Hecklers (was Possible future talk; interest?)

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Sat, 16 May 2009, James Knott wrote:

> Richard Weait wrote:
> > On Fri, 2009-05-15 at 15:53 -0400, James Knott wrote:
> >
> >> Talks at TLUG meetings tend to be "intermittent" because of all the
> >> hecklers.  ;-)
> >
> > Is the heckling one of the benefits of TLUG meetings?
>
> Well, it's the reason I've stopped attending.  It takes a bit of
> effort for me to get to that area of town and when I go to see a
> presentation, I don't want it to be interupted by hecklers.

  coincidentally, i went through this years ago when i was a member of
trilug (the triangle group in RTP, NC).  every meeting was a
combination of someone speaking, constantly interrupted by audience
members trying to outdo one another in terms of "witty" comebacks.
that sort of thing might work if it was a small group of good drinking
buddies trying to crack each other up, but it fails badly when you're
trying to attract new members and they show up, only to have their
time totally and utterly wasted by a number of people trying to
out-geek-humour each other.

  the basic issue is -- what audience you're trying to attract, and
it's the issue i raised in NC.  if you're happy to just hang out with
other geeks and give talks that only other geeks will appreciate, then
you can pretty much get away with anything.

  if, OTOH, you're trying to attract a fancier clientele (and by
"fancier", i mean people who can make purchasing decisions and have
access to the corporate chequebook), then you have a problem.  and,
quite simply, you can't do both equally well.

  so it's a simple question -- who's your audience?  and how are you
going to attract them?  because people who are corporate decision
makers might come to a LUG meeting for the first time and, after the
sophomoric heckling, you can be pretty sure they won't be back.

  just my $0.02, having lived through it a few years back.

rday
--

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Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

        Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry.

Web page:                                          http://crashcourse.ca
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