MESSAGE
| DATE | 2009-01-29 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] NYLXS Projects
|
Ron Guerin wrote:
> Ronny Abraham wrote:
>
>> I think Ruben nailed it when he kicked this off by pointing out that
>> there was a lack of work on projects. People ultimately take interest
>> when there is activity. Not so much when it's only speech.
>>
>
>
>> However, while I'm willing to put in a couple of hours a week on this,
>> but I'm simply not going to do it if no one else will.
>>
>
> There's certainly a relationship between activity and volunteers and
> participants. I would warn you though that it's definitely not enough
> to just have a worthy project. We've tried this several times with the
> Python Workshop, and as I think Mark Halegua would agree, it hasn't gone
> very well.
>
>
Well, it hasn't been marketed very well because I was unaware of any
activity other than toying with Python. Aside from that, I didn't want
to crash your party with regard to usurping it and making it an NYLXS
like pedal to the medal, hard working activity.
> That doesn't mean I don't think it has to not go well. I think however
> that in order to attract enough people to a given project, we all need
> to be casting our nets a lot wider in relation to our "advertising"
> efforts. I think this is a problem in general with Free Software/Linux
> user groups in the NYC area lately, and it may not be a local problem.
>
Outside of the Bay Area, these things need to advertize broader and more
affectively.
In the bay area, a simple bang on the predominant mailing lists and the
drive to make things happen is enough to get things going. We don't
have that kind o f community and our connections in the university
systems are pathetic.
> The nature of things has changed, but we largely have not. So Ruben may
> post a NYXLS announcement here and on NYLUG, and the Sulzberger machine
> will send it off to every other mailing list full of people we more or
> less already know, and off into the newsgroups where the only people
> left are people we already know, and I may forward it to a few places
> full of people we already know. By now you can see where I'm going with
> this. I don't think our groups have become obsolete, I think our
> methods of communication have become pretty insular though.
>
>
Even in the day it took a full tilt effort on my part, and after the
rundown with Jay and Marco, I haven't really had the energy to do that.
But this is what it takes. You must stay incontact with all elected
officials and promote your agenda and search for new audiences. You
need to contact every major university and HS in the area, and leaflet
them to death, repeatedly over time. Guerrilla marketing is a must,
flyers and stickers. And you have to work the phones and line up good
activities.
And we must have Manhattan space to teach in. And we need to be
regimented, organized and always on the same sheet of paper, with
minimal decent on philosophy and strategy. The worse thing is to get
into a distro war on the mailing list and such.
> The word I'm looking for I guess is "outreach." There's going to have
> to be a lot more of that. There's something like 8 million people in
> this city and that we apparently don't reach enough of them to put 100
> people in a room reliably is a failure to reach people.
there is 24 MILLION people in the metropolitan area.
> We should be
> able to announce that we're going to watch paint dry and get 100 people
> to show up.
>
> - Ron
>
>
Paint Drying is a great idea.
Ruben
|
|
