Most professional organizations tend to be recognized by the majority
of the people in the profession and in some cases to many outside the
profession. They may not be members, but they know the name. If you
ask most SysAdmins for their professional organization, they won't know
of one. If you mention "LOPSA" to them, my guess is they'll
ask if that's the cute little puppies. LhasaApso.
People outside the profession ... no way. Very very slowly that
is changing.
LOPSA has been around for some time now and still hasn't hit
critical mass. Compare it to the the users conference for
ServiceNow. 2013 had about 4000 attendees
2014 had about 6000 attendees,
2015 they expect 9000.
There are far fewer people working with ServiceNow than doing
SysAdmin, yet they bring people together and growing fast.
Granted they have a built-in market and a way of reaching all
their users, but considering how many attend their conferences
they have to be doing something right. That passion is missing
from the SysAdmin realm.
Other organizations charge more for annual dues because they
have to pay their staff and in most cases provide tangible benefits
to their members. It's more than just discounts from vendors.
Some companies will pay for membership in organizations as this
membership brings them addition respect. Having an ACM-Fellow on
staff is something you can advertise and bring in more talented
people. I do not think LOPSA has that drawing power, yet.
Times are changing for many companies. Budgets are getting
tighter and tighter. When they look at expenses, they look
at what is gained per expense. How many memberships are
created because the cost of membership is the same as the
discount on a conference registration? It's not that the
company is paying for the membership, they look at the conf
cost and it comes out even.
One needs to take a serious look at these discounts as well and
determine if they are "real". A number of these are the same
sort of discount given to educational institutions, non-profits,
and GSA pricing.
--Gene
Warner made the following keystrokes:
>I don't like this idea at face value. $50 is not much for an individual
>to pay and most professionals can have their membership covered by a
>company. Most professional organizations annual dues are over $100.
>
>I don't think LOPSA is very well funded as it is. Many professional
>organizations and non-profits have paid staff.
>
>Warner
>
>On Fri, Feb 06, 2015 at 06:01:59PM -0500, Derek J.
>Balling([email protected]) wrote:
><snip>
>> Specifically the discussion of converting all paid members into
>> "Sponsors" and having membership be free.
><snip>
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