From: bernie@metapro.DIALix.oz.au (Bernd Felsche)
Subject: Are we all April Fools?
Summary: Who's group is this anyway
Keywords: auug, name, president's report
X-Distribution: yes, I know. It's deliberate.
Organization: MetaPro Systems, Perth, Western Australia
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 92 13:34:51 GMT

AUUGN (Vol 13 Number 1) arrived in my letterbox this past
week and I've just had the chance to browse through the
pages. Nice to see that there are some fresh articles
appearing.

I did stumble at the President's report though and some of
the assertions made within. What is this? Cloud cuckoo land?

The first third of the report expounded the virtues of the
President, defending an "attack" by a former member of AUUG.
The President's wording on the membership status was "from
someone who is not a current member". (I believe that the
very same former member extracted the proverbial digit and
contributed a 9-page report to AUUGN on the Perth Summer
conference.)

Although we all appreciate the past efforts of the
President, I'm sure that I'm not alone in believing that
some of these efforts have to say the least been misguided.

The President is apparently not au fait with how marketing
works, otherwise the correlation between vendor influence
(however subtle that may be) and the image of the "unbiased"
associations which are supported by the vendors would have
been apparent.

When a notionally independent, respected user group gains a
high profile, the vendors associated with it are illuminated
by the light, and they can claim association/support of the
particular group. This is not a bad thing for the user
group, or for the vendor, but the user group must be aware
that it adds to the vendor's marketing leverage, and must
take care not to increase this leverage beyond its real
significance.

I'm not saying that any of the vendors who support AUUG are
"exploiting" it.

Let's take a trip back in time and look at AUUG say 5 years back:

AUUG was an independent (ok Softway(?) and Labtam were
around, but didn't push AUUG to the forefront) user group
which drew respect from around the globe. The "problem", as
the vendors probably saw it, was that AUUG was "only"
respected by the technocracy, and was largely unheard of by
the people spending money. Needless to say, those were the
times when suits had to be in bad taste to be "in".

Enough nostalgia.

If I recall the infamous posting from which the President
quotes selectively, it drew attention to the change in focus
of the group. The trend is now for non-technical people to
join (have we run out of geeks already?) the group for
technical advice which is probably beyond their grasp.

AUUG provides a channel by which the vendors can efficiently
feed "information" to prospective clients. Hence AUUG
becomes an extension of the marketing arm of the vendor.

What will it take to burst the bubble?

I'm sure that we'd all like for AUUG to maintain its
credibility, but as I see it, we're trading credibility for
size. Bigger is not necessarily better.

I think it's preferable for AUUG to go back to discussing
things nobody else understands and shrink in size, than to
grow into a marketing front for vendors which provides very
little useful information to the users.

Further in the report, the President stated that she
believes that the committee was given a _mandate_ at the
last AGM to continue in their stated direction.

This is a false assumption. I wasn't at the AGM, but I'm
sure that (unless the returning officer has been derelict in
his duties) no vote was taken and therefore you do NOT have
a _mandate_.

I was unable to attend due to financial constraints, and had
to finish off a software release. Rest assured that if I had
attended, you would have noted dissent. Perhaps this year
AUUG can sponsor my attendance at the conference (it'll only
be about $1000 plus hotel bills).

The President the closes, stating that "We don't want to
disenfranchise ANY AUUG member" (her emphasis). Excuse me,
but your previous paragraph stated that you have already
done _exactly_ that, in your mind at least.

BTW: I note with some amusement that the President's name
does not app, in on the report. What's the matter Pat? Want
to remain anonymous?

BBTW: I am also mailing Rolf about his misconceptions re the
name of the Association (AUUG Inc). Hint: it's not the
Australian Open Systems User Group.
-- 
+-----+ Bernd Felsche                     _--_|\  #include <std/disclaimer.h>
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