Re: Meeting Agendas and Organization

[Erich Schroeder <erich@museum.state.il.us>]

Jason, and others...
  I think that we have gotten to the point of needing more structure,
particularly with the addition of the newer folks coming in to the group.
By our November LUCI will be two years old. At the beginning the members,
with the exception of Steve and Jeff and to a lesser degree me, were
largely beginners. Now we have a wider base so we have work more on
keeping people at both levels of experience happy and interested. I'm not
unhappy with the meetings as they have been, but I can see that they (the
meetings) might be a bit foggy to folks just coming into them.

Some comments are interspersed in Jason's note:

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Erich Schroeder                    Phone: (217)785-0033
Curator, Information Technologies  FAX:   (217)785-2857
Illinois State Museum GIS Lab      Internet: erich@museum.state.il.us
http://www.museum.state.il.us/ismdepts/anthro/staff/erich/erich.html
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On Thu, 21 Oct 1999, Burke, Jason wrote:

> 
> Hey Steve,
> 
> I'm going to take Kara's advice on this topic and post it
> to the list instead of sending it to you directly. The following
> are my suggestions for improving our meetings, and making
> them more productive.

Perhaps one problem will be to decide what "more productive" will mean. A
long time ago Mark Blunier put together a list of topics that he wanted to
see at that time (http://www.luci.org/luci-discuss/msg00013.html). Many of
these are likely to still be of interest. Perhaps a poll of topics would
be good, maybe voted for on the luci web site?

> One of the main reasons for this is because I had a chance
> to talk to someone who attended one of our meetings for the
> first time last month (unfortunately I was sick otherwise I 
> would have been there as well), and, I'm sorry to say, his 
> comments were very negative. His main complaint was that
> the meeting didn't seem to have much direction, and he 
> wasn't very interested in the topic at hand either.

Sorry to hear that. Does suggest that something should be done.

> Hot on the heels of this impromptu meeting was the article
> on Linux.com by Deepak which talked about how to organize
> your meetings better (which by the way was a fantastic
> article, maybe Kara can dig it up for us and post it to the list).

Yes, I'd like to see it, if that is possible.

> I think it's time for us to start taking these factors into 
> consideration. Let's take our next meeting for example,
> I remember reading in someone's post that we were
> going to be talking about ALS which I'm all for, but do
> we really need to take the whole two hours to talk about
> ALS? And for the new people getting involved in the
> group does that topic even have any meaning to them
> at all?
>
> I would like to purpose that we start publishing our meeting
> agenda on the web site, and that we cover two topics during
> each session. Here's a visual on what I mean with the written
> agendas:
> 
> LUCI MEETING AGENDA for 10/26/1999
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 7:00 - 7:10	Call the meeting to order, welcome new 
> 		attendees, and give quick announcements.
> 
> 7:10 - 7:30	Q&A session.

I wonder how well Q&A will work, but it is worth a try. Often times these
are interesting only to one person, but then some times they are more
widely usefull... It might help in determining what topics would be good
for the next meeting. I agree that we should try it.
 
> 7:30 - 8:00	First topic. I recommend that the first topic
> 		should be simple for the beginners.

The ideal, I think, is to not only have this topic, but have a set of
instructions/links/whatever to remain on the LUCI site. Is that possible?

> 8:00 - 8:15	Break & Social session. I recommend that 
> 		we consider bringing in refreshments and
> 		snacks. Also, we can do give aways at this
> 		time.

mmmm, snacks. 

The meeting room at the ISM RCC has an adjacent kitchen, so this is no
problem. The ISM can't provide coffee, but can provide a coffee maker. (at
that time of night decaf seems right)

> 8:15 - 9:00	Second topic. This one should be for the
> 		advanced users.

Should there be a time for LUCI business? Is there LUCI business? Should
there be? I like "topics" better.

> 9:00 - 9:05	End meeting.
> 
> I think if we implement this type of schedule we'll be much 
> more effective at disseminating our information. Also, I don't
> have any problems bringing in a batch of cookies and some
> soda (or coffee, or tea ??), and I doubt that anyone else will
> either.
> 
> I think that some more organization will only help us and 
> make the group more interesting and popular. Let me know
> what you think (and I'll extend that invitation to everyone
> else on the list). 
> 
> Jason

Thanks Jason,

Erich



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