The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
APCUG November 1998 Conference
George Skarbek
 gskarbek@melbpc.org.au

I was privileged to attend the Fall conference of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG) in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA in November 1998. One of the main goals of APCUG (an international association for user groups) is to encourage, promote and enable communication and the exchange of information among personal computer user groups and their leaders.

There were about 350 senior (in position and usually in age) delegates primarily from the USA and Canada, representing around 150 user groups. There were many meetings over the five days with several streams going simultaneously. As well as these meetings there were presentations given by vendors, often with senior executives addressing the group. Microsoft was one of the vendors with Bill Gates speaking to the group and taking questions from the floor. (A report on this is given below.)

I spent a considerable time in discussions with the delegates to find what they are doing about increasing their membership.

Membership

My personal comments are in brackets.

The vast majority of User Groups have a declining membership. Some are stable or oscillating. Only some specialist groups and a few of the smallest, less than 100 members, reported some growth. Most other hobby groups are shrinking, such as car clubs, hunting, models etc. Most UG don't have many young members.

There was no general consensus as to what is causing this decline. Lack of time was a common guess. Some blamed the Internet for providing many of the answers free of charge, so users don't have to join a User Group to learn. Only a few groups thought that the Internet may help to increase membership as beginners need to be taught about it. (It could possibly be due to the fact that the US real unemployment rate has increased.)


Figure 1. Joe Henry (SIG Co-ordinator) and Carol Daniels

How to increase membership

According to many of the delegates I spoke to, the following techniques work:

  • Have a welcome desk at the monthly meetings, well signposted, where a new, or prospective, member is made welcome and the benefits of membership are explained. (We should do this.)
  • Concentrate on "Seniors" for new members, seniors make up the largest SIG in most UG
  • "How to" SIGs can be popular. A different topic each month by different speakers attracts a large audience. (This should be tried and assessed.)
  • Have study groups where all contribute to the discussion
  • Phone calls help bring users to meetings. (Not applicable to a group of our size.)
  • E-mail to groups giving topics will help to boost attendance. A comment was made that e-mail is quite simply cheaper, faster, and better than any other marketing medium. (We should try this.)
  • E-mail birthday cards to all members. (We should try this as it should not be too difficult to implement)
  • Announce raffle prizes awarded at the previous meeting. (We should do this.)
  • Have membership application forms available through local computer shops. (We are already doing this.)
What does not work
  • Not producing a newsletter over a period of eight months resulted in a drop in one group's membership from 1500 to 600. (I know that all the Committee is well aware of the importance of PC Update.)
  • General radio advertising does not bring in users, special events are the exception
  • Occasional articles in local magazines don't help much. Regular articles have some effect. (Note, these comments generally come from small regional groups.)
  • Executive positions should not be held for more than five years as there may not be many new ideas coming forward
  • Inflating attendance numbers in order to attract a high profile or popular vendor representative. Many vendors discuss their experiences at user group meetings with other representatives. A reputation for inflating attendance numbers will hurt your group's chances of attracting presenters.


Figure 2. A general view of the main vendor presentation area
Training
  • Many UGs don't pay instructors but can still attract good instructors. Many make a profit on training
  • Advanced courses tend to fill while beginners' courses don't (generally)
  • US groups face a lot of competition from national training organisations and from schools, and these affect the numbers that attend UG training. (In the USA there are two high-profile major national computer training organisations that are represented in every state.)
  • Beginners groups are very mobile as users migrate after a few lessons and the training should reflect this.
Bill Gates' address

Bill Gates attended and addressed one of APCUG's evening meetings. He gave a 20-minute speech then took questions from the floor, altogether he talked to us for about an hour. Bill Gates' time is very valuable and much in demand. During his last trip to Australia even the time he spent being transported from one location to another was booked for meetings, etc. So it was surprising and gratifying to see him take an hour of his time to talk directly to user group leaders and to answer questions that had not been pre-screened.

The response from the attending UG leaders from APCUG member groups was overwhelmingly positive. During question time there was only one mildly hostile question. It related to the fact that automation within MS Office and the Wizard will lead to users not having the ability to write letters by hand. Bill responded by saying that automation generally helps the community and many old skills have been lost. He said that most Americans would not be able to grow their own food anymore.

Many questions were prefaced by a complimentary comment, and questions in the main were framed in a non-judgmental, unbiased format and related to the his visions for future directions in computing.

Bill Gates was given a standing ovation as he left.

I've listed some of the main points he made in his talk and/or his answers to the questions raised by UG leaders on the night.

  • He originally did not expect the growth already seen in the computer industry, but now believes this already phenomenal growth is just the beginning of this computer growth
  • In the next few years CPU & disk storage will grow much faster than they have in the past
  • Displays will take on "paper quality"
  • Soon cheap USB cameras for conferencing will be the norm. Right now the main problem is the lack of bandwidth, although this is being addressed, he expects it will take a minimum of five years to solve the problem in the USA
  • Software will become simpler. Commands will be removed from menus (because menus are now reaching the limits of usable complexity). Instead additional menus will appear when needed and these will be variable for each user, because each user will use the software differently, and thus require different command sets. (Note: Some of this is already implemented in the copy of Office 2000 that I am using to write these notes.)
  • The number of file formats will decrease, and those used will be richer
  • Hardware will be faster, cheaper and more powerful
  • One area Microsoft is concentrating its R&D is on making software better and easier to use
  • Back Office is Microsoft's fastest growing segment
  • Some technology that has been dormant for a while will re-emerge (e.g. LANs in the past)
  • Using the Internet will be the norm in society
  • It previously took two generations for a new technology to make an impact on society (for example, the wide acceptance of cars, TV), however, the Internet will enable the acceleration of change. The rate of change will increase and the new technology will make an impact on the majority of a society within one generation. In fact, he believes the Internet is already having an impact on society at this rate
  • Microsoft will focus on high-volume business. Most of the support will be via Internet
  • The PC is the most useful general-purpose device ever made
  • The PC is the communication of the future
  • In the next 5-10 years efficient and effective speech and handwriting recognition applications will become the norm for user-computer interface
  • He believes that paper is being eliminated
  • Computing will increasingly become Internet centric.

Reprinted from the February 1999 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

 

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