President's Message

June 1998

As you know, when June rolls around, the big computer news is PC Expo in New York, which will be held June 16-18. With more new product launchings than any other computer trade event, this year's Expo should be another eye opener. Keynote speakers from Compaq, Novell, Merrill Lynch, Intel and CNET: The Computer Network, will provide their personal insights on what's in store for the millennium, while Fortune Magazine will be hosting a roundtable on Merced, a
new 64-bit Intel chip that could end-run Windows and NT, and launch Unix as the operating system for the twenty-first century for business computing and perhaps PCs as well.

While it may be late for getting free passes to the event (You can apply on the Web site until June 5 and wait in line to pick them up), there is still time to get on the DACS Expo bandwagon. Once again, we will have a presence (Booth #1658), and volunteers are still welcome. Contact Jeff Setaro at jasetaro@sprynet.com, and be prepared to get up early to meet the bandwagon
across from the bus station at Exit 2, I-84.

InterGalactic events

PC Expo is also the occasion for the annual InterGalactic User Group Officers' Conference, now in its eleventh year. This event is a great opportunity for user group leaders to share ideas' and of course to get free software. It is also a chance to strut our stuff. Four years ago, dacs.doc took first place for its size category in the InterGalactic newsletter competition, and we have also received top awards for our coverage of group events and for our Web page. This year we will be back again, but the competition is stiff and we face many groups with far larger membership and significant corporate sponsorship. Whether we place this year or not, we can all be proud of the quality of our published output and the praise we get from other user group leaders every time we come to InterGalactic. Many thanks are due to Frances Owles, Marc Cohen, Jeff Setaro, and Marlene Gaberel for their dedicated work on the newsletter and Web site.

Down to earth with UG

InterGalactic is sponsored by the Association of PC User Groups (APCUG), an organization which represents more than 300 member groups and 300,000 computer users worldwide. Traditionally APCUG has held a separate presence at the rival Spring Comdex event, but this year it has opted to tie into the doings at PC Expo. A pre-Expo meeting for user group leaders will be held June 14-15 at the New Yorker Hotel, just four blocks from the Javits convention center. Then for
the next three days, APCUG will be active at PC Expo with numerous vendor-sponsored events. If you want to get aboard, look up the Association's Web site at www.apcug.org.

A precious but fragile resource

These events spotlight the widespread activities and influence user groups have in the computer industry. But it could be different. The prestigious Boston Computer Society once boasted 30,000 members worldwide, with more than 300,000 signed on at one time or another. Yet in 1996 the society signed off, having suffered a precipitous drop in membership and financial decline. Rising swiftly from around 100 in 1991, DACS' membership peaked at just under 900 two years ago, but has since slipped to around 600 today. Our database counts more than 2,800 current and past members, so it takes little math to figure that many have taken a brief sampling and just moved on.

What accounts for this? Many have moved or taken jobs elsewhere. Although user groups were once the primary purveyors of new tech information, computer news and advice saturates the media, while the Internet has coopted the role of nursemaid to the uninitiated. As a result the BBS, once the shareware horn of plenty, has shriveled and dried up. Many user groups have suffered from volunteer burnout and a creeping irrelevance to changing times. DACS has moved to stem this riptide by adding more services for its new members and by unleashing immense volunteer effort. But we need your help. One way is to tell your friends about DACS and its award-winning newsletter and about its great programs, informed help services, and community involvement. And then tell them it's all done by volunteers.

Next month, after sharing ideas with other UG leaders' and playing around with all that free software, I will share with you some more thoughts on how you can be a part of the DACS resurgence.

-Allan Ostergren
dacsprez@aol.com


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