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