[wplug-plan] PR committee

[Bill Moran]

Vance Kochenderfer <vkochend at nyx.net> wrote:
> Thanks for the responses.  To answer your last point, Dave,
> procedural issues weren't really my concern.  (Although on that
> topic, it might be a good idea to make the WPLUG Vice-Chair an
> ex-officio member of any PR committee.)

I hadn't thought of that, and it sounds like a good idea.

> What I had trouble with was figuring out what the committee
> would actually *do*.  Outreach events, like Marketpro shows or
> Software Freedom Day, already seem to fall under the scope of
> the program committee (and of course nothing says you have to
> be a member of that committee to help out at an event!).
> 
> I feel that inter-LUG communications and contacts with possible
> partners/sponsors are sufficiently high-level that the board is
> going to be involved anyway.  So in that case a committee would
> tend to be duplicative.

Possibly.  This, however, is only one function of the PR committee.
A single amendment could remove this from the charter and not
significantly change the committee.

Also, it's not specifically inter-LUG.  The charter is written to
coordinate with other Open Source organizations - which could be
BUGs, Free speech groups, or groups that we haven't thought of yet.
Taken from that view, it could become an overwhelming job to manage
all these relationships, and one of the goals of the new government
is to avoid one person with too many duties.

> Don't get me wrong; I agree with the view that PR is an
> important and under-served function right now.  My main concern
> is whether a new committee is the right way to go, or if it
> would work better to have the board set PR as a priority and
> work with the program, newsletter, internet, and ErieLUG
> committees to achieve that.
> 
> IMO, it's important that any new committee that is created
> expand participation.  It does little good to have 27 different
> committees if they all draw from the same pool of 10 people.

>From the past two paragraphs, I'll say that names have been tossed
my way of people who would be interested in being part of a PR
committee.  Those people are not currently on any committee, which
(to me) means that the org would benefit from increased participation
if we had such a new committee.

> If you've ever worked in a decent-sized company, you've probably
> seen slogans like "safety is everybody's job."  The idea being
> that just because there's someone who's the safety guy, doesn't
> mean you don't have to watch out for hazards.  I'd like to make
> sure we don't give the impression to the members that PR is
> someone else's job.

Yes, but there is _still_ a "safety officer" or someone like that.
And I agree PR _is_ everyone's job, but I think it's a big enough
and important enough function to have a centralized authority to
manage it.

On a strictly technical level, the board has already voted to
present this recommendation to the membership.  The membership must
approve it, as the board can't create committees.  It's open to debate,
amendment, and even rejection by the membership.  The board, unanimously,
thought it was a good idea.  The membership may not.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com