[TriLUG] Palmer for another SC term; proposed amendment to the bylaws

[Brandon Van Every]

>
> To TriLUG,
>
> What opportunities does TriLUG offer to those individuals who want to
> engage in community-supported intellectual risk-taking? In my experience,
> many of the TriLUG meetings are a traditional lecture-style format, with
> very little opportunity for participants to try out what's being presented
> or to contribute in meaningful ways.  It is not just women who are not
> being reached; there are other diverse members within the community who are
> also not being reached.  My point is this: vary the format of delivery and
> vary the types of individuals presenting, and you'll not just attract more
> women to TriLUG, but will hook in a wider variety of individuals.  Why
> should open source tools be presented in the "standard" format when most
> folks drawn to the open source community don't fit most standards?
>
>
Yep, lectures are usually boring as s***.  Haven't been to TriLUG ones
specifically, just talking about techie meetings in general.  Brian
Moriarty of Infocom fame may put on a good lecture; most people don't have
the showmanship.  Frankly, most people read their slides. Consider the
possibility that PowerPoint originated so that scared non-speakers could
stand in the dark while presenting their slides, and thereby not be seen.

Back at the Seattle Functional Programmers, which I helped organize, we
dispensed with the lecture format entirely.  We went to pubs (I prefer the
Belgian variety) and ordered beer and food.  We talked / debated / argued
about functional programming.  My ego is big enough that I really don't
want to sit around with some guy droning at me for an hour, then share a 15
minute Q&A time slice with the rest of the group.  I want to actively
participate.

Over the years, a tiny number of people interested in FP would complain
that we didn't have a lecture format, that open discussion wasn't how they
liked to do meetings, whatever.  We just accepted them as casualties.  Not
that big a loss as far as we were concerned.  Can't please everybody.
 SeaFunc is still going 8 years later, so I think that proves our format
had staying power.

Some people were very motivated to actively code during a meeting, to have
it be a big laptop show and tell and dev session.  I wasn't, partly because
I've never been much of an "on the spot" programmer.  Partly because we had
such a disparity of tools and viewpoints represented in the group, that I
wasn't facile enough with any "majority interest" to reasonably consider
doing it.  But some people who were really driven that way, had some
meetings in their format.  Not sure if they picked somewhat less noisy bars
for their attempts.

Arguments over the quality of food, and the difficulty of traffic, resulted
in rotations to several venues in the Seattle metro area.  I'm sure people
who are Raleigh traffic bound can relate.  One thing I find off-putting
about any meeting, is having to do a big long commute to get there.  More
meetings in different locations is a good strategy for dealing with that,
so that people can take turns with the pain.

The general idea is, if you don't like how meetings are organized, run
something else.  So, is there some environment or format that some women
could suggest, or even implement, that's more to their liking?


Cheers,
Brandon