[kwlug-disc] Attendance

[peter_melse at gto.net]

I likely will not be able to attend in person for the foreseeable
future. (at least until covid is completely under control, and maybe not
then.)

The rest of my post is random ideas to increase membership, both local
and remote. 

On the subject of promotion, I'd suggest a graphical email blast 30
minutes or so before the start of all meetings that are livestreamed.
Possibly a second one after the recording is available. 
LOLUG (the london group, when it was running) had some great sessions in
a corner of coffee shops / bars on slow nights. There might be some
opportunity for partnership there. 

Another possibility is going to a online-centric format the majority of
the time, with a major half or all day event once a year in a convention
format, perhaps with a monthly meeting preview meetup somewhere ad-hoc. 

from a social media prospective, while I think most of us agree that
promoting open source platforms as a first class option is important,
the reality is it's not where the majority of people are. a selection of
content, (if only to establish a presence) filled with links and
in-content promotion kwlug.org would likely draw people in. 

additionally, (and I'm borrowing from the microsoft playbook here) is to
get them while their young. advertisement with the uw's csclub, the
equivalent at wlu might be helpful. 

On 2022-10-05 09:25, Doug Moen wrote:

>> 

> Jason's suggestion of a mix of online and in-person events sounds like a win to me, given the wide range of risk tolerance I see in my social circle (at least one person who refuses to mask, others who are very nervous about in person indoor events where everyone is masked). I am "in the middle" even though I can see when I'm out in public that I'm more risk averse than 95% of the population. 
> 
> However, holding in person events would require a venue, plus volunteers willing to set up and run said events, if we want to run formal presentations with slides, as before. Or we just schedule some KWLUG pub nights at the Huether and see if anyone wants to show up. Or: one of my meetup groups sets a topic in advance, with links, then we sit around a table and talk about that, and maybe talk about other stuff as well. That's pretty easy to organize. 
> 
> On Wed, Oct 5, 2022, at 7:28 AM, Jason Eckert wrote: 
> 
> I'll echo Ron's comments. I like the fervor or in-person events, but online has potential to grow attendance at a time when LUG attendance in general is in decline. 
> 
> I think the decline in attendance is due to the pandemic though. Times have been changing for the last decade, and I saw WWITPRO go bust before the pandemic. The biggest challenge for them was to get speakers, and this was primarily due to reduced attendance and interest.  
> 
> Times are a changin' - just take a look at how the open source development community has changed these past 2 decades. Modern open source developers don't have the same hatred of closed source software companies (e.g., Microsoft) that defined early open source developers of the 1990s. When Microsoft bought GitHub, most open source developers really didn't care. Instead, modern developers are more like YouTube content creators; they care more about having good tools and a platform that promotes their work to others than lofty open source principles and code freedom. 
> 
> Similarly, LUGs served a vastly different purpose 2 decades ago (remember installfests?). 
> So, I think the bigger issue to tackle is "how do we keep LUGs relevant and engaging today?" I don't have a solution to offer, but I think it will need to involve evaluating what needs are out there today and how a LUG can best fulfill them. Likely, part of a successful solution will involve online as well as some in-person events too.  
> 
> My 2 cents :wq 
> 
> On Wed, 5 Oct 2022 at 01:14, Ronald Barnes <ron at ronaldbarnes.ca> wrote: 
> Paul Nijjar via kwlug-disc wrote on 2022-10-04 17:44: 
> 
>> I have noticed that our attendance is dropping. 
> 
> FWIW, SFLUG publishes subscriber counts: (excuse the bad formatting, 
> blame Thunderbird!): 
> 
>> $ sf-lug_roster_stat 
>> 
>> 
>> YYYY-MM-DD 
>> 
>> 2022-08-22 247 
>> 
>> ... 
>> 
>> 2015-01-22 328 
> 
> So, their numbers have been in slow decline too. 
> 
> But KWLUG is still the Gold Standard(tm) of LUGs, IMHO.  Largest (online) 
> meetings. Most informative meetings. Most active mailing list. 
> 
>> I was expecting significantly more people for Doug's presentation 
>> last month, for example. I think partially people are tired of 
>> virtual meetings, and partially we have not been doing a good job of 
>> publicizing the group, 
> I think online has helped grow attendance since it's easier. 
> 
> If you figure out a way to publicize the group without paying Meetup.com 
> money, let me know! 
> 
> I've tried Reddit and Twitter, don't think I got a single sign-up. 
> 
> Most LUGs I interact with skew towards older people and they're not 
> active on social media.  Younger folks don't seem as interested or I 
> can't find them. 
> 
> rb 
> 
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