[GRLUG] NEXT GRLUG Meeting Tuesday JUNE 2nd

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> > Do we REALLY need a presentation format? I was hoping for a much less
> > formal, less structured meeting environment; Everyone on this list has
> > their own experiences and insights, and it's a lot easier (and more
> > fun) to interact and extract these experiences in a coffee-table
> > format than a presenter-audience format.
> The NO format meetings have always been more fun as topics tend to be varied.
> We discussed the meeting format on Friday and were thinking of a
> presentation format for the first hour which would hopefully interest
> more people and then a free for all for the last hour, however I am
> VERY interested in OPEN discussion on any FOSS topics.

I have some experience as a Program Directory for a LUG that was quite
successful and active for a long period of time.  Having a
schedule/format is critical to improving participation and attendance.
While many of us [including me] are comfortable hanging out and
discovering-via-banter *many* people have to weigh attending a meeting
or event vs. other constraints and a format affirms the notion that
there will be some content-of-value and the topic lets them determine if
that is relevant to them.  Otherwise it is a bunch of guys getting
together to hang-out, and it is difficult to attract some of the
[otherwise busy] kind of people who have ALLOT to contribute to the
knowledge pool.

I always recommended that a presentation be not longer than 45 minutes
with a goal towards 30 minutes allowing for lots of time for Q&A,
hands-on, or for people to explore any topic they like.  Also the
presentation format allows a topic to be explored in more depth and
detail than can be plumbed in a simple conversation;  this allows the
group to provide some real professional-development justification for
people to participate/attend.  

While I enjoy the barcamp micro-presentation format [for those familiar
with barcamp] it was also frequently frustrating as it isn't really
possible to get past the intro-to phase of a topic where someone [like
me] who's been in IT for more than a decade gets to really learn
something new or see something work.  I've been a System & Network
administrator for 10+ years and used LINUX as my primary platform since
kernel 0.99a... and I've on numerous occasions had
holy-crap-you-can-do-that moments watching a LUG presentation.  The
"Power Point" format is extremely popular for a good reason.