How to promote Plug's value - was: Are Social Networks ...

Tue May 7 06:59:22 MST 2013

On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 12:44 AM, der.hans <PLUGd at lufthans.com> wrote:

> Am 03. May, 2013 schwätzte jill so:
>
> moin moin,
>
>  I know I've said it before so I don't want to beat a dead horse.  But
>> there is value in the social media stuff.  Az-PHP, to the OP's point,
>> created a Facebook group a little while back and activity has been high
>> there.
>>
>
I agree with Hans that "social media" has inherent value, not just
Facebank, but all social media, especially Google Groups (and everything
Google).

>
> Social media definitely provides marketing opportunity. Some even provides
> community building opportunity. In any case, social media accounts need to
> be curated and fed.
>
>  When I meet people and tell them about PLUG's mailing lists they often
>> ask if there's social media sites and seem disappointed that there hasn't
>> been.  Like Facebook or not this is how a substantial number of people get
>> involved and learn about new stuff these days.  The G+ group is a good
>> start, but we should expand on that.  I don't have a ton of free time
>> myself right now to take it on due to other commitments, but if there's
>> smaller more focused things I can do to help for sure.
>>
>
Listservers really excel in project development.  Take for example
OPW-Kernel, where patches to the linux kernel can be submitted by anyone.
 Everyone respects the project by trimming and properly bottom posting.
 Large numbers of kernel patches and deep technical discussions can occur
with the mail listserver tools.  Our PLUG listserver evolved from that open
source place; but has unfortunately devolved at some level to half social
media, where politics and personal interests are shared more than pure
deep, intelligent technology.  Linux purists don't stay on this kind of
list, due to noise ratio and open source doesn't police community change,
usually losing people rather than moderating.  But the PLUG email lists
still have value to our Phoenix community outreach and user needs to alert
and inform and provide discussion (which is the same motivation and purpose
of social media).

Moreover, we in the PLUG lose a great deal of the incredible value created
at each of our functions by failing to post updates, presentations or other
greatness (video, photos, scripts) to common sites.  Many people wanting to
make a difference move on to other venues where such contributions are
better maintained (Linux Professional Institute/Gnome Project/others).

>
> We need to have a group that maintains each social media account and we
> need to ( automagically ) post relevant news to each that we have.
>

I disagree, Hans.  We need a website with group access and modules that
automatically post to twitter, Facebank, Google Groups or Google+ when
content is posted. I built a nice Concrete5 system that does this, since I
can't place content from the Hackfests or post updates on the PLUG Website.

>
> The LinkedIn account has probably had less than a dozen posts in the few
> years it's been around.
>

There's no truth to the adage, if you build it they will come?

>
> http://www.linkedin.com/**groups/Phoenix-Linux-User-**Group-130132<http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Phoenix-Linux-User-Group-130132>
>
> G+ has only had a few posts as well.

Well, are their links from the PLUG Website to these resources?

>

> https://plus.google.com/u/0/**118370136707822714534/posts<https://plus.google.com/u/0/118370136707822714534/posts>
>
> We also need to entice PLUG members to post to the social media accounts
> and do the tamagotchi feedings, especially for meetup if we start an
> account there.
>

What? We have a Smallish Virtual
Japanese<http://www.wikihow.com/Kill-Your-Tamagotchi>pet now?
Where is this "tamagotchi feeding" documented?  How would the members know
to use this?
Clearly I don't see it on the Website? Or this is called tamagotchi.pl or
tamagotchi.php?

Look at the Gnome Project Women's Outreach for instance - Well written
content includes full instructions:
https://live.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen#Is_Google_Summer_of_Code_right_for_you.3F

Clearly we fail here.  Are we with the PLUG Site, just providing a venue to
sell Community College Classes (rather than providing what Community
Colleges don't like Gnome)?

The failures in this Phoenix LUG (from my experience working with other
groups In Oregon and Washington), are:

1) No delegation from the top.
2) The top = a "One Man Show"; rather than an organized decision group made
up of assigned officers with a clear responsibility, delegation powers,
access and term.  This limitation in a process analysis equates to "spoke
wheel management"; wherein the bandwidth bottleneck of the single
management entity limits the ability for the group at every level. So, as
far as I am concerned, until this factor changes, the PLUG will always have
huge limitations and no bandwidth to do more; people wanting more will be
alienated or frustrated, etc.
3) Poor control of and development of the PLUG Website; content submissions
are too limited for each group, so value is lost every week.
4) Integration with greater projects like the Linux Professional Institute,
Gnome Project and Google Summer of Code fails to occur.
5) Due to all of these limitations, sponsorships, internships and other
events that are the best contribution of a user group to open source fail
to occur.

>
> We should probably also link to our social media accounts on the web site
> if we don't already.
>

We should use the source, don't you agree Luke?

>
> ciao,
>
> der.hans

Your favorite "contrary",

Lisa

>
> --
> #  http://www.LuftHans.com/        http://www.LuftHans.com/**Classes/<http://www.LuftHans.com/Classes/>
> #  "If your girlfriend is crying crocodile tears it's because she's either
> #  got salt in her eye or she's been listening to Air Supply."
> #    -- Alice Cooper, 08Mar2005
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