Obtaining Guest Speakers For Users Groups? 157
sdweber asks: "I am the president of the LUG here at Lehigh University. Many members of the group have expressed an interest in having a guest speaker or speakers come in and talk about Linux, Open Source, or other geek-friendly topics. Looking for a good speaker, however, is proving harder than I thought. There are a few big names that come to mind quickly (ESR, RMS, and others) but beyond that I'm not sure where to look. Has anyone had a good/bad experience with guest speakers? Who are some good people to chase down? Of course, being college students, we don't have a whole lot of money to offer the speaker, but there are plenty of interested listeners eager to learn. Any suggestions?"
Career Fairs (Score:2)
highly recommended (Score:1)
PSU Lug (Score:1)
Look for abbreviations... (Score:3)
-- Don't you hate it when people comment on other people's
Have to do it... (Score:1)
Web interview (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
One thing's for sure: (Score:1)
Money isn't a big deal (Score:1)
However I guess its just courtsey to not make those people pay for lodging/transportation costs as lets face it... not everyone made money in the
ESR (Score:3)
Why not ask professors? (Score:1)
Don't discount the resources you already have!
I've been wondering the same thing... (Score:1)
Perhaps getting people who use linux locally, like ISP admins, and local coders or programmers... and perhaps even the occasional opposing point of view, like someone from a Microshaft Certified Solution provider to get their opinion on things like samba, and Win/Unix integration...
I'll speak (Score:3)
I'm up here in Minot, ND let me know if interested! :-)
I'll post the outline if anyone's interested.
Donald Becker (Score:4)
Linkoping, Sweden. He spoke about Beowulf clusters
and Linux networking. The talk was both extremly
interesting and funny, and there was a great
questions and answers session after the talk.
A lot of credits to Donald for giving a wonderful
talk which was appreciated by a lot of people.
Also a lot of credits to http://www.lysator.liu.se
and http://www.nsc.liu.se for organizing the talk.
See http://www.scyld.com for more information
about Beowulf clusters and Linux network drivers.
Fredrik Henbjork
http://o112.ryd.student.liu.se
Get together with other schools (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Getting speakers: Go through the P.R. department (Score:5)
For small organizations (i.e., under 25 full-time staff people), you can probably contact the proposed speaker directly. You might have to go through a secretary: Be courteous and follow their rules. The speakers will probably make arrangements themselves.
Organizations of 25-75 people often have a dedicated Public Relations Manager to handle such things: Ask for them. They in turn might send you to a freelancer or small agency, who'll make the arrangements.
With companies of this size and bigger, they probably won't be interested unless:
- You can deliver audience members who are in their target markets
- You can deliver large, high-profile audiences ("opinion leaders"), and/or
- The talk is convenient for them.
In short, you'll have a hard time getting someone to get on a plane to appear before your 20-member User's Group.Finally, for bigger organizations (75+ full-time staff), you may have to deal with the organization's P.R. firm. Go to their Web site, look under the "About us" button, then to the "Press" section. If they don't list a press contact, look for contact names and numbers on press releases.
Don't be discouraged if they turn you down, and feel free to pester them if they don't return your emails and phone calls within a week. Good luck!
--Tom Geller
President, Bandwidth P.R. [bandwidthpr.com]
perhaps you need to realign your perception (Score:4)
Lots of Linux companies around... (Score:2)
I know that my company [colltech.com] hires people to do linux, as we are onsite support for RedHat [redhat.com]. Hence, we give tech talks concerning all sorts of different stuff. Recently, Curtis Preston [backupcentral.com] gave a talk in Boston concerning Backup Recovery practices. I know with all the linux people within the company, we could dig someone out to talk about the place of open source systems in the corporate environment.
--
Gonzo Granzeau
Re:One thing's for sure: (Score:2)
Gorbachow is also VERY expensive I hear. He'll probably have an accent and won't be able to say alot about computers, because he's from Russia and they don't have computers there.
A lot of the other people mentioned aren't busy and would be pretty cheap. I can't imagine RMS or ESR or whoever charges AT ALL because speach wants to be free just like software.
Seriously though: If I were you, I'd maybe consider asking the members of your LUG what they would be interested in hearing about. Maybe you can start off by then members themselves speaking about their fields of interest/expertise.
I second the professor suggestion (Score:1)
Ask Gore (Score:1)
Speakers (Score:1)
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. (Score:1)
Of course we have had our dissapointments with speakers. We have been contacting RedHat lately with no luck, and then we find out that the Purdue Networking Engineering Organization got the CEO of Redhat to come next month! Well balls! Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
My best Advice is to keep contacting the speakers whom you wish to have come out, don't give up.. Of course it also helps to have lots of numbers, that is a lot of people who will come to the presentation.
Re:Look for abbreviations... (Score:1)
It's a very simple concept (Score:5)
And how do you get members? Basic common courtesy. Pardon me while I go on a rant for a moment: I've only lived in my area for a year so I don't know a lot of people. Last night, I went to a LUG meeting that was a complete disaster (from my point of view). I show up and sit down at the table (dinner first, then speaker). No one asks me my name, no one tells me their name, no one has name tags, no one explains what's going on (even as simple as "once everyone gets here we'll do introductions, etc"). We sit around and try to hear one another over the noise for 30 minutes and then order dinner. Again, no explanation of how we are going to be paying, etc. We eat. At 7:00 we go upstairs and participate in much unexplained activity (handing out tickets for what turned out to be a raffle later, making in-jokes, etc). Speak for a while and then out.
If all I wanted a LUG for was technical information, I'd browse a website on the same topic and save myself the drive and price of dinner. I want a LUG to be a social group--talk about Linux issues, make local connections, etc. I know I wasn't the only new person there because I saw one or two one-off intros going on--but no concerted effort to make people welcome. I felt like I was attending a stranger's wedding.
I'm not a total socio-phobe myself--I was looking alert and interested in conversations, making eye-contact and even contributing comments. But only two people bothered to even ask my name and I'm pretty sure one of them was a new guy. Sure, I could ask names first--but shouldn't it be the function of the LUG to make visitors welcome and not the other way around?
(As a sidenote, why is there always one of those smart-alecky geeks with the nervous sniff and inability to shut up when he is wrong in any group of computerphiles? Somebody smack those idiots.)
--
An abstained vote is a vote for Bush and Gore.
Doc Searls (Score:1)
RMS speaks for free (Score:1)
Alan Cox (Score:2)
he speeks very well!
linuxresources.com speaker's bureau (Score:5)
Katz! (Score:4)
Bob Young (Score:1)
2) He professes to really enjoy speaking to User Groups.
3) His current job is supposably devoted to advocacy.
4) Red Hat has plenty of good reasons to want to speak to college age geeks.
5) They probably have the cash to not require too much out of your group.
Just a few thoughts.
-Quiller
First, find who's close. . . . (Score:1)
As for the LULUG, eastern Pennsylvania. . .well, here's a hint: ESR is within an hour's drive of you. . . .
Sal, Lehigh Class of '83
Companies (Score:1)
Re:Katz! (Score:1)
RMS Is Pretty Accomodating (Score:2)
Believe it or not, given the recent Linux/GNU explosion over the last few years, RMS and his new found fame still find time to visit some lower key places.
I go the University of Waterloo in Ontario, and it is the Computer Science nerve centre (yes, that's "re" up here in Igloo-land) of Canada, and one of the major schools in North America. But RMS didn't come here, he went to the small affiliated College across the creek to speak, literally.
There couldn't have been more than 150 people in the medium-sized room that he spoke in, and I don't imagine the College had a lot of offer him.
That being said, I'm not sure how the school got in touch with him, but it shows that you don't need to pack several thousand people in a metropolitan convention center to get some big names to speak to you.
A lot of these guys will jump at the opportunity to make their message heard in person. It might have something to do with altruistic motives, as opposed to corporate ones.
Bill Joy of Microsoft (Score:1)
He was a clever, spirited guy with an offbeat sense of humor... and he had a lot of good stories, plus was quick on his feet in the question and answer. Very energetic and interesting.
I also figure that Neal Stephenson's views on anything have to be fun... although maybe he's not an "open source" guy in the strictest sense, I bet he'd be a popular draw. I never seen him speak though.
Re:Bill Joy of SUN, dammit... (Score:1)
I have microsoft on the brain... no doubt he is wondering why he suddenly got a case of the goosebumps right now...
sorry Bill... heh...
Re:Katz! (Score:1)
Re:I'll speak (Score:3)
ps my work email gabriel.black@minot.af.mil
Gabriel Black
Outline for Informative Speech
Specific Purpose: To inform the audience about the Open Source Software (OSS)
movement or Open Source Initiative (OSI)
I. Introduction
A. Attention getter:
1. Car/Software analogy.
a. Wouldn't it be nice not to have to pay for software?
2. Brief explanation of open source software
a. You use software everyday, but what if you could
change it suit your needs.
b. That's what open source software allows you to do.
B. Motivation to listen: The OSS movement is growing and may directly
influence you eventually.
C. Right to inform: I'm an Information Technology Specialist in the Air
Force etc...
D. Preview of main points:
1. Definitions and explanation of Open Source Software
2. Pro's and Con's of OSS
3. Various OSS projects and the future.
II. Body
A. Definitions and explanation of how software works.
1. Software/Book analogy
a. Software is like a book, but unlike a novel you read
once and put on a shelf you use software everyday.
b. Software can be edited like a book too. It can be
improved and modified.
c. Unlike most products the cost of copying software is
negligible.
d. War and Peace analogy.
2. Explain reuse and modification of source code.
a. Reuse of source code allows the best part of a software
program to be duplicated into another program. For
example a great menu or button can be copied and used
over and over.
3. Why you can't modify normal software.
a. When Software is written it is in a format that is called
source code. It is the only software format that is
readable by humans.
b. Regular software that you, the end-user buy comes in
machine language format.
c. The consequence of this is that it basically makes a
program impossible to modify or improve if you don't
have the source code. Because no one but a computer
can read machine language.
4. Define Open Source Software
a. It is software that is published in source code format.
b. Licensing agreements allow you to do anything but you
can't patent it.
c. Make multiple copies etc...
d. Two types of freedom. Free speech vs. Free Beer
e. Bazaar and Cathedral concept
5. Define Regular software
a. Restrictive licensing
b. The software costs money.
c. Only a machine language version of the software is
included. There's no source code.
B. Pro's and Con's of the OSI, Star Office and the future.
1. Con's
a. The major con of the open source movement is that it is
unorganized. Explain modern software development. .
b. Open source licenses don't allow you to patent what
you create.
c. Some programs are too large and complex to be created
under open source. These include 3D modeling
programs, CAD, and speech recognition software.
d. Programs, which interact with hardware, like drivers,
don't open source easily as the specs to hardware are
usually a company secret.
e. Companies scared by the idea of it because they are
scared that they will be left behind or they will lose
money if they do try it.
f. To many people using it and not enough contributors.
g. Some types of software that appeal to a limited amount
of people may not be developed under OSS.
h. Some software has widespread but ephemeral appeal.
Like games like Rainbow Six, and Unreal Tournament.
Since OSS is slower at creating and mainly works by
modifying established software once an OSS project
duplicates UT it would be passé.
2. Pro's
a. Harness's the mental power of thousands of individuals
in different countries all over the world.
b. It allows a lot of peer reviews of code so any bugs or
optimizations can be removed or added.
c. Profit made mostly by manuals and support.
d. Open source software powers the Internet already,
example are TCP/IP and http.
e. In October of 1998 Microsoft released a white paper on
the growing threat of the OSS movement.
f. "The ability of the O.S.S. process to collect and harness
the collective I.Q. of thousands of individuals across the
Internet is simply amazing," the memo states. "More
importantly, O.S.S. evangelization scales with the size
of the Internet much faster than our own evangelization
efforts appear to scale."
g. It's free.
C. Major OSS projects -OSS is real, here are some.
1. On 22 Jan. 1998 Netscape having lost the browser wars released
the source to Netscape Navigator.
a. This is the first shot in the modern open source
revolution.
b. Mozilla is the name of the browser that has developed
since 1998. It's available free online.
c. This gives rise to the "open source" naming convention
2. October 13, 2000 SUN Microsystems released the source code to
Star Office.
a. Explain SO.
b. Explain how this could start a revolution.
III. Conclusion
A. Review of main points
1. Definitions and explanation of Open Source Software
2. Pro's and Con's of OSS
3. Various OSS projects and the future.
B. The future of OSS and my estimation of it.
1. Potential is there, what happens is a guess.
What we did (Score:2)
Back in the early '90s my local Atari (8 bit) users group got a guest speaker.
We had to decide who we wanted to speak, raise money to pay his hotel and transportation, and we even went and rented a more expensive hotel banquet room. Some memembers took the guy out for meals.
It went off rather well, I remember walking into the hotel, and seeing on their comptuer monitor "Space: talk by jon doe" (I can't remember the guy's name, but Space is/was the St. Paul Atari Users Group) The guy spoke for half an hour (very few people should be allowed to speak for longer!) with questions following.
One other point, keep your speaker busy, but not too busy. For instance if I was to bring Alan Cox in to my hometown I'd have to consider the 8 hour time difference. Somehow we would have to give him time adjust. Then various activities. Some time should be spent with users (In Alan's case your probably ahve a kernel hacker with an interesting problem!). Also plan time for other things. Someone should take him to the local zoo, or a similear activity so he doesn't get burned out. Don't forget time to exercise and time alone!
Do you want to invite family? Linus is much more likely to want to speak in Norway if you fly his wife and kid out too, and give them plenty of time to travel to Finland.
Overall guest speakers are a lot of fun, and well worth doing. however they are expensive (More so if you have to pay the speaker and not just the travel expenses) and a lot of work. Don't try to do more then one or two a year, and don't let those who orginize it get bruned out.
RMS @ Alaska (Score:2)
That's a little overboard. (Score:1)
Even if all they do is tell their story, you will probably learn from it, as long as they can speak decently enough. I've never heard a firsthand account of the whole Open Source development process from someone who worked on a project not as formal as the Linux kernel, but which still required some kind of "team". I'd like to hear how it got started, how the others got involved, how they interact, and what problems they encounter. Then I'd like to ask questions. Anybody wanna come to Rutgers and do this?
ESR! (Score:2)
And he doesn't like to fly coach on long flights, but you shouldn't have that problem as he lives in Pennsylvania, fairly close to the Lehigh Valley area if I am not mistaken.
But if you're going to have anyone speak, you gotta get ESR.
And maybe you can invite RMS, but only to kill him when he gets there. =)
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
inspiration not such a bad thing (Score:2)
As a Potential Speaker... :) (Score:2)
Hehe you get involved in one little book [fatbrain.com] project and suddenly find yourself interesting.
Seriously, though, I love to make myself available to user groups when travelling, like I did when I came down here to Dallas in May for a friend's wedding (the fact that I found a job here and wound up moving back is another story). I suspect most authors, open-source-project-leaders, et al have similar attitudes: catch me when I happen to be in Pennsylvania (or wherever), and I'd love to give a presentation.
OF course, that makes it incumbent upon us (as potential speakers) to publicize our travel plans, a la Randal Schwartz [stonehenge.com] -- something I'm guilty of neglecting myself, and I should probably get around to updating. Taking it a step further though, that makes for a lot of work on the part of the program chair of a user group: you still have to wade through all of the homepages of each potential speaker until you find one who will happen to be in the neighborhood. Perhaps someone would like to undertake building a "Random Sightings" website where people who wouldn't mind giving talks while travelling could enter their travel info into a database (and prog chairs could subsequently browse the same)?
MOO;IANAL.
Re:It's a very simple concept (Score:2)
The first time I went to my local users group meeting there was a wonderful presentation on shell scripting. So far so good. That was followed by this AWFUL social gathering where no one made any attempt to socialize with anybody new. (Except for this fat man in a purple shirt who kept hitting on me. Ugh.) I didn't go back for months, and now I only go to the meeting and I skip the social thing afterward.
I mean, sure geek, sure poorly socialized, but the first meeting was as close to hazing as I ever want to see.
Who needs the "next" anyone? (Score:2)
Suggestions (Score:2)
2. Contact local Linux companies. Fortunately for us in Indianapolis, Ian Murdock (founder of Debian), works here in Indianapolis (he's President of Progeny Linux Systems [progenylinux.org])
3. Contact Linux developers within a few hours travelling distance. NLUG collected money to bring a window manager developer to Nashville from Alabama.
4. University community - Scores of students at my university were Linux users and probably would love to give presentations on their areas of expertise. Perhaps your campus has a similar concentration of Linux users.
Speakers (Score:1)
'CRS'! A great presentation, and who would admit
to NOT liking games!
Re:Money isn't a big deal - RMS (Score:3)
However, he adjusts his fee to the economic means of his host and is willing (and appears to prefer) to have someone put him up for a night rather than incur the expense of a hotel room (though he is alergic to cats).
In short, if he's in your city anyway, and you're willing to put him up, it would probably not be a great expense to have him speak. I would reccomend though, that you permit him to collect donations for the FSF, or sell FSF wares if you can't come up with a reasonable (say $500) speaker's fee.
He is not as unreasonable as his reputation makes him out to be, is a great speaker, and can be contacted by email (Check the GNU website for an email address).
Re:I've been wondering the same thing... (Score:1)
and that in itself attracts some people to the meeting, and also works out good for the place, since some of our members pay to play after the meetings.
Getting a good relationship with a local company that you can benefit each other is very important, IMO.
Why not? (Score:2)
For the tech group, we invited people from Microsoft, but warned them that they will be shreded if they only brought marketing types.
We also provided Microsoft with a pool of beta people (when beta really meant beta). We had the founders NuMega, but had a little debugging tutorial first. We had the president of Knowledge Dynamics (Install Pro) give a presentation on compression. This included a presentation on his new technique which was to be included in the next version of the product.
You can expect some marketing, but you must let them know what is expected. They will also want to know the demographics of the group.
Why Speakers and ESR (Score:1)
Now LuFOG has lost a little steam and were looking to charge it back up. We tried having internal people speak and well... I have as much inflection as Ben Stein, so that didn't work out. Joe was a pretty good speaker (he better be if he wants to do sales) and ESR was very good (and we got credit for Software Engr. class for attending). We want more, not just for us but for the university to get exposure.
BTW we can indeed lobby for money if the speaker is worth it. I don't want us to sound to poor because were not, we just have to beg for what we have.
Aron
Apachecon and other conferences (Score:1)
Re:Ask Gore (Score:1)
Re:Look for abbreviations... (Score:1)
RMS also spoke here, but I didn't organize it. I'm sure the experience on that engagement was similar to my own.
Another thing worth considering is contacting large technology companies. Or even big companies in general. For example, right now I work for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter [msdw.com] IT, and they have a research department that does cutting-edge clustering and operating system research with Linux, Solaris, IRIX, and other stuff. Big companies may be willing to send a knowledgeable someone to your LUG, possibly as part of a recruitment event. I find that things like this can give you a real perspective on how Linux and other projects pan out in the non-academic world.
Use your politicians! (Score:3)
As Executive Vice-President of the University of Alabama in Huntsville's Student Government Association [uah.edu] (*waves to all the UAH /.ers*), I'd give you this to-do list:
Remember, just ask a poor, tired SGA EVP if ya need some help [mailto].
--
Women at LUGs (Score:2)
--
An abstained vote is a vote for Bush and Gore.
Linux Journal (Score:1)
Technology Evangelists Abound (Score:1)
How the Bucknell ACM Gets Speakers... (Score:1)
As Treasurer of the Bucknell University ACM [bucknell.edu] (Association for Computing Machinery [acm.org]), myself and the other officers help to persuade industry, faculty, and students computer experts or evangelists to (of OOP, OSS, Linux, etc) come to Bucknell to give a presentation. In the past year or so, we've had guests like Dan Quinlan [pathname.com] of Transmeta [transmeta.com], speaking on the Linux Standards Base [linuxbase.org], Ralph Droms (inventor of DHCP [dhcp.org]), a faculty member at Bucknell, John 'Maddog' Hall [li.org] (Linux International [li.org] executive director) on the Flexibility of the Linux OS, and many others. Currently, Eric S. Raymond [tuxedo.org] has added us to his mailing list and will probably come Spring semester to talk about his ideals and beliefs when it comes to software.
What are our methods of obtaining guests? First, it helps to have some connections with someone related to the person you'd like a have speak at your school. Second, being at a top-notch college like Bucknell University tends to give some incentive, perhaps, for people to visit. Finally, persistance does pay off occassionally; if there's someone you really want, make sure you remind them via email or vmail every so often that you'd be absolutely delighted to have them grace you with their presence ;-D
Good luck!
______________________________
Eric Krout
CmdrTaco (Score:1)
Marcus Ranum (Score:1)
Re:One thing's for sure: (Score:1)
Money Mightned be a problem (Score:1)
I don't know how they did it, but.. (Score:1)
Some pieces of advice (Score:2)
Re:What's wrong (Score:1)
I see both sides of the issue. IMHO whether or not OS is right for a project depends on a number of different varibles.
However, it is hard to predict which project is which, and like pyscho-history the acts of an individual can skew predictions. In other words you never know til you try.
Funny you mention this (Score:3)
Unfortunately, the fellow from the LUG who emailed me never replied to my followup.
m.
Loki Software, Inc.
Kent Beck very good speaker. (Score:1)
All around a great lecture, would recommend him to any UG, even though he is not directly a speaker about Linux.
Re:Bill Joy of Microsoft -- Stephenson (Score:1)
Appearing with him was Bruce Schneier (of Counterpane fame) who also discussed the Cryptonomicon appendix about encryption; he seemed like a really nice, uber-hacker kinda guy. If you're interested in security, etc. I say get Bruce!
Re:Alan Cox (Score:2)
Absolutely. He's brilliant. In fact, it seems like all the top people in Linux are brilliant speakers. Which came first, the brilliant speaking or the high position in the meritocracy?
--
Re:It's a very simple concept (Score:1)
Linux Speakers Bureau (Score:1)
But the bottom line is to go to the site, look around, and start asking people.
DO NOT BOOK ESR (was "Re:ESR") (Score:5)
As is the tradition, we decided to try to sell T-Shirts to help pay for things. I paid for these out of my own pocket. More on this later.
I happened to be the person with a car who had the lightest schedule that day (I'd only have to miss one class to pick him up), so as soon as my class was out I picked up the person who had arranged ESR's visit and we drove the 80 miles to the airport as quickly as possible.
When we got to the airport, we searched the airport from top to bottom. No ESR. We talked to a series of airline employees trying to find out if they had any idea what happened to him. About an hour after we got to the airport we finally got someone to tell us that he never got on the plane. After more inquiry to see if he had for some reason switched flights (he didn't) and after checking voice mail to see if he had let us know he wouldn't be there (he didn't) we drove home.
Then I spent about an hour trying to get him on the phone. Here's a little tidbit: most people who answer phones at VALinux don't even know who he is, and those who do don't have ANY idea how to get in touch with him.
I finally gave up and went to class. Later (much later) that afternoon, we finally got an email from him. His explanation was that he "forgot", but that if we would buy another ticket for him he still MIGHT be able to make it. This was about 16 hours before the symposium was scheduled to start. Even if we could have gotten tickets at that point, we wouldn't be able to afford them.
Being the honest people we are, we notified everyone that ESR would in fact not be attending. As a result, there are still 90 T-Shirts left over (anyone want to buy one?).
[Luckily, another person involved in the event (thanks Andy!) got a hold of someone to fill in (who did a great job), which combined with the rest of the talks we had made a great conference.]
Only pay for his trip, eh? Let's see:
Plane tickets: $350
T-Shirts: $400 - $100 for the t-shirts we actually sold
Other: ~$150
PLUS at least two people wasting 10 hours combined just on ESR arrangements.
What did we get? Not a damn thing. I'm still out $400.
Thanks a lot ESR.
Sometimes, all ya gotta do is ask (Score:2)
Available speakers (Score:1)
It makes things real simple if your group meets on a regular basis, that way we can work with people
to schedule meetings in a sort of road trip format. Regardless of size or scheduling, we're
always willing to try and work out visits whenever we can.
The best way to contact us is via email to community@valinux.com [mailto]
--Kit
Director of Community Projects
Your .sig is broken. Here's a patch. (Score:1)
Shouldn't it be:
There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and BSD. We don't believe this to be a coincidence.
Re:PSU Lug (Score:1)
It helps to have a diverse member base. (Score:2)
We'd still have our planned speaker for meeting [talking about some random module / feature], but Nat also gave us a small talk about as to what was going on with Perl and showed us pictures of his kid, and all it cost us was keeping him in beer for the night.
If you increase your members, and they're varied [work for different companies, go to different schools, etc], you have a better chance of knowing when someone's going to be in the area anyway, and snagging them to come give a talk.
Re:perhaps you need to realign your perception (Score:1)
What I generally look for before I speak (Score:4)
I have a baby at home and in general try to only take a trip once a month. I have recently had to turn down a user group, well in advance of the event, simply because my schedule got too tight.
I look with especial kindness upon speaking engagements that are willing to pay for my wife and child to come with me, and will in general go out of my way to give them more than one talk, etc. If we can do a bit of sightseeing around the thing, it becomes something fun rather than another out-and-back trip with me missing the travel days away from my family.
I always show up. Always. That's pretty basic responsibility, but some people get that wrong and make us look bad.
Thanks
Bruce
Re:What I generally look for before I speak (Score:3)
Thanks
Bruce
Guest Speakers Come With _IDEAS_ (Score:2)
You won't accomplish "success" merely by breathing the air that ESR has belched, and the cost of arranging for a "celebrity" will far outweigh the value in most cases.
On the other hand, it is a good idea to pull in people with new and interesting ideas.
There are all sorts of interesting sorts of projects out there that it would be nice to discuss with one of those involved.
- People use XFree86; it would be interesting to hear about various aspects of it, whether about the technologies of the components, or about the way the project is organized vis-a-vis licensing, source code control, and "politics."
- My LUG's last guest speaker was the organizer of LiViD; he spoke on both the technologies involved, as well as the legal wranglings surrounding DeCSS. Most excellent.
If the goal is to feel important because we got Linus to come out, that represents a pretty crummy reason.It doesn't take Dirk Hoendel to discuss that; almost anybody on the team could have useful insights. Other members of the team might actually be on the same continent.
If the goal is to learn something, then it most certainly is valuable to get speakers from remote places so that the local group doesn't get overly parochial or provincial.
A good comparison here is with academic institutions where they try to pull in guests for seminars and lectures. This helps "diversify the gene pool of ideas," where the alternatives can tend towards a sort of "academic inbreeding."
(Grumble... I need to put together a topic or three myself; the last time I presented anything locally was my Internet Filtering [hex.net] talk of 1997; I should probably put a couple of generic talks together that could allow me to candidate for this sort of thing... Have laptop, will travel...)
Expected answer (Score:2)
Not a chance in hell. (Linus)
Not a problem at all. It's a LUG, so I will speak for free. Be sure of taking car of everything, I don't bring money, I don't use credit cards. Buy a business class ticket, the travel is long, you know, and I need to plug my RedHat/VA Linux notebook, I don't have time to sleep, evangelism is so hard. (Eric Raymond)
I hope not to find any commercial ads in the conference room. Don't invite ESR to speak in the same day. KDE sucks. Qt is evil. I know nothing about linux, I can talk about GNU/Linux. (Richard Stallman)
Do I have to talk about 3Com drivers? (Donald Becker)
Mamma mia, I won't be able, I am still implementing triple elevator algorithm with a single pointer buffer cache and page colouring. The I will spend my whole holidays correcting the bigs in my code and then a couple of week until I finish uploading them with my stupid 56Kmodem. Porca miseria, la madonna. (Andrea Arcangeli)
Re:It's a very simple concept (Score:2)
--
The antidote (Score:5)
Now I've just gotta get a similar group started in the town where I've moved...
Network, network, network (Score:2)
If any of the Melbourne, Australia LUGs want somebody to speak on GnuCash, I'm available :)
Just get local folks with knowlege (Score:2)
We get locals to speak. Generaly, we post requests
for speakers to the local email lists and at times
we solicit for speaker. There's little reason to
fly someone out when there are probobly interesting and informative resources right in your community.
In our LUG, anyone can do a talk and we divide our meetings up into two presentations: A KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) talk, which is a simple 30 minute introduction to some basic Linux area, and a main presentation which is usualy somewhere between 1 and 2 hours.
The KISS presentation is generaly done by and for newbies in order to get folks into presenting and to encourage participation. The idea is to introduce something and discuss a bit. Additional resources are given to help people to persue it on their own.
The main is usualy (but not necessarily) by an expert or guru and is a more detailed discussion.
Hope this helps.
Check out
http://clue.denver.co.us
Re:DO NOT BOOK ESR (was "Re:ESR") (Score:2)
What's your response to this ESR?
Re:ESR! (Score:2)
Sounds like a MasterCard ad... (Score:2)
Plane tickets for ESR to forget to use: $350
Unsold t-shirts made to hype the event: $300
Gas and chow to fetch nobody at the airport: $150
Damage to your group's reputation: priceless.
Guest speakers (Score:2)
For the past two years we have scheduled weekly meetings. During these weekly meetings we have members of the group talk about some aspect of Linux, Unix, Open Source, etc. One week we'll have a talk about jargon, the next a talk about XFS and of course have the occassional Installfest. We use these talks in order to not only keep ourselves interested, but to bring new Linux users and Freshmen "up to speed" with what's going on in the Linux world.
Lately, we've seemed to attract someone "big" speakers... granted they aren't of the calibre of ESR and RMS, but it's still exciting for us. What we've been doing is in fact inviting alumni of the University working in Industry to demonstrate some of their Open Source projets, or to discuss coding techniques, etc. A lot of good sources are companies that folks have worked a co-op or summer internship for. Also, we ask faculty to present something relevant to the group. Finally, we'll ask local business leaders and companies if they'd be interested in speaking.
Want a really "big" speaker? How about combining efforts with another local LUG to perhaps entice a big name individual to come to town? Publicize the hell out of it and, if you're successful, it'll be a heck of a lot easier to get another speaker to show up.
So I guess my advice is this: Look local. You'll find a lot of capable individuals with a lot to say. It will help them because then they'll know who to recruit and it will help you because you'll know something you didn't before and might have the chance to work for a great company that embraces Open Source.
Reminds me of a Story . . . (Score:2)
> wrong in any group of computerphiles? Somebody smack those idiots.)
Something like 15 years ago, I had the chance to meet Douglas Adams at a book-signing here in Portland. (Lookingglass Bookstore -- cool establishment, worth delaying the eventual trip to Powell's to visit.)
When I arrived with the 3 volumes of his Hitchhiker's trilogy for him to autograph (the fourth had yet to be published), I noticed that there was a chorus of 3 ``smart-alecky geeks" standing to one side, in awe of him. (I had the impression that if given the sign, they would have fallen to their knees & recited parts of the book to him in prayerful supplication.) Needless to say, they were there only because he could not summon himself to demand they be chased away.
(For the curious, Adams is quite taller in Real Life than he appears in his photographs. He wore a leather jacket, & looked rather athletic to me at the time.)
When it came my turn for him to autograph the books, I got to ask him two questions:
Question one: ``So what did you write for Monty Python?"
(The liner notes for one of the books I owned had claimed he had worked for Python et Co.)
His face brightened, & he explained that he had worked for Python for only ``a lunchtime" at the bequest of Terry Gilliam, who apparently was a friend of his. It was just something his publicist had elaborated on, much as publicists elaborate about Bill Gate's programming skills.
Encouraged, I asked my second question: ``So will you write another book in the series?"
At this point, he lost his smile, & his interest in me. I forget exactly what he said, but it was along the lines of ``maybe".
``And you'll explain the story of the creature Arthur Dent keeps killing in each reincarnation?" I added, desperate to reclaim his approval.
``Yes, yes," he murmurred, already attending to the next person in line. As far as he was concerned, I was just another one of the chorus of ``smart-alecky geeks" he didn't have the feck to have chased away.
Since then, I have seen how authors throw up an amazingly artificial & off-putting persona around themselves when they meet their readers. I'm sure that Adams was doing roughly the same thing to me all of those years ago. But if I had to put a moral to my little (& doubtlessly off-topic) story, it would be this: you will always be a ``smart-alecky geeks with the nervous sniff and inability to shut up when he is wrong" to someone. So when you are presented with such a creature, deal nicely with this person, for he/she is simply trying to gain your approval in the only way he/she knows how.
And if you figure out how to do this successfully, please let me know how to do it.
Geoff
Re:ESR (Score:2)
I wrote him an e-mail asking him to come, and he wrote me an e-mail back saying "Okay." After negotiating the costs of airfare and doing a little publicity, things were all set.
A month or so later, there I am, with Eric Raymond sitting in my passenger seat on the way back from the airport, an unfinished "Halloween Document" in his bag and lots of good stories to tell.
We hung out, had dinner, he slept in a guestroom at a prof's house, and the next day, there he was speaking to a group of folks interested in open source in some way or another.
It was a surprisingly straightforward visit to organize. I attribute this in part to ESR's flexibility and adaptability, and in part to the notion that people who have something interesting to say and people who want to hear something interesting will find each other pretty well on their own.
I dont think so. (Score:2)
He of course had a talk and hang out with the local LUG. Even released a new Fetchmail version right here from my home network. He never, at any moment, forgot any part of his schedule.
Anyway, if you have any experience making these kind of events you should know already that this things happen quite often, and most important, you should call your speaker two or one day before the day of the event.
The people who are common speakers at events like this have the tendency to be very busy people, you _should_ know that, and if this thing happened to you, in part is your fault, not ESR, because if you had established a good relation with your speaker, this thing would never happened.
I dont believe you are making a proper judgement on ESR, and, more important, Who the hell are you to judge Eric ? Eric as far as I got to know him, was a all-around nice guy, and that's the impression he left to most of the local LUG members.
Francisco Romo Alfaro
President, ITESM MTY Linux User's Group
Re:I dont think so. (Score:2)
Come to think of it, the people who answer the phone at VA probably couldn't find me or Rob Malda very easily, either. We don't have VA phone extensions or any of that.
Use email. Usually works better than phones anyway in this circle.
- Robin
Ralph Engelschall (was Re:Alan Cox) (Score:2)
This week at ApacheCon Europe I listened to Ralph Engelschall [engelschall.com] (mod_ssl [modssl.org], mod_rewrite [apache.org], etc) speak. He was speaking in English, which (seeing he's Swiss) must be his third or fourth language. He was talking about SSL and security, which is a deep technical topic. He was lively, witty, inspiring, fun. He obviously enjoyed himself. He obviously knew his topic inside out. And he was able to communicate both his enjoyment and his knowledge.
I think what it comes down to is the meritocracy. Ralph Engelschall, like Alan Cox, got to his position in the meritocracy because he produces exceedingly could code ('damned cool voodoo'). You need to be pretty brilliant to produce code at that level, and many (though not all) pretty brilliant people are good speakers.
Doesn't always cost much (Score:2)
Having a good web page that is listed on GLUE [linuxjournal.com] is a good first step; it lets them find you.
If a conference of any sort is going to be in your area, check the guest list, and email any that appear interesting.
Don't be afraid to ask your members if they know anyone; the Orlando LUG got Ian Kluft to come speak that way, and unfortunately we had to turn down Chris DiBona but he contacted us because of a VA staffer in the LUG.
Don't be afraid to email anyone; the worst they can do is delete it unread, and you haven't wasted much time in that case.
That being said, don't be a cheap bastard, either; if your LUG can afford to pay for speakers, do so. Otherwise they might have to start charging for software to make a buck.
Oh; and watch for businesses in your area that may be in the Linux arena, they aften have contacts you don't, and will probably have interesting speakers on staff.
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