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Re: Meeting Programming OS 9 or X? (from 7/9)
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Re: Meeting Programming OS 9 or X? (from 7/9)


  • Subject: Re: Meeting Programming OS 9 or X? (from 7/9)
  • From: email@hidden
  • Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 22:08:50 -0400

John Graham wrote:

On Tuesday, July 9, 2002, at 01:04 a, email@hidden
wrote:

Are any of you concerning yourself with how to appeal to the OS X users
while
not driving off those who don't use it and don't plan to, and vice
versa? Richard,

I not only wrestle with this issue with the membership but the Board, as
well. I'm thinking of suggesting that 'Classic' users become a separate
SIG. This way, I can hopefully attract new members who are in the sphere
of X.

We've been fortunate enough that our group has been doing a mix of 9 and X,
and the local NeXT users group has now switched to be a X users group. So
anyone looking for advanced X discussions are referred to that group.

John G

Read this recently and thought it spoke so well to the discussion of developing meeting programming OS 9 vs X.

"It's easy to practice something
you're already good at
and that's what most people do.
What's tough is to go out
and work hard on things
you don't do very well." Pete Rose

Right now, the majority of us in the user group community are struggling with the comfort, experience and knowledge levels of previous operating systems as compared to the newness and complexity of dealing with OS X, and it underlying Unix language.

But I don't think that not having the discussions at meetings and separating into SIGs is a good idea overall. Like all things, change takes time and sometimes involves a big learning curve at the beginning. Eventually things will progress as more and more of us become familiar with the new technologies and just by the overall "cool!" factor of seeing what the new brings about.

We all want to just continue to "DO" with our Macs. And if whether we are doing by using OS 7, 8, 9 or X, we will all continue to learn and "just work" with what we have. After all, how many of us still have an older computer around running older software that is still viable? Many of us I am sure. And we would not throw then away...so why have the same attitudes for the discussions at our meetings?

It's by no means an easy process to bring the differing ways of completing tasks and finding old and new ideas for our meetings, but maybe just seeing the new ways (that are not really that much different, just "improved") of working will aid us to move forward into the future of a more mature OS X world.

There is a lot of talk about helping our users migrate. That is well and good. But we don't need to force it or separate it from the overall meeting format. Our attitudes should be that were all okay with the past, present and future. If at any time we take the stance that "I'm okay, you're not okay" or "I'm not okay, you're okay", then we either set our selves up as leaders of despair under the first scenario or egotistical leaders who always know better than others, or believe that they do by rising above the rest by their views and putting the rest down. To be successful at a transition, we need to make goals that will help our user groups advance in small steps improving skills in using the newer OS. This will not be an overnight transformation and it would not be fair to our most basic users to try to set the goals within the groups at so high a level that they are out of visible reach for some of our members.

There will always be those who are more knowledgeable and as such, they tend to be the ones that adopt rapidly and at an often incomprehensible pace to those with lesser know-how. Those more novice members need to be gradually groomed to try new things. If you move too fast, there is the chance that you will lose their interest or alienate them by making them feel inferior and not important to the overall welfare of the group. If that happens, your membership will begin to dwindle which the exact opposite of what one is trying to accomplish.

The unfortunate part in all this is that things are changing so fast with the current operating system. Here we are due to have a new release, Jaguar 10.2, on the 24th, and we are already hearing news of an update to that due out in January, Pinot. We're barely getting a chance to calm our breaths and get settled with OS X 10.1.x! Not all of our user groups are ready for such a pace in changes. As such, determining goals that meet the immediate and the possible future should help give a direction to what is decided to be provided at UG meetings.

Just a few thoughts. I'd also had another email with umpteen paragraphs that got lost in the webmail ether, that was better written than this. Boy, aren't you glad that it went on permanent vacation somewhere!

Macbeth
NCMUG of OH!
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