[H-GEN] Room Bookings Update

[Paul Gearon]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Benjamin Fowler
<somelamer567 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/1/13 Robert Brockway <robert at timetraveller.org>
>>
>> > This has always been a problem, at one point we always had a first point
>> > of contact person on duty. Meeting numbers these days probably make that
>>
>> Yes, I wonder when this stopped.  The first point of contact was
>> specifically so someone approached new people walking in the door so they
>> would feel more welcome.

Actually, that was never enthusiastically applied. It's a great idea,
but people were rarely prepared to commit in this way. OTOH, there
were often people who'd say "hello" to someone who was looking a
little lonely.

<snip/>
> Alas, I'd volunteer to help out, if it weren't for the fact that I'm 10000 miles away in London these days.  Some bad experiences as Talks Maintainer [1] put me off for a while, but I'd be happy to pitch in again with some hard graft at some point in the future.
>
>> What about one "talk" meeting and one long "computerfest" meeting per
>> month.  If I was back in Aus I'd really be pushing forward with this, but
>> I'm not :(
>
> I see a pattern emerging here :-)

<snip/>

Yup, there's a definite pattern there. A *lot* of the early members
are now out of town. Maybe the enthusiasm for the club wasn't conveyed
before the mass exodus.  :-)

<snip/>
> HUMBUG has definitely shrunk since the bad old days of dialup, but I'm actually kind-of glad the leechers stay home these days.  I think this can only be good for our core mission -- to promote UNIX in a hobbyist/home setting, face-to-face (as opposed, to, say, face-to-Usenet, or face-to-Limewire, as it were).

I agree. It was always hard to police that people weren't abusing the
network (usually warez in those days), but it's nice to know that
these days you don't really have to.

>> >> Appreciate that we don't want to deal with
>> >> problems relating to MS products. That's we do for a living.
>> >
>> > Windows is not a *nix operating system. that's why we don't deal with
>> > it. I know I personally haven't dealt with windows professionally for
>> > years now and many long term members are the same.
>>
>> I'm glad you said this.  I haven't touched MS-Windows to any significant
>> degree for more than a decade :)
>
> Even though I never use Windows at home, I'm amazed at how it's all but impossible to avoid at work.  I blame Exchange and Outlook.

Actually, I'm using OSX, as are many of the people I work with (the
rest use Linux). Between Mail/iCal on the Mac, and Evolution on the
Linux boxes, then there doesn't seem to be much need for Windows
(except for technical support).

Yes, there's not perfect Exchange support from these clients, but the
client demand is such that an Exchange server is an impediment, so we
don't run it. Besides, most businesses I've worked with in recent
years provide web-apps of some type, and no one wants to provide these
from Windows.... they want to host on Linux.

>> > People should come back to meetings in the hope of meeting like minded
>> > people with similar interests and learning more about *nix operating
>> > systems and OSS.
>>
>> Exactly.
>>
>> HUMBUG does need to pick up the advertising though.  Even in the early
>> years we did quite a lot of online advertising (comp.os.linux when it was
>> very popular, etc).  Is that still occuring?

I miss the days of uq.general and Robert's initial announcement of
HUMBUG. Back in those days HUMBUG was very UQ centric, though it was
open to all.

I don't suppose the universities have notice boards like uq.general
anymore, do they? News has all but died, being replaced with mailing
lists, and public notices died with the advent of spam. It's kind of
hard to get in touch with groups of people now (ie. advertising).

> Online advertising, I suspect, would have to be better targeted.  Maybe we could even do targeted banner ads, if we could find somebody to donate banner ad impressions or similar.  Would somebody like Google come to the party for non-profits?  (Adwords would be perfect, especially if we didn't have to pay for it)

"pay for it" being the operative phrase.  :-)  Are Adwords
geographically targetted at all?

> OTOH, O-Week stalls, posters at university campuses, presence at other geeky events, also work well and has worked in the past.
>
> Another idea would be to find out what the introductary programming and data communications subjects are at the major universities, find out where the lectures are being held, and put "shit sheet"-style HUMBUG adverts on the seats in all over the lecture theatres in the first few weeks of classes. Cheap, targeted and effective!

Get the lecturer to join!!!

Just thinking about another thread.... if you get some decent talks,
you can promote those as a way to get people in to a meeting. Also,
with so many ex-patriot members (or ex-members, since we can't pay any
fees from over here), then surely you can get in some interesting
speakers on various IT and CS subjects? Even the experience in town is
substantial (the depth and breadth of technical expertise in Brisbane
is astounding when compared to major cities overseas. I really miss
it).

Regards,
Paul Gearon