[ale] ALE-NW dying

[Brian MacLeod]

I’m going to be a little harsher, and probably overstep, but…

ALE-NW isn’t dying.  ALE is dying.

I presented in December for Central, and there were 3-4 people other than me.  When I asked Jim Kinney if this was just a holiday thing, he said no — that’s been the attendance for ALE Central for months now, and if that continues, there’s not much point in having a venue anymore and I agreed.

It is a trend I hear is occurring with many face to face groups — one hiccup here, one miscommunication there, and a whole group dies because people don’t want to bother in a day and age where telecommute applications are becoming a norm.  People in general aren’t looking at face-to-face meetings as being important anymore.
Someone mentioned at that meeting that the AUUG is suffering from lower numbers every month.

There will be some who will put the blame on certain people and certina behaviors on the mailing list.  I doubt that, I think that was mere coincidence.  I know there were people I used to be able to count on being at Central who I’ve not seen in over a year, and some of these were folks who I would also go to an after meeting and have beers with.  A lot of those old-timers have other things to do, and the new kids don’t see much value in travelling to a meeting when there are vast resources available to learn from online.

And that’s before we even talk about leadership and venue issues. 

So now that I’ve pooped on the parade, I think we need to open up a conversation of what ALE is, because I don’t think ALE is returning as much value as it once did.  Maybe it’ll still be a good “post an email and get a response” group.  The face to face stuff, I think, may be done unless 1) someone has a really good idea of a good value add for meetings, and 2) is willing to champion it.

I admittedly don’t even have #1.

And even if someone steps up to help lead ALE-NW, if a venue change is also occurring, I would have my doubts of continuing the level of participation.  Suddenly, there something for people to figure out (where am I going, where do I park now) and that’s when they decide it isn’t worth the little extra effort.  The timing of Central’s drop seems to be roughly correlated to that last move, though JIm and I can attest to the number falling even before that.

I don’t want to see it die, because frankly, ALE has become less a place for me to get help on technical issues and more a place where I can work on some of my social issues and work on my presenting skills when I have interesting topics for folks, and occasionally help someone else out. 

Brian



On Dec 31, 2014, at 10:55 AM, JD <jdp at algoloma.com> wrote:

> Someone needs to step up and take over leadership of ALE-NW.  I will do what I
> can to transfer everything over. There isn't much involved, mainly just contacts
> for the school and potential speakers.
> 
> Don't let your ALE-NW die.
> 
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