$AUUGid: www/data/saauug/events/2003/meetings/message.txt,v 1.1 2003/12/22 00:36:06 benjsc Exp $ Subject: [sa-auug] Transmission intercepted: Minutes of (b)AUUG meeting September 10 From: David Bullock Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 01:59:38 +0930 (CST) To: sa-auug@auug.org.au Hi folks, As you recall, the September 10 meeting was somewhat hastily convened. It convened at Cafe Buon Giouno's, 7:30pm, and retired later to Iagu Network's boardroom (thanks Andrew!) later on. (Somewhere in there, some also frequented the Austral) The 6 present were: Andrew Rutherford Brett Lymn Brian Astill David Bullock David Lloyd Luke Schapel Despite not having a speaker, we had a great time. First we did a bit of navel-gazing, wondering just what our group was about. We decided that it's not just about speakers, it's about discussion, it's about socializing. In fact, the 'arrive, setup, finally-start-the-talk, stop abruptly and now race before the kitchen closes sorry to those who can't hang around' pattern has been kind of contrary to what we really see as valuable in the group. [Actually, Luke crisply characterised it as 'sit down, shut up, listen, leave' syndrome]. So, we want to make more room for the valued social aspects. We decided it's not a disaster to have speakers less frequently. But we did have a few opinions about talks. Firstly, they could be shorter. Have 2 shorter talks instead of 1 long one. This both doubles the interest factor, and reduces the barrier to preparing (or for some, daring) a talk. Secondly, if there is a specialist topic that might get a bit obtuse for those not already experts in a field (such as the talk on distributed filesystems earlier this year), one of the two speakers could give a more accessible introduction to the topic, if it were thought the speaker could not be made to accomodate the more general audience. Also, we need to get more members involved. Shortenting the duration of talks is one good idea to encourage participation. Actually asking them 1+ months in advance, instead of 1 week in advance, is also a good idea. Also, publicising the event with plenty of time is a good idea, and as broadly as possible. Also, we like discussion, not lectures. Why not have forums, why not have troubleshooting sessions, why not have panels, why not design something cool just for the heck of it? But, we need to try some new topics. People who don't come for the socialising come because of the talk. There was a little head-scratching why Brett's talk on Linux Gaming didn't attract a whole crowd of Linux folk. We thought in the end that maybe Linux folk thought they had that angle pretty much under control. One new idea was to wheel a lawyer in to talk about Intellectual Property. Speaking of Linux, we devoted a few cycles to the age old question of what makes us different to LinuxSA, and why they seem to think AUUG are the borg (not to mention SAGE-AU thinking the same). On the Borg issue, we decided that we don't care anymore, and we'll just get on with doing what we're doing (hell, *we're* sure about our own intentions), and if they don't like it, good luck to 'em. On the difference issue, to generalize, LinuxSA are targeted at domestic users of Unix, and AUUG is targeted at professional users of Unix. But wait, it's more subtle than that. Once upon a time, there was the professional hobbyist, and a large part of the social fabric was oriented around sharing information, this delicate balance has been disrupted by the very Network we sought to introduce , and that's partly what makes the whole 'what is AUUG' question so difficult. (Kind of like 'The Dark Crystal', I guess?) This minute-taker didn't quite arrive at a clear understanding of this, but it sounded like it was on the right track. (Andrew Rutherford's long history with Unix user-groups helped a good deal with the Borg and Difference issues.) Thinking of the future, we thought that we could be more active in universities, in a 2-phase recruiting campaign: 1) get access to IT classes and give them some good ol' mentoring about what's really important out there in the big bad world of professional IT; and then 2) say, 'by the way, AUUG are having a BBQ this weekend, so if you'd like to drop by and chat, feel free' The instructive and the social. A good mix. Luke wants us to have more BBQ's and open days anyway. Having thus pontificated, and Brian had drunk his fill, we retired to Andrew Rutherford's office on Pirie St for some real planning. First we dramatically revised our format: (I'm getting tired, so you'll have more 'point form' stuff from now on, OK?!) For a talk: - 15 mins: settle in - 45 mins: talk(s) - 20 mins: discussion/troubleshooting/news ------- 1 hr 20 mins ( == 7:00 till 8:20 ) Note that last 20 mins. We make time for this to happen. 'News' is a bit of a 'hey, did you know that ...' type section. It's at the end so that news-bringers aren't tempted to run away with the audience and the night's planning. News-bringers can include vendors, if they want to come along. To achieve this time, we'll have to be more diligent about moving the meeting along. Then we decided that our venue could be improved. Some really enjoyed the days at Marcellina's, when one could both eat and talk/listen concurrently, instead of time- sharing :o) The Microbits venue is 'practical', but it lacks 'atmosphere'. Well, David Lloyd is checking up on the alchohol@Microbits question (we are pre-approved for Pizza and soft-drinks), and also checking out the function room at the nearby Maid & Magpie. While it would be ideal to get a 'sure, 2nd Wednesdays are your night' deal going with a function room somewhere, our Marcellina's experience showed this can be tenuous. In the absence of guarantees though, having a nearby 'fallback location' (Microbits) might just work OK. And on meetings generally: No matter what, even if there is no speaker, there is ALWAYS a meeting. We set a 'performance standard' of minimum of 1 week's notice concerning a meeting. (We did not at that time discuss a '1 week, tomorrow, today' reminder pattern, but I recommend it). Someone said we should keep the website in synch, but this was more of a nice notion than a strategy for doing it. Taking a leaf out of Canberra's book, they tend to have quarterly events of some significance, where there might be a good speaker and intense promotion, and then kind of 'lay fallow' in between, maybe having more social events as they ramp up for the next big thing. That seems appealing from the point of view of getting off the 'we must have a speaker' treadmill that all committee members have come to fear. Maybe even revive the 'summer conference', where a few winter conference tutorials can get recycled, and maybe some new things (although Brett exclaimed that he didn't want to hear a re-hash, but that's OK, since he'll be speaking, not listening The Australian Computer Society put on a really lousy conference earlier this year, which I'm sure AUUG could best. Then we got *really* concrete, and planned out the rest of the year: OCT: A meeting, at the Maid & Magpie [Ensign Lloyd, 'report!'], will have no fixed agenda, and revolve mainly around food and beer and whatever else seems important at the time. There was a suggestion that people could bring their funniest and most drastic spam stories, and Greg has already agreed to report on BSDCon. NOV/DEC: We're not sure about the order, or which one will drop out, but it'll be two of these 3: - a talk on Wireless (still a hot topic, we feel, and there are some new developments in security technology). - a panel on Intellectual Property [Commander Rutherford, will the legal ambassador be joining us?] - an AUUG Christmas function JAN: About this time of the meeting, I had given up scrawling it all down. But after rinsing the coffee cups, someone had graffiti'd my minute-scrap with "JAN 04 - INVITE ALL AUUG TO CHAPTER MEETING". I vaguely recall a sinsister plot to take advantage of the milling LinuxConf attendees who didn't have anything on that night, but maybe that's the COLLECTIVE speaking. Ex-captain Bullock, out. Captain Luc, you have control of the bridge. Or should I say, Lucutus? Hahahahah.