[CLUE-Talk] Fwd: Re: ITEC

[Jeffery Cann]

I am on a national LUG leaders list and we have been talking about LUGs that 
are involved with ITEC.  The following response describes some great ideas 
for next year, especially if our LUG decides to host a booth.

Jeff

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: Re: ITEC
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 00:42:45 -0600
From: Christine <cfw1 at sluug.org>
To: "'James O'Kane'" <jo2y at midnightlinux.com>
Cc: "lugs at linuxusersgroups.org" <lugs at linuxusersgroups.org>

Okay, but you asked...

First off let me give a general idea of our groups...

Our general group is the Unix Users Group, then we have four LUGs within
our steering committee structure. Our membership base is about 1500 active
(we cull our membership lists ~annually so the numbers are pretty real.) On
top of this we work closely with a variety of other user groups in our
metro/greater metro area. In a sixty mile radius we have at least 8 lugs,
2-3 open source/unix groups and a wide variety of SIG type groups. Most of
these groups are thriving and well attended.

The general group has existed over a decade and has participated in ITEC
almost every year from its inception. This group is also an O'Reilly
reseller, run a bbs, etc. Our first lug, STLLUG, has been thriving with
average monthly attendance of 60 for about five-six years (I'm fuzzy on
when it began), the newbie lug, HZLUG, has been going strong about a year
or two and the last two CWELUG and STCLUG started about six months ago. All
groups have monthly meetings albeit different formats for meetings.

In addition to the meetings and itec activity, we also put on three to four
installfests, and various feature events (for example, hosting Red Hat on
their tour) etc. Our last installfest had beachmasters, three distro rooms,
and four or five presentations during the five hours.

Second, here's some idea of what our group does when it participates in
shows...

Last year we participated in four aspects, booth, seminars, keynote and
association theatre. Again, this is our primary annual membership drive,
open source promo outside of our installfests, etc.

In the booth we distributed a variety of literature including a four page
(11x17, folded) "newsletter" which was our promotional literature for our
various groups, etc We sold books, distributed software and demo'd open
source desktop applications (we had five scheduled, 10-20 minute demos, and
would provide demo's for walk ups additionally) as well as answered a slew
of questions ranging from curiosity to technical support topics.

In two seminar rooms (off the show floor) we provided a variety of open
source topics (two tracks, tech and exec) about 15-17 seminars over the two
day period with duplication on topics like apache, samba, etc.

In the Association Theatre (on the show floor) I organized a multi-UG panel
participation of three one-hour sessions on IT Myths. Two other
organizations acted as the primary sponsors for this project and
representatives from these three groups followed up the second day in the
Keynote theatre. We had representatives from about 8 groups over the three
panels.

In the keynote theatre we brought in Miguel de Icaza for the second day.
The hour before Miguel's presentation, we did a highlight of our previous
day Association Theatre participation.

This is about normal for our participation each year although it varies
depending on what our goals and focuses are that year.

To accomplish this we had about 10 team leaders taking care of various
parts of putting on a show (everything from handling getting equipment onto
the show floor, demo scripting, equipment set up, books, to publicity and
print.) Also, I'm a great organizer and have acted as our "ITEC project
coordinator" many years. (I act as our "special projects coordinator" which
translates into I'm good at getting people to volunteer and work their
tails off as well as keeping projects on track and successful ;->

All told, I think we had somewhere around 75 people volunteering time and
effort to accomplish this depth of participation.

Third, as to the ITEC show itself...
Attendees run the gamut similar to large shows, a wide variety of IT
experience and job duties.

The attendee base is not as technically oriented as those at Usenix
comparing this to LISA attendees (I'm a longtime member and participated in
the SAGE certification project as a writer.)

There is some similarity and curiosity that is found at LinuxWorld although
we find a higher degree of non-Linux users to show the benefits of linux to
that LinuxWorld doesn't attract.

The traffic has ranged from 1500 to 4000 PER DAY but has been in that lower
range the last year (the last time I saw it this low was a year when most
booths were start up and ISP's, not much to see. This lack of quality
exhibitors had a negative impact on the following year although the
exhibitor base was much improved.

This show management group has been an interesting group to work with over
the years, they've had some really bad processes that have had negative
impact on everything from marketing to attendance to retention, poor
performance regarding what they provide and other problems. The
inconsistency in management, exhibitor base, poor detail management and
marketing practices, etc., has had negative impact over the years.However,
since Imark took over, they do seem to be (slowly) improving some of these
issues.

Still it provides a venue that we haven't found a reasonable alternative
(there are some other options but none have a proven track record and
attendance that is better so far.)

I'm not surprised that you had a call but not follow up. If they can fill
the space they don't look to groups to fill in blanks or provide
"legitimacy" or fill out seminars and content. Although we tend to get
called, it's only because of our long-term relationship and we still tend
to contact them when we haven't heard from them about four months prior to
the show.

In our area, they tend to get a number of groups who want the space they
offer so they don't go after them unless they have an agenda to do so. If
you want to participate, you'll need to pursue it since they will be
pursuing the paying customers and only rely on non-paying groups if they
need fillers.

If this is the same show group, they tend to do radio spots, some print as
well as mass mailers for promotion. Of course, they may not be investing
the same $s in your area or have reduced the marketing $s being spent.

Again, succinct isn't my forte *GRIN*

--christine


-----Original Message-----
From:	James O'Kane [SMTP:jo2y at midnightlinux.com]
Sent:	Monday, November 18, 2002 7:34 PM
To:	cfw1 at sluug.org
Cc:	lugs at linuxusersgroups.org
Subject:	Re: ITEC

Could we back up a step and explain what you as a lug do at these shows?
What types of people attend? I've gone to LinuxWorld and some Usenix
conferences if you want to use those as reference points.

We were contacted by the Pittsburgh representitive in early September
about a show they were planning and wanted to know more about us. I
replied with some details about who we were and never heard back from
them. I don't recall seeing any adverstisement for the event either and
it was 4 weeks ago.

-james


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