 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group APCUG 1996 - an experience and a half Carol Daniels cad@melbpc.org.au |
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After arriving in Las Vegas (about one hour after leaving Melbourne) we checked in to the hotel then went straight to the conference venue to check and get our name tags for APCUG. Even though the conference wasn't officially starting until the following morning, the administrative area was a hive of activity. Some like Ash and I were checking in. Others were part of the organising committee and busy with their responsibilities already (and had been for some time). Surprisingly there were even some who had left their reservations until that very moment. Talk about leaving things until the last minute. Of course spur of the moment decisions are much easier for groups whose representatives can drive to the venue! It didn't take long for Ash to introduce me to everyone, including most of the office bearers. Being a friendly lot, we settled in to a discussion of what we wanted to achieve during the conference. Not surprisingly, we each had slightly different goals, but most of them were underpinned with a common question what is the future of PC user groups?
A couple of hours of that was about all the thinking my jet lagged brain could take. So Friday, having been lived twice, was an early night. All I could think about was that the roundtables would be starting at 8.30 sharp the next morning. I wanted to be over my jet lag before that.
About the roundtables
The roundtables are an opportunity to meet with fellow user group officers and volunteers and share common problems and solutions, as well as do some fast and furious brainstorming. Although this was my first time at the conference, Melb PC's reputation meant that I was often asked how we handled some issue (especially those that concerned user group magazines). Talk about trial by fire!
The sessions are open and informal, designed to encourage a free flow of information. There is a moderator, whose responsibility it is to keep a group of over-enthusiastic geeks on topic. It's a hard job especially with geeks' well known and deserved reputation for being obsessed with the nitty-gritty (What software are you using? What hardware? Is mine bigger, better, faster than yours? How much did you pay?) But we were there to focus on the big picture. So the moderators had a tough job. Although the topic is set, the direction is not. No one can predict what problems are going to be raised, or what new and innovative solutions are going to come to light. The moderators in the sessions I participated in did a wonderful job, exercising just enough control to keep us on track without stifling us in any way.
At any one time there are three round-tables occurring concurrently. So it's impossible for one person to cover all the roundtables. The three of us, (Ash Nallawalla, Morris Tobias and I) split up according to our responsibilities (Melb PC and in Ash's case, APCUG as well) and interests.
On offer on Saturday, November 16:
- Taking Stock of Your User Group: An Inventory for the Future
- All Dressed Up: Now Where Do We Go?
- APCUG Primer: The Digital Version Do or Die: Planning for Your User Group's Future
- User Groups, Public Relations and the Industry
- APCUG: Future Directions
- The Boston Computer Society: Picking Up the Pieces
- Education: Bridging the Gap
- Online Services for User Groups
- Your User Group's Financial Health: A Pro-active Approach
- Editors' Forum: When Worlds Collide
- Web Entanglements: Liability Issues for a User Group Web Site
All Dressed Up: Now Where Do We Go?
This roundtable focussed on getting the most out of your group's activities, in particular, meetings, SIGs and special events.
It's one thing to know that groups range in size and another to talk about real issues, problems and potential solutions when one group's 50 member turnout for a monthly meeting is a record-breaking cause for celebration and another would be deep in a crisis of confidence and calling emergency meetings, if their attendance at a monthly meeting dropped below 500.
Another complicating factor was group policies, there is a great deal of diversity in these as well. For example, just in regard to meetings, some groups charge for meetings, most do not. Some only admit members, some allow a certain number of free meetings, after which you must join or pay to attend. Some keep track of every member attending. Some have a completely open door policy. Some have raffles. Some do not. Some cannot, due to local regulations (funny place, America). Some charge vendors for the opportunity to address their group, most do not. Although a few recover all their costs from the vendor, especially those that have to hire equipment for the vendor's demonstration.
Despite all that diversity, our main differences were usually those of scale. Luckily most of the good ideas were adaptable and could be adjusted to suit most groups, with a little creative thinking. And there was plenty of that about.
General take-away messages about meetings and events:
- Attitude is important at every step of the process - events must be professionally run (which is not the same as run by professionals.)
- Know your goals - just like every other aspect of the group's activities, you should have a goal for your meetings (any event) and planning should focus on achieving those goals.
- There was a great deal of diversity in the goals groups set for their meetings. Some expected each event to generate income, or at least break even. Others believed that some, if not all, activities should be focused on membership building. These did not look for a direct financial payback from each event.
- Spread the word - make one of your goals a certain percentage of new attendees each meeting, and target different segments of your audience with your promotional material.
- Plan ahead - at each meeting promote the next meeting, with specifics, even with flyers to remind people to come (and to bring a friend.)
- Atmosphere, ambience, environment- -whatever you call it, the message should be, "We're having fun, please join us." Have greeters and minglers. Discourage cliques.
- Know the rules and play by them - whether you're looking for support from a vendor or the press, know what they expect and give it to them. If you make their jobs easier for them, they will remember your group favourably.
- Slow and steady wins the race - developing relationships and increasing your group's profile are long-term projects and while relationships and reputations take a long time to develop, they can be destroyed in an instant.
- Get out of the rut - there was a general feeling that monthly meetings may have passed their use-by date as a primary means of involving members in a group's activities. There was less agreement on the causes of the shift, with opinions ranging from the size of groups (although groups of all sizes were having similar experiences) to changing lifestyles, shifting demographics (both with respect to makeup and location) and boredom with the same old thing. A good proportion of groups had tried or were planning to try alternatives or supplements to the monthly meeting. Virtually every group that had tried such an event was planning more for 1997.
- No group is an island- -a good number of groups have increased their participation in joint events, including trade shows, training days and community outreach programs. Most who had done any significant work in this area felt that they had opened up opportunities to get the message about the group to a segment of the community that might not naturally come across it.
In practice, the work discussed in this roundtable should come before that in the previous one. But the scheduling worked amazingly well, because people were enthused about the new ideas they had been exposed to in the earlier meeting and excited about the prospect of finding out how to make some of them happen.
The premise of this discussion group was that we know user groups serve an important educational and training role in our communities, but we're not getting the message out to the people who need to know, because too few people know user groups exist.
We were all interested in practical advice on how to increase our group's profile.
One of them most surprising things to come out of this session, was how little, formal public relations activities figure in some groups' plans and how disheartened some groups are about the response they get from the media in their communities.
General take-away messages about public relations:
- Define your target audiences and customise your message to each (vendors, members, potential members, general press, specialist press, educational groups, etc.)
- Recognise the competition- -once upon a time user groups were the only way an average person could get information about computers. That's not so any more. Now almost everyone works with a computer at some level, and everyone knows someone who's a bit of a geek. Other organisations offer training and they can read about computers in almost any magazine they pick up. So our messages have to be more compelling than ever before.
- Respect your audiences- -be straight with them. Don't promise what you can't deliver. This goes for relationships with vendors, the press and your members.
- Know your group's demographics and how it differs from the general population of computer users. Find holes and fill them. Look for niches to exploit.
- Use technology to overcome other limitations and attract interest. This was an especially interesting discussion. For example: HAL PC (Houston) videotapes its monthly meetings and broadcasts them over the local-access cable-TV channel. Some very small groups are taking advantage of vendors' "demos-in-a-box." These are essentially DIY demonstrations, scripted demos done by the vendor, that a group member presents. Others are trying Internet chat sessions where the local expert is available online to answer questions in his or her area of specialisation.
Education: Bridging the Gap
Prior to the roundtable some representatives hadn't really thought about their groups educational role. After a little discussion it became clear that all groups were delivering educational services, formally or informally, and that education was one of the key drawcards for new members.
I believe most participants came away from the discussion with a broader definition of their group's educational services, and a recognition that educational aspects (especially in the less formal environments) might need to be highlighted so that members can recognise and value the services.
General take-away messages about education:
- Frame your training around your member's interests- -how much more obvious can you get? Obvious? Yes. Universally done? No. Some groups assume they know what their members want. Others are still offering the same courses they were offering five years ago. The successful groups monitor their members' interests and change to suit.
- Think globally, work locally- -don't compartmentalise training, everything can be a learning experience.
- Make a conscious effort to include useful information in every activity- -including monthly general meetings, SIGs, seminars, special events, and even training courses!
- Make learning fun- -no one has to learn anything we're offering to teach, so they either have to be very motivated, or we have to make it enjoyable for them.
- Train your trainers- -or your students will go elsewhere.
- Use technology to overcome other obstacles- -we are computer users. We should be at the forefront, experimenting with different delivery methods.
- Encourage innovation- -it makes things interesting and it attracts new members.Evaluate how users as a group are changing (demographics) and identify niches (opportunities) to grow your membership and increase participation in group activities, including formal training courses.
The focus of this roundtable was the battle between magazines and webzines, although no one went so far as to say print publications are dead. Many questioned the practicality of producing paper and electronic versions of their publications. The consensus was that paper was here to stay, but members also want access to group's publications in electronic format. And electronic format is much easier and cheaper to distribute. So, practical or not, most groups are going to continue to distribute their publications in both forms.
- Cost, access and awareness - balancing these concerns was very difficult
for most groups. Few had studied the possible consequences of various courses of action on the different
concerns. To be fair, those that were considering doing away with paper publications were primarily driven by
costs. Cost are easy to quantify. The impact of eliminating a print publication on access to group
information, or awareness of group activities is difficult to quantify or predict.
Although not directly related to the paper versus electronic issue, one editor related his group's experience with cost cutting in its publishing activities. The group's policy had been to produce excess copies of their magazine to use for promotional purposes. These were given away at swap meets and other open activities, and to local schools and libraries. Unfortunately the group's membership had been stagnant for several years. When belt-tightening time came around, excess copies of the magazine got the chop. Their rationale was that they couldn't identify any direct benefit from these excess copies, so there must not be any. Two years later membership had shrunk to half its previous level. - Form and content - for the most part, those groups producing print and electronic publications are essentially duplicating their print publication online. Most also agreed that this was far from ideal. The full benefits electronic publishing, especially hypertext, were not being exploited.
- Print methods - no great surprises here. There is however a wide range of software, hardware and publishing techniques being used to produce print and electronic publications. Some are using word processing packages, others are testing the waters with entry-level DTP programs, and others are right in the thick of things, with the latest in DTP, graphics packages, etc. Print publications range from photocopied, hand-folded newsletters to (she reports with pride) PC Update.
- Electronic - again no big surprises, save for the range of ways people are producing and distributing their electronic publications. (And there are a few that have gone to electronic format only.) Some are producing and distributing disk copies using a variety of file formats, from plain text to word processing formats, Adobe Acrobat and HTML. Others make the electronic files available for downloading from the group's BBS and Web site. These too show the same diversity of file formats as seen in print publications.
- Advertisements - most accept advertisements for their printed publication, few have ventured into Web advertising, though some are looking into Web sponsorship arrangements.
- Bottom line - it will be a long time (if ever) before webzines replace magazines. But webzines are here to stay, even if only as supplements to the printed magazine. Members and vendors see the Web publication as a valuable additional resource/service.
Sunday
Sunday morning we have a choice of attending the APCUG primer or the Members' Forum. Since I'd picked everyone's brains about APCUG the previous night, I was off to the Members' Forum.
This is an opportunity for delegates to meet APCUG Board of User Group Advisors, commonly called BoDA. Some US groups are able to have regular, face-to-face contact with the BoDA, although not always with "their" representative. Although advisors are allocated based on regions, advisors are open to discussions from any officer of any APCUG member group.
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There are eight regions, Melb PC (and all other Australian member groups) is
in region eight, along with user groups from Canada, Mexico, the UK, Germany, New Zealand, Belgium, Russia
and South Africa (in short, any group that's not in the USA).
BoDA's role is to facilitate ongoing communication between member user groups and the APCUG Board of
Directors, with an aim to providing continuous feedback about APCUG's performance, policies, innovations,
services and activities.
This forum is a chance for member groups to talk with any or all the advisors, to review the past year and
make suggestions for the coming one. It's especially valuable because it's done in an open format, with other
user group representatives, so you get to hear different views about different policies, programs etc. (It's
true what they say, one man's meat is another man's poison).
It's not a problem solving session, but an issues session. Struggling groups seemed to be looking for an
answer, as if APCUG could wave a magic wand and solve their problems for them. Unfortunately the world
doesn't work that way, and neither does APCUG. Although it may not have been what some groups wanted to hear,
the primary message I took away from this roundtable, was that APCUG is a resource, not a mechanism. The
energy, enthusiasm and effort to affect changes in groups has to come from within the group in question.
While resistance to change seems strongest in those groups that need change the most, it seemed clear that
user groups have to change or die.
The importance of change to the future of user groups was reinforced in the next roundtable, the Vendors'
Forum.
Like the Members' Forum, the Vendors' Forum is designed to stimulate two-way conversation between vendors and
user groups. It's also an opportunity to discuss what did and didn't work in the previous year and brainstorm
ideas for the next. For Melb PC the Vendors' Forum, and the special vendor presentations that follow during
the week of Comdex, are an invaluable opportunities for face-to-face meetings with the vendors, to remind
them of who we are, what we can offer them, and invite them to come to Melb PC to present their products to
our members at our monthly meeting.
This was the time for the question that had been on everyone's mind for a long time,"Is there a future for
user groups?"
The answer, I'm happy to say, is yes. The overwhelming consensus is that user groups are needed more now then
they ever have been before. But the need is not for the user groups of yore. Users are changing and the
groups must change too. So while there is a future, that future is by no means guaranteed.
Vendor support is crucial to user group survival, the mirror image of that relationship is not as strong as
it once was. Today there are more avenues vendors can use to get their messages to their customers. In the
old days user groups were the easiest way to get to what was once a niche market. But things are changing,
and the message from vendors to user groups is change or die. Computer users are no longer in the minority
(and they haven't been for a long time). It's not just the number of users that has changed either. There was
a time when anyone who used a computer did so because they wanted to, they liked to or they were driven to do
so. Today, along with those of use who like to use computers, there are a lot of people who use a computer
because they need to, to keep their jobs, to be more efficient, to help their children, to feel a part of
modern society...
Vendors (at least the ones that are still around and successful) have taken the shift in user demographics
and used them to their advantage. They are developing products for today's (and tomorrow's) users, not
yesterday's.
Representatives from all the vendors (not just those that participated in the forum) said something along
these lines, one or more times to me during the conference
- We've been through this already.
- We know it's not easy.
- We know it's scary.
- We know it's essential for survival.
- Learn from our experiences.
In the future, vendors will be looking critically at user groups, supporting those with a clear idea of where the group is going, and how it is going to get there.
User groups should also look to changes in vendors' environment for opportunities to expand user groups' influence and attractiveness to members.
Many of these same issues were raised at Tuesday night's Summit meeting, the theme of which was, Armageddon or Opportunity: The role of User Groups and Associations in the 21st Century.
The day ended with the APCUG annual meeting where we found out that despite having been a year of change and challenges, in 1996 APCUG had grown to 450 member groups, its largest membership in the history of the APCUG. We also received an update on the status of the various APCUG services and activities, from the APCUG Common Database of User Groups, to the APCUG Web site (http://www.apcug.org), and the comp.org.user-group.* newsgroups.
The evening was reserved for the Vendors' Exposition, which in retrospect was a good warm up for the rest of the week's activities.
APCUG holds its annual conference on the weekend prior to the opening of Fall Comdex (the largest computer trade show in the world) so it's an ideal time for the vendors to show their newest products to user group representatives. Although everything is small compared to Comdex, it was an impressive display. As we bunched up trying to see what nifty new feature our favourite software would tempt us with this year, more than one person was heard to mutter, this is nothing, "Wait 'til tomorrow when the real pushing and shoving starts."
For the rest of the week we led dual lives. APCUG organises special vendor presentations during breakfast, lunch and dinner (more about those in next month's issue) during Comdex, so the rest of the week goes something like this, Vendor presentation. Comdex. Vendor presentation. Comdex. Vendor presentation. Bed.
If it sounds hectic, it is. Just keeping track of which of the three (yes three) convention venues, you've been to is hard enough. Then you have to find your way around them. All of this is done in the company of a couple of hundred thousand other people, each of whom is as eager as you are to see the latest on offer.
Yes, that's right, a couple of hundred thousand people. On Friday the evening news reported that 250,000 had attended Fall Comdex '96. That means that Las Vegas is the only city capable of hosting Comdex. It's the only city in the world with enough hotel rooms to accommodate the 250,000 delegates. (Anyone care to run a sweep on how many will attend next year?)
Reprinted from the February 1997 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
