Re: Local Groups
Re: Local Groups
- Subject: Re: Local Groups
- From: Janice Kempf <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 01:13:10 -0700
Hello Claude, Happy to meet you. I've heard many wonderful things about the
SDMUG. LCMUG's former newsletter Editor, Brian Buckman, moved to our area
from SD and shared many stories about your group, which I believe he said
has 400-500 members, IIRC. Brian has now moved to Oregon ....
which gives me a nice segue. Americans are a particularly mobile society.
Take Brian for example, he still follows SDMUG, as well as LCMUG, but he now
lives in Oregon. There are no MUG's within a reasonable driving distance.
So, what fills the void for people like Brian? The internet: forums,
discussion lists, on-line user groups, private MUG discussion lists, e-mail.
Like most current MUG's, LCMUG membership is 95% seniors. Many of them, at
various times, are unable to attend a MUG meeting due to poor health. An
on-line only MUG can be of tremendous benefit to those people, in
partnership with a physical MUG.
Like a lot of groups, we are located in the boondocks. We have a huge lake
in the center, 100 miles in diameter, and to get from point A - B, you have
to drive around Clear Lake. One of our members drives 1 hr. 15 min. to get
to our meetings, for most, it's a 20-30 minute drive. The closest "city" is
65 miles.
Most people are busier now than they have ever been in their life, and time
with their family is precious, so the other part of being a mobile society:
we travel a lot, especially those lucky retired folk, affectionately known
as "Snow Bird" : ) Sometimes they are gone for months at a time. Again,
how do they keep up with what is happening? On-line. When they are in our
area, they attend the physical meetings.
>
Janice,
>
>
One of the most important things our physical group offers is
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interaction with people. Real, face to face, people. That is
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something that can not be replaced by the transfer of digital data as
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in the case of an online only group. People are still the most
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important aspect of the User Group, not just the data available
You have misunderstood what it is that I do, Claude, I am founder and former
Pres., currently Vice President, of Lake County Mac User Group, located in
Clearlake, Ca., in addition to group leader for MacRogues On-line MUG. I
spend a lot of time in the real world MUG environment, as well as the
virtual world. I find that the combination satisfies *every* Mac user, no
matter what their level of computing skills.
Another nice thing about On-Line, people are anonymous. For some, it is
very difficult to ask questions, and draw attention to themselves. They are
afraid of appearing "dumb" in front of their peers.
So both types of MUG's serve "all" types of people, and isn't that what we
ultimately want to do .... serve all Mac users in any way we can?
>
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I'm not sure what the advantages are of an online only group! A
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physical group can offer *everything* that an online group can offer
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as well as face to face communication with warm bodies. It is the
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personal interaction that makes us feel part of the group.
Believe me, the people that are on MacRogues OS X discussion list have a lot
of personal interaction, and many have developed wonderful friendships. I
know I have! It has even carried over to "Buddies" in iChat ; )
>
I belong
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to a bunch of mailing lists, but don't feel anymore "connected" to to
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the other subscribes than I do when reading the newspaper. knowing
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that others are accessing the same information is not the same as
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"interacting".
Yes, that's very true for you, Claude, you are a "people person", however
there are so many different types of people in the world. There are a LOT
of people that do feel part of an on-line community, otherwise the chat
rooms would not be so full, on-line forums would whither and die, and there
would be no on-line MUG's.
We are all Mac users ... we are adaptable, flexible, open-minded,
adventurous, free thinkers, tolerant of change and even pushing for change.
>
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I'm not slamming online only groups. If they work for you, fine. My
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only point is, that they will never replace the personal interaction
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and tutoring that can be had with a physical group.
There will always be physical UG's, just not like it was back in the heydays
of Mac User Groups, "the dark times", when Guy Kawasaki was our hero.
Before the Net became so easy to use, so readily available, before cable and
DSL, we had limited resources from the internet, not to mention painfully
slow analog modems. Who in the heck wanted to get on line!! Yuck! Again,
look at the direction Apple is taking ... the digital hub, networking,
iTools, iDisk, .MAC, on-line software & driver updates. Everything about
Jaguar revolves around connectivity and the internet.
Anyway, we should all be working together, not picking at each other, but
listening to each other. It doesn't matter whether you agree with someone,
we are all entitled to have our opinions. And when we do disagree with each
other, can we let the other person know in a gentler fashion. Let's not be
so quick to attack each others thoughts and opinions. Let's help each
other.
Thanks for listening,
Janice
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Claude Mathis
>
President, San Diego Macintosh User Group
--
"If there are two ways to take something someone said, and one makes you
angry and upset, assume they meant it the other way."
iChat: jkempf (mac.com)
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