On Thu, Mar 3, 2016 at 8:44 AM, Evan Pettrey <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hey folks,
As I'm sure many of you have already seen, USENIX is shutting down LISA
SIG/SAGE.
Any thoughts? Does this impact LOPSA in any way? Is this an indication of the
changing industry or simply a failing special interest group?
I wonder what the membership levels were of LISA SIG over the past five years
or so? I can only speculate on what might have been in the collective mind of
the USENIX Board. Perhaps someone more connected to the USENIX Board has some
insight to share. My very general speculations on "why" …
Not a "profitable" group any more. If membership declined significantly, the
cost involved in managing a separate sub-organization might have eclipsed the
revenue. Unlike some organizational models, where full paid membership is
required of all, and then adding special interest groups to membership costs
extra ... LISA SIG was a standalone membership fee. So they are eliminating the
discount for people who are only interested in the sysadmin aspects of USENIX’s
mission.
Lack of leadership / active membership interest? LISA SIG isn't the only
organization to have these problems lately. This might be a part of a "bigger
picture" change that is not unique to professional organizations ... I have
seen it in the cultural and recreational organization space as well. This
Internet thing we’ve created has changed society in many ways, and one of them
is that we don’t have to all show up in one place in order to learn, exchange
ideas or have a focused community of interest. That is is one of the major
functions that professional organizations served. At some point in people’s
lives, they start to look at the “value proposition” of their own expenditures,
both in terms of cash and in terms of where they put their energy and their
“excess professional time.”
They have realized that calling it LISA SIG was just not a good choice. The
LISA conference is, hopefully, still profitable or at least breaking even.
Conflating a successful conference with a stagnating SIG might not be a formula
for long term survival/success of USENIX.
${Insert some snarky reference here about how sysadmins are all becoming
“DevOps Engineers” now}.
LOPSA “won.” :-)
How could this impact LOPSA?
Assuming that there is still some bifurcation in the sysadmin community since
the SAGE/LOPSA/LISA SIG mess, perhaps there will be a few more dedicated people
interested in helping make LOPSA succeed. That would be good.
It might drive an increase in paid memberships, as well as improve the
visibility and credibility of LOPSA. That would be good too.
It’s a sign of things to come for LOPSA. That would not be so good.
Is the industry changing? If you are looking at the fact that professionals
with exactly the same skill sets and doing exactly the same things who call
themselves “DevOps” instead of “Systems Administrators” are getting inundated
by job recruiters these days, then, IMHO … nothing has changed. It’s all about
Buzzwords and the Methodology Flavor of the Month. Call me a neckbeardy old
dinosaur, but after twenty-five years as a sysadmin, it seems to me that we are
still doing what we’ve always done, and the people who hire us, manage us,
depend on us [and eventually blame us after they ignore our suggestions and
things go FUBAR] still don’t really understand us.
All I know for sure is that in December, when I decided to pony up for
membership, I “guessed wrong” about which organization was going to last
longer. [1]
_rob_
[1] Actually, my paid membership to LOPSA lapsed and nobody / nothing ever
bothered to remind me to renew it.
--
Rob Jenson - *nix Systems Administrator
Email: ferthalangur {at) gmail.com <http://gmail.com/> or rbj (at} spotch.com
<http://spotch.com/>
| ferthalangur @ Almost everything on the Internet
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