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April 05, 2008
Melb PC - a timeline to failure
Anthony Caruana, one of the freelancers members of Melb PC are paying to contribute to the club magazine, PC Update, and I have got into a debate about the future of user groups, in the comments on the post below.
There was something about Anthony's comment about the inevitable collapse of user groups that rang a bell, so I went on a bit of a search.
'What I discovered was that it's almost exactly a year since I advised the president, Lyn Goodall, to do something about the group's online presence. Nothing has been done.
It's two years since I warned about the lassitude of the group's leadership, and its decline into a corporate-style administration, rather than an active, energetic leadership. Nothing seems to have changed.
Two years since I warned that "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 ... 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." The clock seems to have accelerated.
It's three years since I met with a sub-committee and gave them my professional advice on the need to do something about PC Update. That, at least, they've finally got around to tackling.
It's six or so years since I warned them that if they didn't come up with a broadband offering, they'd lose their main source of revenue. I think the clock has run out on that one now.
Getting back to Anthony: if you look at the link contained in that first blog entry I mention, you'll notice that Anthony Caruana, former president of iMug (he's a Mac man), raises his suspicion there that "the era of the local user group is coming to an end". I don't happen to agree that it's inevitable. The greatest threat to user groups, in my opinion, is the continued promulgation of that attitude, and poor leadership.
Posted by cw at April 5, 2008 04:53 PM
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