[Osia-members] OSIA Membership Value & AOSD
GPCS - Grant Petch
gpcs at internode.on.net
Fri Jan 5 18:58:19 AEDT 2018
Hi Simran & Others,
Please accept my apologies as my intention was certainly NOT to come
across in an arrogant manner, but the complete opposite. For those
people who do know me better, know that being arrogant is not part of my
personality nor do I ever want it to be. I will openly admit that using
a clause like "utter disgust" may have been to brash & have shown little
tact, but I had trouble in thinking of what other wording could have
been used in the instance. When these situations arise I am known to be
rather direct with my wording, please realise that none of it was aimed
at any individual or as a personal attack on anyone in our group. If
you read past this and into the message you will see that I am trying to
make some valid points and also trying to contribute something further
so that any future versions of AOSD can be improved for the better of
everyone who wants to use and participate in it.
So far I've also read a reply from Jack Burton, and thanks Jack for
making some other points that I might have not thought of in my email.
Thanks for raising this.
Warmest Regards,
Grant
On 05/01/18 12:35, simran wrote:
> Hi Grant,
>
> Although i have no doubt you meant the email as a productive source of
> information; it comes across as nothing but arrogant!
>
> How are "we" who haven't contributed to the organisation, but just
> been recipients of the benefits (invisible and visible; direct and
> indirect) qualified in any way to proclaim from our high horses what
> the boards should and shouldn't do… rather than mention that the next
> board should read your email because of your enlightened views in
> areas you have obviously made no contribution in (or if you have; your
> email certainly did not indicate so).
>
> I realise the irony and arrogance of my email; but we diminish the
> value of the work that is being done by volunteers (board and
> otherwise) by doing nothing but complaining, so wanted to call it out;
> even though it very much puts me squarely in the arrogant basket myself!
>
> Periodical publications are great, events are great, more FOSS is
> great… but until we contribute, we really are in a place only to
> politely suggest… voicing our "utter disgust" at things is utterly
> disgusting when we have done nothing to contribute.
>
> Oh! The Irony (speaking about what i'm doing via this email of
> course)… it hurts :)
>
> s :)
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 12:42 PM, GPCS - Grant Petch gpcs at internode.on.net
> <mailto:gpcs at internode.on.net> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
> Now I think its time for me to have my 2c worth about OSIA.. Please
>
> note that this is not aimed at our current temporary board of
> directors
>
> who are doing a great job under very difficult circumstances, but is
>
> more of an overview and some generalisations. It would be good for
> this
>
> email to be handed to the new incoming board to look at in the not so
>
> distant future.
>
>
> Firstly; I'm going to voice my utter disgust at the AOSD (Australian
>
> Open Source Directory), before I continue on personally I think
> such a
>
> concept is a great idea, but has been executed very poorly & doesn't
>
> seem to function like I think it should. The whole site looks like
>
> something from the early 1990's which has been designed by some high
>
> school programmer wanna be, to be honest I've met better student
>
> programmers when I was in TAFE back in the early 2000's! Come on
> really
>
> we need to get out act together here as the whole thing doesn't look
>
> that professional. It has useless blank entries, little to no
> ability
>
> to search on specific criteria that some potential clients would
> need to
>
> be doing, difficult in general to navigate around, and even I
> couldn't
>
> sign my own business up to it as a current financial OSIA member?
> I'm
>
> sure that some of you out there could find some more issues on it
> that
>
> need to be addressed sooner than later.
>
>
> Secondly; on the issue of membership value I've noticed this dwindle
>
> quite sharply in more recent years. I initially joined OSIA in
> its more
>
> active and prime back around 2006, or somewhere around this point in
>
> time. Around this point in time I personally felt that there was
> a much
>
> better level of member engagement, with a more wider showcase of
>
> activities for members to be involved with and actively
> participate in.
>
> Late last year I read an email on this list that Aimee-Marie
> posted and
>
> she did raise a few good points around this area of membership value,
>
> and would like to thank her for taking the time out to do so in
> her busy
>
> schedule.
>
> Yes, noted that there is the need to lobby governments & don't get me
>
> wrong its fantastic that we have some members who are very passionate
>
> about this, but don't feel that OSIA should just solely be
> focusing in
>
> this area. I'm sure that there are other members who would like
> to be
>
> engaging and being passionate about other areas of the Open Source
>
> Industry. Over the years there have been some great member events
> with
>
> some very thought provoking guest speakers, which have also provided
>
> members with an effective way to network with each other - and these
>
> events have been held in other states other than the eastern
> states. It
>
> would be good to see some of these events return & be held in various
>
> states around the country. I also recall a few years after I joined
>
> that OSIA had presence at some IT trade shows one of them being
> CeBit.
>
> I do realise that this take time, money & effort but is a good way
> for
>
> our organisation to be in the public eye along with also letter other
>
> industry people know of our existence, and a way of trying to recruit
>
> new members. Can we maybe try doing something like this again in
> the future?
>
> Perhaps could we also consider running some sort of low key
> seminars /
>
> workshops that our membership could benefit from being involved with
>
> doing. Obviously keeping them low key would also be a good way of
>
> keeping costs to a much more reasonable level.
>
> In some other IT organisations that I've been a member of in past
> years
>
> they have produced some form of periodical publication which members
>
> felt that they had something in their hand of which their annual
>
> membership fees were being put to good use, and they were getting a
>
> little something back for their membership. I can't recall OSIA
> having
>
> anything of this nature since I've been a member - but I do stand
> to be
>
> corrected if I'm wrong in this instance. I do recall OSIA publishing
>
> some case studies back a few years ago which was a good step in the
>
> right direction, but nothing more seemed to come out from this. I do
>
> know that such publications aren't that cheap to produce, so I
> wouldn't
>
> be championing a monthly publication here, but what about considering
>
> either quarterly (4 issues per year), half yearly (2 issues per
> year),
>
> or produce something a little larger in volume for something annual?
>
>
> Anyway just some food for thought. I would like to hear some of your
>
> thoughts, comments, ideas, suggestions around this from our
> membership,
>
> and past leadership of OSIA.
>
>
>
> Warmest Regards,
>
> Grant Petch
>
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