Just my opinion, but ...

somehow I don't think I'm keen on the idea of (effectively) selling ad space(/time).

I've got not problem with short* announcements - they can even "hand out flyers" (don't foist one into everyone's hands, but have a stack available and offer them to anyone that wants them).

*I think we also need to keep our "community" announcements *short*. I think our guideline is like 1 minute (or so?) per person(/organization/entity) ... I think we need to remind folks a bit before the "community announcements" start, and hold them to it a bit more (at least one person went on fairly long last month, if I recall correctly).

But hey, I'm fine with - if someone wants to announce as part of their community announcement timeslot that they want to invite folks to a beer at bar up/down the street after BALUG if they want to chat about it more or to offer to buy them a beer at the restaurant if they catch them before dinner ... or over dinner if they want to chat with them more about it ... whatever - I've no problem/issue with that. Maybe we want to consider changing the timing of our "community announcements"? If we're set to eat upstairs, and have the audio setup done early, could always do the "community announcements" before or around the start of dinner ... or possibly split up the announcements if for some reason it makes sense to do some before dinner, and some after (e.g. if it's of relevance before/during dinner, could do it before dinner).

I've also got no problem with giving appropriate mention (e.g. some appropriate place on the BALUG web site) for folks that help support BALUG (with $$, service, time ... whatever we use/consume that's of value to us) ... but even on that, I'm still quite of the opinion that it not be on the *main* page ... but can be a (suitably placed/titled and reasonably prominent) link on the main page that goes to a "contributors" page or such (hey, and more contribution(s) we can toss in a (not too huge) logo, tagline, link to the company/entity, etc.)

I guess part of the way I look at it is active/passive information "push". I've no particular issue with folks bringing information, and doing *short* announcement. I see more of an issue with consuming more valuable time / attention resource (e.g. forcing everyone to look at something with (more of) their time, or foisting it upon their screens. Also, we often run rather tight for presentation time, and I'd rather hate to eat into that more by adding "sponsored" announcement/advertising that takes more time.

*Maybe* there's some wiggle room and/or I might be (partially?) convinced otherwise ... e.g. when folks are sitting around eating, and presentation hasn't started yet (e.g. typically about 1st half hour of dinner or so - we do want to allow our presenter time to eat!) ... could possibly display interesting/useful stuff in that timeframe on the screen (and that wouldn't be horribly disruptive).

Anyway, ... just my take on things ... other opinions probably do and will vary.

Quoting Andrew Fife afife@untangle.com:

Hi Guys:

A recruiter for IPsoft recently contacted me about a couple of open SysAdmin positions. I guess he got my name from one of the LUG mailing lists. What do you guys think about offering him 4 minutes to present 2 featured jobs on the projector prior to the Talk in exchange for buying say $250 worth beer at the event? I'll ask him to pay the Four Seas in cash directly and have them put out a selection of bottled beer in ice. I figure that will be 50 to 75 beers depending on what the Four Seas charges for each beer, ie, about 1 per person depending on exactly how many people show up.

Thoughts?

-Andrew

---

Andrew Fife Untangle - Open Source Security Gateway download.untangle.com

650.425.3327 (O) 415.806.6028 (C) afife@untangle.com

---

From: Dustin Long [mailto:Dustin.Long@ip-soft.net] Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 6:53 AM To: afife@untangle.com Subject: IPsoft

Good Day Andrew,

I recently joined the San Francisco User Group and was wondering if you could help me out. As you can see IPsoft is not a recruiting firm or staffing agency. I am an internal recruiter for the company in the US and we are launching our first office in San Francisco. I was wondering if you could help me out with a referral or two.

We are actively seeking two SOLID Level 2 or Level 3 Linux System Administrators to join our newly created office. Do you know anyone who would be interested in working for our company? We are currently in hyper-growth phase competing with companies such as Verizon Business, IBM and EDS. Our autonomic systems have set an unprecedented bench mark in the industry and Fortune 1000 companies globally are turning to us for their solutions.

I have attached other position to this email should you know anyone else.

Please let me know if you have any questions and look forward to hearing from you. Thank you!

Best,

Dustin

---

Dustin Long

Corporate Recruiter

IPsoft, Inc.

17 State St. 14th Floor

New York, N.Y. 10004

dustin.long@ipsoft.com

http://www.ip-soft.net http://www.ip-soft.net

Phone: (212) 708-5661

Fax: (212) 353-2454

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/5/393/221