[TriLUG] an increasingly annoying trend at trilug meetings

[rpjday]

On 11 Jan 2002, Kevin - The Alchemist - Sonney wrote:

> On Fri, 2002-01-11 at 06:39, rpjday wrote:
> 
> >   last night's meeting was pretty much par for the course, with
> > what should have taken i estimate 15-20 minutes discussing the state 
> > of the LUG, dragging on for i would guess close to an hour as every 
> > single useful and informative comment seemed to be followed by several 
> > impromptu, humorous followups by various audience members.
> 
> On the one hand, yes, I felt the discussion did go on a bit longer than
> I would have liked (and yes, this was something I could have been a bit
> more aggressive about), but I also felt that there were some valuable
> nuggets in there. 
> 
> Oh, and the meeting topic was "State of the LUG" - and I think some of
> the things that we talked about after you left were very valuable, like
> the potential to host LPI cert tests at a discount later this year, some
> more fund raising ideas, and some meeting topic ideas. 

granted, that would have been useful to hear, but ironically, i
chatted with chuck mead about just that earlier in the evening.
and my point wasn't that there wasn't useful info -- it's that
it took way too long to come out.
> 
> >   in my opinion, it's time to take trilug meetings by the scruff
> > of the neck and drag them to some semblance of organization and
> > professionalism.  there should be a agenda and, more to the point,
> > it should be followed.  keep the distractions and interruptions to
> > a minimum, and let's get on with business.
> 
> So, in all honesty, how would you go about this? One of the reasons
> people attend TriLUG meetings is because our meetings are interesting,
> informative, and somewhat (I think) fun. While we do have a general idea
> as to how things should flow, each speaker has a different way of
> presenting. I like a much looser approach, while others prefer a
> flat-out lecture. 
> 
> All that being said, we have tried to keep things to an agenda, but it
> doesn't always work out that way. I doubt it always will, unless you're
> proposing we institute a timekeeper and a "hall monitor" system to keep
> things on track - which, IMHO, would probably result in less people
> coming to meetings, which is, all in all, a Bad Thing(TM).

hey, i'm quite prepared to get jumped on by everyone else, telling me
to stop whining and that the meetings are just fine.  that's cool.
i'm not complaining about a meeting containing asides -- i'm complaining
about the observation that, most times, the asides start to dominate
the meetings.

when i'm at a trilug meeting, i look around and realize just how
much serious brainpower is assembled in one place, and how valuable
the time of those people can be.  i have no problem investing three
hours of my time if i figure i'm going to get, say, two hours of
useful info out of it.  but it becomes much harder to justify if
i figure i'm only going to get a half hour of info out of it.
after a while, it becomes a matter of return on investment.
> 
> >   ok, so is there anyone i *haven't* irritated by now?  i'd hate
> > to feel like i was leaving anyone out. :-)
> 
> I kinda with you had sent it to setting at trilug.org instead of the main
> list, but that's just me. Input is input, and negative input (in this
> case) can be just as valuable as positive input.

assuming you meant steering at trilug.org, i considered that, but to
keep that feedback "proprietary" is not in the spirit of open
source.  (can i abuse an analogy or what?)

as i said, i'm quite willing to be told by the general membership
to quit my whining.  different strokes for different folks, as they say.

rday