[clue] CLUE elections [was in my absence]

[David L. Anselmi]

David L. Willson wrote:
> I nominate Dave Anselmi for President. If that nomination is seconded, and he accepts, I vote for
> him, of course.

What we really need is a speaker coordinator, like Dennis said.  I don't think I have time for that 
given the current pipeline stall.  Not to say it will take a lot of time, just that some time should 
be spent soon and I can't do that.

I've never done a job like speaker coordinator and I've never thought I'd be any good at it.  But 
I'm one of few people who thinks the job is possible.

As far as president, here's where I think ours should focus.

I'm in CLUE because it's a local group.  Although our web site and mailing list are important, 
groups like this existed before those things.  Our interaction should be face to face more than 
virtual.  We're not more interesting than everyone else in the world, just closer.  (Apologies to 
those who aren't local.  You're still welcome but if we focus on you we still aren't more 
interesting than the rest of the world.)

So we need good meetings that people will come to.  We think that means good, interesting, 
recognizable speakers on broadly applicable topics and interesting technology.  But maybe that's not 
quite right.  Maybe we need more, specially focused meetings.  Maybe we need how to meetings.  Maybe 
we need meetings for your grandma.  So some research might be in order.

We need a person, or a team, who will work to make good meetings happen.  We have almost 300 people 
on the list.  We should *never* have a 2% turnout for a meeting.  It's unsat.  And although we might 
delegate good meetings so the president can look at the bigger picture, understanding what is good 
and making it happen should be a partnership of all the hat-wearers.

We need a different space to meet.  Much thanks to those who arranged hosting.com, but a fan room 
(that's what they're called on Navy ships) isn't a place where good meetings happen.

Perhaps we need some by-laws, or maybe just process, or a legal existence.  There are some things 
that perhaps the group should decide.  But we have no idea what that means.  If we can demonstrate 
the value of such things the president should be willing to work on them.

We seem to have a lot of ideas for change lately.  So the president should, building on knowledge of 
the group members, manage those changes, making sure that experiments are not disruptive, failures 
are recognized and backed out, and that changes tend to improve involvement in the group.

Is that enough for the coming year?

Obviously if I were president I would work as outlined above.  I accept the nomination.

I hope someone manages to make an election happen and gets the results accepted without too many 
unhappy people.

I hope that if you think any of this is the wrong approach you'll post your own.  Then I can 
nominate *you* for president (and you can always decline so don't let that scare you off).

Thanks!
Dave