RE: STC Transformation -- info

[Mailing List <mlist -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>]

Craig B. <ccbranham -at- hotmail -dot- com> said a bunch of things that 
had me nodding in agreement, including:
[...]
> I dropped my STC membership this year, though, because I just 
> wasn't getting
> enough value from it, at least not enough to justify the 
> cost. In order to
> get value from the STC, you really have to attend every local 
> meeting, get
> to know people, and build up a kind of rapport with people in 
> your chapter.
[...]
> On the other hand, I 
> could go to
> the bookstore and take home an exciting, 300-page book on a 
> hot topic and an
> oversized oatmeal cookie. When I think about it in those 
> terms, the book and
> cookie will win more often than not. 

Bingo. I was a member for a number of years; even went to a 
couple of the big conferences... but only because the employer 
paid the shot.

But then I let my membership lapse. I'm not a real joiner type, 
so I didn't miss it at all. I had paid my extra dues for three 
or four SIGs, and as somebody else observed, they were moribund.
At least the Quality SIG sent out newsletters once in a while, 
so you knew somebody was alive. A couple of the others had zero 
detectable activity. As a newbie, it wasn't my place to jump in 
and make things happen. I wasn't even sure what it was that they
did, and there was nobody else there who stepped up and said:
"Hi. You're new. We're currently doing this and this, and need 
somebody to do that and that."  In two cases, the only traffic 
on the mailing lists was people asking if anybody was home... 
and getting no replies. In one case, the "welcome" pack included 
a contact e-mail address that never answered.  Hoo ha!

So, I've been unattached since the late nineties and haven't even
noticed. Well, I haven't had to attempt, once per year, to get 
somebody to sign off on my "Professional Membership Dues", but 
that's only a benefit, not a detriment, of non-membership.  :-)

Y'know, after cracking my very first membership directory, just 
to see if they spelled my name right, I never again looked inside 
one. Do they even bother with printed ones anymore?  Nobody has 
been paying for employees to take four-day jaunts to Disney World 
(or wherever) since the dot.bomb, and there's no way in hell that 
I'm going to pay my own shot for what I got from those conferences 
and presentations, unless the venue is Disney (or some other holiday 
destination) and I can tack on a week or two of vacation after 
the conference.

> A few ideas that might spice up the STC, for me at least, might be:
> 
> - Free local chapter e-mail discussion lists that you can 
> join if you want
> to get to know TWs in your city or in other cities that interest you.
> Techwr-L doesn't/can't deal with local issues, and does not 
> very often help
> you get to know the TWs in your area. A chapter list might 
> help inspire more
> interest among people like me who can't/won't attend every 
> f-2-f meeting.

Good idea. On the other hand, I subscribe to the local Linux 
Users Group and have never done more than use the mailing list.
Not sure that local STC would entice me to do more than that.
Maybe if there was more than just the one of me at this gig, 
"we" would prod/remind each other to go to meetings. Or not.
Why am I suddenly reminded of a reluctant 12-stepper?

But yeah, chat with locals about local issues or even about 
local non-issues would probably grow a bit of fellow-feeling 
that might translate into me getting off my duff and volunteering 
some time and/or effort.  I'll go out of my way to help friends, 
and I've been known to go out of my way to help a stranger 
that I've just met, because they were in need and I was on the 
spot, but that doesn't carry across to orgs.
In my capacity as "not a natural joiner", I don't have 
that inbuilt urge to impress a bunch of strangers with my 
volunteerism -- hey, I just used other words to say "I'm not 
a politician". So yes, a local list that got people talking 
about this'n'that and made friends of them... friends with 
a common interest in tech-comms, and good little local 
restaurants... would likely get more bodies (including mine) 
out to the meeting hall on those cold, dark winter evenings.
 
> - Regular live and archived streaming Web training or 
> symposium events via
> WebEx. Perhaps even some of the better of the chapter 
> presentations could be
> captured and archived for the national membership.

That's a maybe. I'd have to see what was on offer. 

> - A suite of technical research databases that I can't get at my local
> library or through my company.

Huh. Now there would be an undertaking. Where would a body 
start? Sounds like something that would be tough and thankless 
for several years, before it reached critical mass to become 
generally useful. Perhaps more do-able would be industry-by-
industry compilations of resource URLs, especially if they 
were pre-qualified by people who could/would actually indicate 
what's useful and what's dreck.

> - A database of book reviews, or conference and journal abstracts.

Indeed. Even a Wiki format would work for that. 

> - More bookclubs like the Ideawatch SIG 
> (http://www.ideawatch.org, which was
> by far the most useful part of the STC for me--and it was 
> actually free).

No clue. Probably after my time.
 
> - Make all these relatively inexpensive resources available 
> on demand and
> make them free to members of the national organization.
> 
> In any case, I don't think it's going to work to try to add value by
> cranking out larger quantities of, or providing better access 
> to, the same
> traditional services that don't seem to be working for the STC now.

Amen. "We lose money on each sale, but we make it up in volume!"

Cheers,

/kevin in Ottawa, Canada 





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