>Or will it simply make us look sad for forcing people to pay for sparse offerings >that might never catch on?
Things that we are working on and trying for the first time should not be used as selling points. Our things that _*do*_ work and provide some value – the lists, the irc channel, etc – should be the stuff nonmembers should be sold on. Once you’ve bought in I think people are less concerned about the things that are starting up and less fully featured. The fear of looking sad should not be a barrier to try new things. If you start basing your decision to try things on fear you will never try new things, and nothing will change. That said, things that have failed should not be visible to anyone. >And, would it affect who decides to contribute and speak at any live online event? As long as you are up front with people on how it will be available I don’t believe you’ll have trouble finding people willing to contribute. Having to pay for content is not a new thing. And, yes some people are vocal about everything should be free and open, most people realize there is a happy medium that can be found. >Has the board ever considered some kind of corporate membership to gain a new >revenue stream while increasing the organization's visibility? Just an anecdote: While not exactly a corporate membership Stack Exchange bought – I believe – 25 memberships for our top users a few years ago. It had mixed results. I think most people where just happy about the “ooh cool free stuff” factor. *From:* [email protected] [mailto: [email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Edward D'Azzo-Caisser *Sent:* Wednesday, May 14, 2014 5:34 PM *To:* john boris *Cc:* Derek Balling; Lopsa Discussion *Subject:* Re: [lopsa-discuss] Looking for an organizer for the first virtual LOPSA Chapter On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 4:31 PM, Derek Balling <[email protected]> wrote: That seems like a KPI that *someone* should be tracking. And maybe reporting? We don't gather that information directly. So I did some digging to get some harder numbers (December 2012 - present), and there haven't been that many proteges who've joined LOPSA. We're more a draw for *mentors* who want to help rather than *proteges*. 38% of mentors in this time period stated they joined because of the program vs. 5% of proteges who were not self-identified LOPSA members then went on to sign up for membership under the same email address (admittedly, the latter number is flawed). On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 4:30 PM, Will Dennis <[email protected]> wrote: I never again heard from the mentorship team about the mentee, and most of the time (with one exception) besides the first contact/discussion, I never heard from the mentee again. (I did not do a lot of “chasing after” the mentees, figuring if they want to ping me on something, they’ll contact me.) Anyways, I did not see much value in the mentorship program as a result, and eventually resigned as a mentee (i.e., asked to be removed from the mailing list.) Maybe (hopefully) it’s run differently now… IDK. It's in the process of changing. We've always struggled with following up on relationships, defining successful relationships and keeping tabs on projects once they began. The logic was that the mentors would track and follow up with their protege. If the protege had an issue with the relationship, they'd follow up with us. And that was that. We always knew that proteges were more likely to give up on a relationship than a mentor. And we've known for a while that mentors are unhappy with the lack of follow up, sometimes thinking they've failed as mentors when the proteges fall off (which isn't true at all). Over the last few months, we've been discussing and coming up with ways to improve the situation for the mentors. And hopefully alleviate all of their frustrations. One such change is forcing proteges to become LOPSA members, thus ensuring only proteges whop actually want to be mentored (and keep up with the relationship) do so. We're also planning to better track relationships and offer metrics so mentors know how they're doing and offer resources for first time mentors who want to take on their first proteges. These are all at varying stages of completeness, but we'll be announcing the paid protege measure in June's LOPSAgram. Now, to be a bit more on topic. I've noticed something frustrated when trying to find mentors for proteges with stale requests (especially on the Windows side). People are always *willing*. But they turn around and say they don't want to be LOPSA members, sometimes citing the lack of direct value. And I feel they believe LOPSA is irrelevant to them. Not that LOPSA doesn't offer a subscription to Safari Online or exclusive talks. They're also not the sort of people who actively take advantage of IRC, the local conferences, the discussion boards or the other community draws that LOPSA usually has. Is that likely to change if the organization starts hiding non-exclusive talks behind subscription walls? Or will it simply make us look sad for forcing people to pay for sparse offerings that might never catch on? And, would it affect who decides to contribute and speak at any live online event? This is the sort of thing the board should consider before poisoning the water. Has the board ever considered some kind of corporate membership to gain a new revenue stream while increasing the organization's visibility? On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 5:20 PM, john boris <[email protected]> wrote: Just to inform the folks on this thread. The mentorship team is taking steps to require the mentees to be LOPSA members. They are drafting language for this. This was announced at LOPSA-East during the Mentorship BOF and I believe as part of the careers panel On Wednesday, May 14, 2014, Derek Balling <[email protected]> wrote: On May 14, 2014, at 4:30 PM, Will Dennis <[email protected]> wrote: but would be interesting to know if any (or more positively, how many) mentees went on to join LOPSA. That seems like a KPI that *someone* should be tracking. And maybe reporting? D -- John J. Boris, Sr. Online Services www.onlinesvc.com _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
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