SPUG: not quite random thoughts on the current crop of user groups

[Brian Hatch]

> As for the OpenSauce lunches, am
> I mistaken or haven't most of them taken place on weekdays?

Schedule one and they will come.

I've arranged two (one coming up Monday at Rosita's in Ballard)
and they were during the week because on the weekend I am exclusively
a daddy, and my 3 year old isn't interested in a bunch of geeks.

If you want to have one on a weekend, announce it and it exists!
That's all there is to it!

> and I can't argue with your assertion that you're having fun, I
> just wonder about what I sense is a certain desperation in it.

I go because, as a telecommuter, I seldom see anyone outside
the GSLUG meeting and my daughter's day care.  That probably
qualifies as 'desperation for human contact.'  Not sure what
you're insinuating though.  Doesn't seem like anyone else has
any desperation aspects to it.  Just hanging out with geeks
and having food.

> And then
> there's the dynamic of all of the copycat lunches, and that's the
> charismatic model that I was speaking to: that Tim does it, and then a
> whole bunch of people do it, and it's not really coordinated.

I don't see any problem with that.  The first was when Tim and I
were going to get together anyway and opened it up to anyone
interested.  Guess that was pretty evil of us.

> A lot of that
> effort is destined to fail, and is wasted... for my definition of "wasted",
> of course.

> (PS, King Street Cafe is much better, foodwise than HoH. But
> none of it holds a candle to a real Dim Sum Palace in SF.)

Then schedule one.  You'll probably do better getting SPUGgers
if you have it north of California.

> I guess maybe it's me. Yeah, it's me. But I think again you hit it on the
> head, Tim does something, so other people do something, and without a
> broader organizational structure a lot of these things don't end up having
> much staying power. The failure of the charismatic model is that there is a
> very limited amount of Tim to go around. Maybe people are hoping technology
> will come to the rescue in the form of Wikis and whatnot, and I don't know
> how well that will fare.

So what's your suggestion?  No one should do anything because if
someone does something then it's destined to fail.  Got it.



--
Brian Hatch                  Bri:  I need a nap.
   Systems and               Josh: I understand.
   Security Engineer               Do you need
http://www.ifokr.org/bri/          a bottle?

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