Presidential Ramblings

 

Issue 1.1

April 2005

I have a confession to make… I’d rather be golfing! Unfortunately, as I’m writing this Mother Nature and her pal Old Man Winter have just finished dumping 4 or 5 inches of new powder on Connecticut… Boo!… Hiss!. At this rate, I won’t able to put a peg in the ground until May. Ok, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way let’s get down to business.
I’ve spent the last few days trying to come up with a topic for my inaugural president’s column. And after careful consideration, I’ve settled on something that’s been on my mind for a while.

The State of User Groups
The state of computer user groups is troubled. Over last several years DACS, like most user groups, has seen its membership rolls slowly shrink, from a high of roughly 900 to its current level of about 350.
What’s happened? The conventional wisdom says the Internet has replaced user groups as the premier forum for computer users to network, to share information and ideas, and to learn about their hardware and software. Personally, I’m not convinced the conventional wisdom is true.
There’s no doubt that the Internet revolution has had an impact on computer users groups. But the net alone isn’t the reason for shrinking membership rolls and declining meeting attendance.
So what is the cause? In short, we won. The revolution that we started and drove is over! We’ve made the personal computer ubiquitous, and now we’re trying to figure out how to remain relevant in the world we helped create.
Personally, I think user groups are more important today than they have ever been. Why? Because there are millions of computer users out there who have fallen into “the computer is just another consumer electronics appliance” trap. These folks, by and large, don’t know how their new appliance works or how to properly maintain it. All they know is that it is helping them educate the kids, balance their check book, stay informed, and a dozen or so other things that make their lives better. Unfortunately, no one told them about spyware, viruses, hard drive failures, and a dozen or so other things that can render their new appliance useless.
It’s up to the user group community to reach out to these folks and educate them. My first official act as DACS president is to appoint a DACS Community Ambassador to do just that. That ambassador is YOU. Reach out to friends, family and colleagues, and bring them to a DACS meeting. We all know someone who’s had their computer compromised by a virus or spyware and spent days scratching their head wondering what to do. Bring them into the DACS family. Not only will we try to help them solve their current problem we’ll give them the tools to avoid trouble in the future.
Well that’s it for my inaugural column. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, you can reach me at jasetaro@mags.net or jasetaro@yahoo.com.

Cheers!

—Jeff Setaro


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