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March 28, 2006
Melb PC: from moribund to miracle?
You may know that Bleeding Edge's chief toad is an ex-president, and an Honorary Life Member (HLM) of the world's largest PC user group, Melb PC. You may be aware that while I have avoided re-joining the committee, I continue to try to help with advice and practical assistance. I also try to assist from time to time, by expressing what I hope is constructive criticism. Here's some constructive criticism:
Last night I attended the latest of three - or is it four? - meetings of HLMs organised by the committee as a means of tapping the experience of former officers and key volunteers who have given the club long-term service. It's a positive step by the committee, about a third of whom, in fact, were at the meeting as HLMs.
What became clear to me last night, unfortunately, was that the group seems to have been infected with an overwhelming air of lassitude. Instead of enthusiasm, and a determination to make things happen, the prevailing air is that it's all too hard. So many of the suggestions made by various people seemed to be regarded as too difficult to try, let alone achieve. Or it had been tried before, but didn't work. Reports would have to be done. Surveys taken. Maybe the HLMs shouldn't meet any more frequently than six-monthly, because it would take at least that long for any progress to be made.
Last night, for instance, we finally saw the first evidence of a review of the club magazine, PC Update, with the attendance of an external consultant to review its operations. It's taken just over a year to get that off the ground. It was way back in March last year, when I first met with a publications sub-committee to try to address the fact that PC Update was in desperate need of being updated.
In the interim, the committee first had to consider whether or not it would have a review. That took three months, and the decision was that they'd have two reviews: an internal review, and a separate review by the editor, Gary Taig. What a classic recipe for getting nowhere. The only review that stood any chance of effecting change was an external examination by an independent, competent operator. It took another two months for the committee to be persuaded that it should, after all, have that external review.
By August that year I was extremely busy, and I found it difficult to find anyone who'd be prepared to undertake a review at a reasonable charge, or had quite the background we needed. Finally, in early October, I suggested Melissa Cranenburgh, who edits the Ride On magazine for Bicycle Victoria. Her experience with a voluntary organisation seemed to me to be what was required.
Count the months between then, and when Melissa was finally given the brief: six months, pretty much on the button. And 12 months from when, after years refusing to even bite the bullet, the committee first started thinking about action.
There's no doubt that the committee is full of competent, hard-working, committed individuals. But what I discovered last night is that they've become mired in the bureaucratic machinery that's been developed to "run" the club. They're so busy "running" the club that they don't have the time, or perhaps the inclination, to lead it into the future. They're running on the spot.
As I pointed out to last night's meeting, Melb PC has become moribund. It's surrounded by exciting developments - the movement of the PC into the lounge room, the arrival of blogging and podcasting, and Wi-Fi and MMORPGs and LAN parties and God knows what else is either here or just around the corner - and it watches them all pass by without trying to get a piece of the action. What does something like Second Life represent to the club and its members? Nothing, perhaps, but shouldn't we be looking at it?
There's going to be a huge demand for online storage, the most expensive component of which is bandwidth. Hang on. We've got bandwidth. Is this a business opportunity? We've already provided storage space to members. Have we bothered to tell them how to use it, and what they might use it for?
Can we provide tools and facilities for blogging and podcasting? And teach members not only how to use them, but maybe even how to create businesses with them?
The club has moved into expensive new headquarters away from the centre of the city - Lord knows I tried hard to dissuade them - but it hasn't come up with ways of keeping all that space filled with activities and new members. It simply must do that. Money has been spent. Promises made. It's time to deliver. Would those businesses at Chadstone be prepared to pay for a Wi-Fi service if we gave them access to it?
While the committee has been busily running the club over the past 12 months, membership has dropped, as I understand it, by something like 10 per cent! The average age of members is now 63. Think about what that means.
The dial-up Internet service that some of us came up with, in the days when the committee had fire in its belly, has led to the happy situation where we have about $3 million in the bank. But it is going to be rapidly overtaken by the demand for broadband, and this committee has come up with nothing, as far as I'm aware, to replace it. Instead, the lease agreement they've signed will gradually eat away at those reserves. And there's a plan to dramatically cut the price of the dial-up service, and run it at a loss. I'm not saying that maybe that might not produce more income in the long-term, but I'd want to have more convincing evidence for that than I've so far heard.
The group needs leadership. What it has, instead, is an administration. A corporate-style administration, with corporate-style surroundings. It needs to invest in the future. What it does, instead, is spend. And too often it spends far too much on the wrong things.
We should have had, long ago, a series of business plans for new, membership-boosting activities. We should know what we have to provide in order to attract new members, and keep the existing ones. We should be talking to the people who make things happen around the Chadstone area, telling them what a wonderful resource they've got on their doorstep, and getting them involved. We should be looking at what we might be able to provide that younger age groups might be attracted to. Can we get young parents involved? Can we get their kids involved? Can we get local businesses involved? We should identify what's needed, and what we can provide, and we should develop a coherent marketing strategy that uses the magazine and the Web, the local and other media to get the message out.
But most of all we need people running the group who can see opportunities and identify talent. People who can inspire and excite. People who are prepared to get rid of entrenched interests who either can't see that what's good for them isn't necessarily good for the group, or alternatively simply don't care. We need to cut out the old wood, and grow the new.
It's time for tough decisions. A time for action. A time not for despair and excuses and finger-pointing and groans about problems, but a time for energy, wisdom, good faith and enthusiasm. As I told last night's meeting, Melb PC has some incredible minds and resources available to it. We have people who are not prepared to stand by idly, while the group moves along its all-too-obvious trajectory towards irrelevance and extinction. Time is running out.
Give us your thoughts and ideas. Imagine the sort of club you'd like to be a member of. Help create it.
Posted by cw at March 28, 2006 11:18 AM
Comments
It is a shame for MelbPC to be in this sort of rut, they should be offering some amazing services such as:-
- Online Support (aka. Bleeding Edge Forums)
- Remote Assistance using MSRDP or VNC.
- Microsoft Messenger BOTS(WLM8 or MSN7.5) for online collaborative help, browsing and searching.
As for blogging:
- Create a domain or subdomain of melbpc.domain
- Install MySQL Database to the web server
- Install WordpressMU
- Send e-mail to *.users@melbpc.domain
= Done, MelbPC User Group blogging phenomenon begins.
Some of the above MelbPC may offer, because there is no link to them I cannot tell Arthur from Martha.
For the love of internet security and simple courtesy for other users on the internet, please STOP using tinyurl links on posts (here) in this blog. I will not follow a tinyurl shortcut to a website from a webpage, there is simply no excuse (Unless it slipped past The Editor or course :) )for not using a full URL on a blog/website and disclosing the destination source top level domain name. Services such as Siteadvisor are not able to verify a tinyurl link. In print format such as the Bleeding Edge column in the Green Guide, use TinyURL as much as you like, just do not use it when you are 'online'.
Why is the preview post button turned off? I want to preview this post and I cannot, and please don't use the 'comment spam' line of defence as it is getting old and tired. It is a bit pointless having to open a html editor to check the code here, this is built into the MT software. Now I just clicked 'post' and I got this again. I ask Typekey to 'keep me signed in for two weeks' and the sessionID at Bleeding Edge times out way too fast.
The Bleeding Edge site should work and should work well and it does not.
When problems like this continually re-occur why should I care and participate
if the grief is outweighed by the frustration?
Posted by: Stephen at March 28, 2006 02:29 PM
Looks like the above post missed the <beginning-rant-tag> and <ending-rant-tag> for the last four paragraphs above. :(
Posted by: Stephen at March 28, 2006 02:34 PM
I'm pleased that PC Update with get a going over. It's way overdue.
The support area needs attention. The volunteers do their best, but often it is undermanned. Even unattended. Many I know just don't bother with it because the service is so inadequate. The addition of an online version is also much needed.
I think it's been attempted before, but I really believe a professionally run computer equipment shop would do well. There are so many of us who delay updating our PCs because it's so hard to find a place where people know their stuff. It seems to me it's become an industry full of churners.
We need you back on the committee, CW!
Posted by: Stuart at March 28, 2006 03:42 PM
Beats me, Stephen. I haven't disallowed previews. I can't even see where to turn them off, or for that matter, on. As far as I know, I'm not interfering with TypeKey settings. You're a trusted commenter - and there aren't too many of those, largely because I don't fancy getting sued because somebody has a rant. (Aside from rants at me, of course.)
As for TinyURL ... I can't see a TinyURL link there, and I don't use them on blog posts because they're (a) unnecessary and (b) time consuming to create. The only time they might slip in is if I've cut and pasted something from one of my columns, where they ARE necessary because The Age's character conversions and style of cutting "www" out as a matter of course frequently result in readers being unable to locate the site.
Posted by: cw at March 28, 2006 04:29 PM
>For the love of internet security and simple courtesy.
A simple courtesy Stephen might be to send your technical concerns directly to CW in future. Since off-topic discussion was a theme of CW's initial post, you may have illustrated the phenomenon.
Posted by: Rob14 at March 28, 2006 08:27 PM
There was a time in the mid to late nineties where I was tempted to join Melb PC. I perhaps needed help or information and I was too proud or doubted how effective friends could be with their assistance. Now pc is stable, programs and operating system is stable. Cable net works well. I don't have much at all to complain about. Sadly I am quite content as big new things are about to happen. The best thing they could do is offer a better or equal broadband deal, and then follow on stuff from that, some of which would have to be paid for and some that would not. While your opinion is only one Charles, you are probably close to the mark. Is some empire building happening?
Posted by: Andrew at March 28, 2006 10:32 PM
One option Charles, not to use TinyURL is to have only one address in your print publications - www.bleedingedge.com.au and a reference date or reference title
When people get here, they click on the reference title or date and they are shown a list of hyperlinks mentioned in the print article.
This has several advantages - you don't need TinyURL as a service, people can "see" the hyperlink destinations in their browsers and financially, you drive people to your blog.
BTW, I currently don't see a Preview button.
Posted by: anandasim at March 28, 2006 11:05 PM
This article prompted me to visited MelbPC.org.au for the first time in years this-evening, I was hoping to gain some insight into the organisation as I’ve never been a member and wanted to have a look around before making a comment. Apart from the briefest of glances at the Interest Groups page, I never made it past the front page.
The reason that the average member age is 63 is the same reason that keeps the “Created and Managed with Microsoft Frontpage” proudly displayed on the front page.
A difficulty the modern PC users’ group has is that the computer has become such an everyday item that it can be thought of in the same context as a fruit bowl, they both have a job to do and they both just do it. I disagree with that context but it can be applied none the less.
I think the hobby computer user has evolved into a hobby webber (either site, blog, community builder/member or an online app builder/user). The business user is still using the same four applications they were using 20 years ago, in most cases still the same four functions of each of those applications.
Stephen makes a point about blogging in his first post, a further glance at the Interest Groups (Specifics) shows the following are missing:
* Blogging
* Online Communities
* AJAX
* Web 2.0
* Almost anything that is new, exciting and would cause the modern computer user with their modern computer hobby to part with their $55/year.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m just off to find new members for my fruit bowl users’ group.
Posted by: wilbert at March 28, 2006 11:28 PM
In response to Stuart's post, the reason why local computer shops aren't interested is because the margins are gone. There's no-one who has the time to do it. Anyone trying to run a business is too busy dealing with spyware issues and cranky customers upset at underperforming vendors and ISPs.
I'd suggest that's why Melbourne PC is having trouble finding volunteers. I see Whirlpool has a long-running thread about exactly this problem in their IT & Telco forum. Tech support is hard work and right now no-one wants to pay for it.
Posted by: Paul Wallbank at March 28, 2006 11:45 PM
A good idea, Anandasim, to have everything pointed at from the blog. The problem is The Age has decided that it won't run a link to the blog because "it's a personal, profit-making venture". (They could have fooled me!)
Posted by: cw at March 29, 2006 10:04 AM
I fully agree with cw's post. What is evem more intriguing: I am also an HLM, past president of Melb PC and past editor of PC Update, but this was the first I heard of the meeting of HLMs. Why is it so? Perhaps it's a case of the committee only wanting to hear what it wants to hear.
Posted by: Peter at March 30, 2006 08:05 AM
Previous comment:
"I am also an HLM, past president of Melb PC and past editor of PC Update, but this was the first I heard of the meeting of HLMs. Why is it so? Perhaps it's a case of the committee only wanting to hear what it wants to hear."
I am currently the Vice President of the User Group and last year I started these HLM meetings with the aim of harnessing the brain power and passion of our HLM's. It seemed to me that were not capitalising on it. If the Past President / PC Update Editor was not included in the invite I can only apologise and ask that they contact me to provide their current email address, as all HLM's were contacted based on the contact data we have.
A number of ideas were generated last year by the group and have been successfully put into action. At this last meeting again we generated more ideas and a sense of focus for the future of Melb PC - to be put to the committee. What now needs to happen is that the list is evaluated, prioritised and put into action.
Anyone can sit around, bleet about what is not happening or what should be happening - I prefer to use my energy by having a focus and getting things done.
As well as idea generators we need members who are passionate, energised, positive-minded, action focussed and committed to changing things - if anyone wishes to put their hands up for these roles, let me know!
Posted by: Lyn at March 30, 2006 09:52 AM
"Anyone can sit around, bleat about what is not happening or what should be happening - I prefer to use my energy by having a focus and getting things done."
So do I, Lyn. And I have managed to get one or two things done in my time.
My point is that not enough of the right things ARE getting done in Melb PC. Not, as I said, because of any shortcomings of individual committee members, but because of the lack of leadership. I'd put you at the top of genuine achievers, incidentally, but I'm sure you - and the rest of the committee - would get a lot more done if your feet weren't stuck in the bureaucratic mud.
And you'd have more "passionate, energised, positive-minded, action-focussed people committed to changing things" if it weren't for the fact that people like that don't welcome having their time wasted and constantly being frustrated. They leave. They get jaded.
It's a simple matter of cause and effect.
I would say my actions are positive, and the officially sanctioned attitude is negative. I've kept my mouth shut for quite a while now, looking for signs of change. I haven't seen it. The fact that you describe my criticism as "bleating" doesn't give me any comfort. The first step in instituting change is to listen.
Posted by: cw at March 30, 2006 10:49 AM
Actually following that off topic fork that Stephen started, Charles and Stephen should know that tinyurl now has a Preview feature. I haven't gone behind the stage, but
http://tinyurl.com/preview.php />
will allow you to (probably) set a cookie on your browser) to preview instead of immediately jump to the destination.
Posted by: anandasim at March 30, 2006 05:45 PM
G'day,
As the founder of Melb PC, a past president, creator of PC Update and an honourary life member, I attended a HLM meeting last year. However, from past experience I simply thought it would be a waste of my time to attend the meeting this week.
Charles and I seem to be thinking along the same lines when it comes to how Melb PC is currently operating and the direction in which it is heading. About two years ago I raised some of these same concerns and tried to get a few things changed. I offered my services and support. It quickly became obvious that entrenched interests and too much comfort with the status quo were going to stop any new obvious initiatives, let alone more progressive ideas.
The current management of Melb PC have in place a process and decision makers that effectively stiffle any change. Lyn and a few others are keen for progress to be made, but the other incumbents opt for the status quo and efficiently block their efforts.
Right now there is too much complacency. But as Charles points out, the people Melb PC should be serving are elsewhere and heading in different directions to the course Melb PC remains fixed upon. The impact of this on Melb PC will be eventually be severe.
By the time those keeping Melb PC stuck on the current course wake up and realise that the majority of people are on different headings in different oceans of the PC world, it will be even more difficult to recover.
However, I'm optimistic that Melb PC will recover. It has in the past, and there are enough people around who will ensure it does again. But wouldn't it be much nicer if the situation could be fixed before it gets much worse.
Best Regards, Lloyd Borrett.
Posted by: Lloyd Borrett at March 31, 2006 03:47 PM
The TinyURL preview is excellent Anadasim.
Posted by: Stephen at March 31, 2006 04:44 PM
I am very surprised and disappointed that you consider this the appropriate forum to vent your spleen on the Melbourne PC User Group. Your stocks have dropped in my eyes Charles. Why is this subject relevant to non-members in your opinion?
I am of the opinion that the Group is flat at present - an opinion I have expressed openly in a MelbPC newsgroup. However I don't know that things are any worse than when you were President – maybe just different.
Your style of presidency was far more forceful and independent that we have today, which had its benefits and disadvantages. All organisations are cyclical, and whilst there isn't the same buzz that we may have experienced at some other times, neither is there the same disharmony as we have experienced on some other occassions. There have been some charismatic Presidents and some not so. There have been one or two who have caused division and the majority who have not. Some have been good leaders, others better administrators. Some have lost members, others have been great unifiers. And so on.
As you know the Melbourne PC User Group is one of the largest User Groups in the world (if not THE largest of its kind) with around 10-11,000 members. That indicates that whilst we need improvement in some areas, the current leadership team is doing a lot of things right.
I am not and never have been a member of the Management Committee. Whilst I have my concerns about various aspects I will publicly defend the Committee wholeheartedly against what I perceive to be an unwarranted attack by EX-committee member with a axe to grind. I think that you are wise not to stand for re-election after your memorable presidency. Be content to be remembered as an ex-president, an HLM and an excellent media personality.
Posted by: Peter Hooper at April 11, 2006 09:47 PM
What patronising stuff and nonsense, and somewhat tendentious, it seems to me. I'm not venting spleen. I'm offering constructive criticism. The club's in crisis. The membership is dropping dramatically, the profits are taking a serious hit, and you're "disappointed" in me? I'd be seriously alarmed if you approved of me, because it would clearly mean I was on a downhill path.
And what axe are you suggesting I'm grinding? Curiously, aside from two previous presidents whose comments are here, many of the committee members - privately - agree with my comments, which makes your remarks even more bizarre. Have they got dull blades too?
In my opinion, if anyone has an axe to grind, it's you. If you represented the will of the membership, the club would be doomed. Fortunately, the average member isn't a dill.
Posted by: cw at April 11, 2006 10:09 PM
Hear, hear, c.w. To some, mediocrity is enough. Keep up the fight. MelbPC can do much better. I am, for the first time, considering whether to renew when my membership is due. And that saddens me.
Posted by: Stuart at April 13, 2006 09:59 PM