<html><head><style type="text/css">body {word-wrap: break-word; background-color:#ffffff;}</style></head><body><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px">Excellent coaching, Dave. You are a wise fellow, and I'm honored to be associated with you.<br><br><font face="sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 14px"><i><font color="#333333">Sent via David's Droid X.</font></i></span></font></div><br><br>-----Original message-----<br><blockquote style="; border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px"><b>From: </b>"David L. Anselmi" <anselmi@anselmi.us><b><br>To: </b>CLUE's mailing list <clue@cluedenver.org><b><br>Sent: </b>Sun, Feb 6, 2011 20:10:03 GMT+00:00<b><br>Subject: </b>Re: [clue] Ettiquette and volunteers<br><br></div>Crawford Rainwater wrote:<br>> When people started requesting "I want this...with CLUE." it was a nice to hear some "fresh<br>> ideas" to help enhance this Linux user group I said to myself. I have been involved with CLUE<br>> since 2001 myself. I even stepped up on a few ideas with running CLUE-North and the InstallFests<br>> for 5-6 years along with the server maintenance work for a similar time frame.<br>><br>> Then it the requests started to become "I want this...and this...and this...with CLUE." which<br>> became a bit trying to even perturbing I must admit.<br><br>Thanks Crawford, for giving everyone a chance to reflect on how things get done in our community.<br><br>*HEY EVERYONE!* Take a minute in between Super Bowl ads to reflect on what Crawford wrote. Thanks!<br><br>It is the nature of organizations (volunteer or not) to have more good ideas than time or people to <br>implement them. There's lots of opportunity to fail to communicate, resulting in hurt feelings, <br>wasted effort, and lost resources. It's disappointing how often I fail, despite being aware of the <br>risk.<br><br>Here are my reflections:<br><br>If you have a good idea (I want ...)<br><br>- Be patient. It isn't going to happen over night.<br><br>- Don't be offended when someone says, "that's not what I want".<br><br>- Be proactive in learning what it takes to implement your idea, how you can do those things, and <br>how you can energize others to do things you might not be able to.<br><br>If you're out doing things and people keep telling you what they want:<br><br>- Be clear about what you'll do and what you won't do.<br><br>- When people say "I want ...", don't take it as criticism that what you're doing is inadequate or <br>unappreciated. Don't feel like they're signing you up to do it.<br><br>- Be proactive about understanding what others want, what others are doing, and how your work meshes <br>with those things.<br><br>On both sides, recognize that people get anxious about change, think about how your ideas and <br>actions will cause change, and try to communicate in a way that helps the anxious people.<br><br>Thanks!<br>Dave<br>_______________________________________________<br>clue mailing list<br>clue@cluedenver.org<br><a href="http://cluedenver.org/mailman/listinfo/clue">http://cluedenver.org/mailman/listinfo/clue</a><br></blockquote></body></html>