show up
> and are convinced to give it a try. For example, why not introduce any
> firefox users to the "best" plugins? Or how to do Instant Messaging
> using open source?

I see your point, but OTOH it'd be difficult to fill a 1.5 hour 
presentation on Firefox extensions (or even Firefox entirely).  Doing a 
talk on say, open source browsers proper might be a bit more in line 
with a full presentation.  As well, if you make the topic more general 
(and less specific) you're more likely to have something in your talk 
that someone won't know anything about, and thus have the opportunity to 
convey something new to them.

-- 
--
Adam Parkin
E-mail: pzelnip at gmail.com
Blog: http://pzelnip.blogspot.com/
----------------------
  You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
	-- Dean Martin