On Thu, 2011-05-05 at 10:09 -0400, Jess Hires wrote: > I think it's important to know how many people in the group are > hobbyists, and how many are professionals. This is not to say that you > can't be both, or that one group is more important than the other, but > when it comes time to figure out a topic for the next meeting, it may > be relevant to know who your target audience is.
Its very difficult to come up with a target audience, given the audience is constantly changing. Its not like we have an membership registrar or anything. Really no idea or way to track who is a member now and who is not. Pretty much anyone subscribing to the list and/or showing at a meeting is a member. Also when one falls under both, how do you classify them with regard to target audience? Their classification is likely to change based on topic, depending on their interest level and application/usage. > For example, me and a friend were having a conversation about SELinux > yesterday. > Being a professional, I would be very interested in this as a topic at > one of our meetings. I use Linux on a daily basis at work, and have > internet-facing servers that need to be secured, properly. > Being a hobbyist, I am not as interested in this, because I'd rather > learn something more related to one of the projects I'm working on at > home. If my project happens to be a home internet-facing server, this > becomes more relevant. Well there you go, even you can see how one might have dual interest depending on point of view/usage of any given topic. One could be doing professional things, but a topic might not apply to their profession. Just as it might not apply to home/hobbyists. Its very hard to cater to all all the time. Even when you cater to one group or the other, no guarantees there will be interest on a given topic. Also in the past when there has been great interest in some topics on list, meeting attendance surely did not live up to the hype. Its only happened a few times, but its not that rare either. Things happen in real life, schedule changes, health, etc. > I am, of course, both hobbyist and professional, but I would not want > to propose a topic that nobody is interested in. Thats pretty rare, and usually a topic discussion on list will help gauge the level of interest. > This is the same as knowing how many people at the meetings are > experts, and how many are new to Linux. That changes from meeting to meeting, short of a few regulars. > You can't know what good topics are without knowing your demographic. I don't disagree, but its constantly changing with regard to the JaxLUG. Its a mix of professionals and hobbyists, with students, and other types as well. Thus end of the day, just have to toss ideas for topics out there, see how many are interested on list, and then how many show at the meeting. If others have ideas or suggestions I am open to feedback. There really is no organization behind the JaxLUG at this time. It had been more formally organized in the past. Though I am not sure about demographics with regard to meeting topics and presentations. Not sure thats ever been taking into consideration. But its pretty hard to know demographics when you have no idea who is a member. Much less what their interest might be on any given topic :) -- William L. Thomson Jr. Obsidian-Studios, Inc. http://www.obsidian-studios.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive http://marc.info/?l=jaxlug-list&r=1&w=2 RSS Feed http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml Unsubscribe [email protected]
