 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group A visit to the Boston Computer Society Stan Johnstone stanj@melbpc.org.au |
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Before we left Australia we made contact with Pam Bybell, CEO of the Boston Computer Society (BCS), and arranged a visit to study their operation. Since our visit with them last year Melb PC had increased in size by more than 40 percent so we were looking forward to sharing their experiences and ideas on how we could plan for the future.
About BCS
The BCS is the largest user group in the world, its 23,000 members use both Macs and PCs. Melb PC, with our 10,700 members, is the second largest. Appropriately perhaps, Boston and Melbourne are also sister-cities.
BCS was founded by 13-year-old Jonathan Rotenberg back in 1978 before personal computers were recognised. As might be expected in a centre of learning such as Boston, the group's membership grew quickly. It's a loyal group too, even today many early members retain their memberships, even after moving interstate or overseas. To meet the needs of their 23,000 members BCS have 20 full- and part-time staff. These were the people we had come to see and to find out what they do. Here's what we found out.
Pam Bybell - CEO: Pam is a dynamic and highly qualified woman with strong managerial, marketing and leadership skills in both the private and the non-profit sectors of the community. We had two long discussions with Pam where we discussed the common experiences and problems inherent in organisations like ours. If only Melb PC could have a CEO like this!
Dave Wieneke - Volunteer Support and Development: Dave spoke long and positively about the way BCS recruits, supports and develops their volunteer base, which currently numbers about 900. The volunteers proudly bear the name "Activists," they have their own newsletter and social events and receive several benefits from BCS (and BCS's sponsors) in recognition for the work they do. Melb PC can learn a lot from BCS in this regard. Interestingly, apart from good-natured banter, there is no Mac vs PC conflict at BCS and all volunteers are encouraged to become familiar with both systems.
Jeremy Sacco - Member Services: Jeremy seems to be permanently hooked up to a phone line, handling inquiries, advising, and taking bookings for training courses.
Janet Nichols, a trained educator looks after course development and the volunteers who conduct the courses. BCS Treasurer,
Martin Dalgleish sat in on one discussion to give us the perspective of a long-time trainer. He expressed very definite opinions on course planning and objectives.
Julia Blackbourn - Marketing: Julie looks after marketing, which includes attracting new members, advertisers and sponsors, member discounts and promotional merchandise. (Ash and I are still using the BCS coffee cups and mouse mats that Julia gave us as mementos of our visit.)
BCS in operation
Pam Bybell picked us up on Saturday morning and took us to BCS's Waltham headquarters. Like many user groups, Saturday morning was no different from any other day in any other user group, except, being Saturday, there were less paid staff and more volunteers on the premises.
Training courses were being held, a seminar was under way in another room, members were using machines in the Resource Centre to evaluate and compare software packages. Elsewhere staff and members were working on the preparation of their magazine, attending to the BBS and so on.
John Robards, BCS Special Projects Manager, was our guide around the office. Later in the he day took us to BCS's other centre (at Porter Square in Cambridge). This centre caters for members working on the Macintosh platform. It was a cold day, and what better way could members find to spend it, than sharing the cosy fug of a warm office with other members?
On Sunday morning Dave Wieneke, BCS Volunteer Support, picked us up and showed us some of the sights of Boston. We managed to minimise our exposure to the cold, but still were able to include a visit to the Computer Museum, which is maintained by volunteers of the BCS, in our tour.
Come Monday morning we were back at the Waltham headquarters to see what it was like on a normal working day.
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MegaMeetings
The BCS puts a lot of effort into its twice-yearly MegaMeetings, which are essentially BCS's own computer shows. MegaMeetings are held over a weekend, involve local and national vendors, guest speakers and seminars conducted by BCS members. These major events require the full-time involvement of Sue Fitzgerald to organise them.
MegaMeetings are also used to recruit new members. We compared Melb PC's efforts using the Melbourne swap meets to recruit members and found that in the past year, we had been able to attract four times number of members that BCS recruited via their MegaMeetings!
Ash and I were very appreciative of the time spared and experiences shared by all the staff at BCS. They also gave us copies of much of their management and promotional material to bring back to Melbourne. Ash and I are finalising a detailed report based on all that we learned from our short stay in Boston. We both feel sure that, with some modification, many of the BCS plans and procedures can be adopted by Melb PC. It's not surprising that two organisations with so much in common handle some matters in the same manner. At the same time both organisations have a wealth of experience, and the exchange of information between Melb PC and BCS was valuable to both groups.
Heading for home
After the three fruitful days in Boston it was time to head for home, but a 12-hour stopover awaited us in Los Angeles. We were met by Jerry Fyffe, who had made a special trip up from San Diego to look after us during our stopover. Jerry is a member of the APCUG Board of Advisors and a very pleasant day was spent with him, discussing matters common to our groups and to that of APCUG.
Reprinted from the March 1996 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
