Local User Groups – gone the way of the dinosaur?
How do you decide what computer you want to buy? How do you get help solving technical issues? How do you connect with other people who have interest in, or own the same brand, or even model of computer?
Chances are, you hit the web and visit manufacturer websites, discussion forums, or start your journey by entering a couple keywords in Google or Yahoo!.
Whatever did people do before the web and all these great virtual communication technologies came along? They formed local area user groups, sent out monthly newsletters, and got together at regular intervals to trade freeware, listen to guest speakers, see demonstrations of new systems, or share their latest PC and peripheral mods.
These were times when interfaces weren’t fully standardized – parallel was called ‘centronics’ and often required a small interface box between PC and the printer, while serial devices were referred to by their I tripple E designation, like “ IEEE-488 “.
Compatibility wasn’t assumed, and PC hobbyists enjoyed the challenge of getting PC and peripherals to work together. Times have certainly changed in that regard…
I remember joining several local user groups. We’d meet about once a month, taking turns hosting small groups in our homes, or perhaps booking space at the local library, or rec center. Later came the dial up BBS systems and early message boards.
The BBS was really the first step toward the online communities we have today. Broadband access and rich online environments now allow the whole world to connect in ways that local / regional dialup never could.
Has the web now relegated the user group to history, along with dot matrix printers, cassette tapes for mass storage, and dial up modems with acoustic couplers?
Who is a member of an active PC user group today ?
Lenovo Meet the Modder Dean Liou
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 2
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 1
Lenovo H320 desktop
February 3rd, 2009 11:06 am
this brings back some memories. i did the user group thing way back in the day when i had an atari 1040-ST as a kid. because the hardware was so unique, proprietary, and somewhat rare, the local user group was more like a support group than anything. it almost made you want to start every meeting with the dialogue of, “hi, my name is erik and i own an atari.” group: “hi, erik!” lol
i learned a lot of hands-on info in those meetings though. at that age, it certainly ramped up my computer knowledge considerably more than anything taught in school. there is something to be said about an in-person, hands-on learning experience with peers rather than professors. the lack of pressure and freedom to ask even the dumbest of questions was refreshing.
perhaps lenovo should consider hosting some sort of informal lenovo user group (LUG) in the RTP area. it could be a good way to get in the community’s eye, answer some questions, talk about the industry in general, and maybe even sell some hardware. users could even bring a few acoustic couplers for speedy internet access.
February 3rd, 2009 11:58 am
Erik,
Thanks – I went the Commodore route, growing up – a Vic-20, then a C-64, and then an Amiga 1000. I looked at the Atari ST, but chose the Amiga for a number of reasons including the more conventional form factor of the CPU with detached keyboard and the ability to put the display on top. Somehow, that looked more like the IBM PC, and in my mind what a computer was supposed to look like.
I drove to a local user group, and for a while we met in different people’s homes. Later I got into the dial up BBS – boy we have come a long way. In some ways, the blogger meet up’s may be coming back around, but they seem like a meet and greet, featuring the product, rather than real nuts and bolts of how stuff works.
Do you think face to face meetings (Raleigh Area Lenovo User Group – RALUG) would have value? This seemed an odd post, but I’m interested in exploring other facets of community and wondered if the UG format was still valid.
Mark
February 3rd, 2009 9:04 pm
mark,
that’s a tough one to answer. sure, there’s the field of dreams approach of “if you build it, they will come,” but there still has to be an underlying value for both the members and lenovo.
a local user group would be great. however, since teleportation hasn’t been perfected yet, you inherently limit yourself to only introducing local members. so, the bigger question should be in how one creates an online user group experience matching what we had in our younger years?
blogs and forums are handy but they don’t match the human factor found in the user groups of yore. humanize this seemingly cold experience and you’ll have the answer.
February 4th, 2009 3:26 am
[...] quite surprised when I saw a blog posting from Lenovo’s Connections blog asking the question: “Local User Groups – gone the way of the dinosaur?” and even more provocatively, “Has the web now relegated the user group to history, along with [...]
February 5th, 2009 2:33 am
If you consider our neighbourhood boys clan a local user group… well yes – sharing freeware via floppies, passing on replaced hardware and an information pool that was refreshed by collecting pocket money to buy one of those magazines where 80% of the pages was BASIC listings of programmes like a printer driver.
I have seen personal support rise again with the widespread usage of mobile computers. It’s much easier to bring your private TP to have a “look” during lunchbreak than your serverracksized tower sporting 8lbs of pure copper heat sinks plus all the rest.
February 5th, 2009 1:40 pm
low,
Absolutely that counts!
I spent some of my early teen years typing in those pages of code found in some of the magazines of the day. Our group would divide up the different programs – we’d type them in and then trade them.
Great point on the high end desktops – a long way from the little keyboard machines with 4k or 16k memory that plugged into your TV set.
It is really interesting to see things come around with the Netbooks and the industry returning to the concept of PCs for everyone.
Mark
February 5th, 2009 2:52 pm
In long ago past times I’ve mostly used what was available as communication platforms those days, namely BBS and newsgroups, to which I connected over the telephone line with analog modems. Later, when I got my first NeXT (1990/91) I used additionally the first available web browser (called WorldWideWeb) from Tim Berners-Lee on NeXTstep/BSD 4.3 Unix and NCSA Mosaic under X-Windows.
Those days in the past notebooks have been bulky, exorbitant expensive (>10K in price regions of a compact to mid size car) and thus were out of reach of most individuals. Thus there haven’t been much user groups around at all and AFAI remember only privileged managers etc. were able to have a notebook.
Nowadays we have a overwhelming bunch of communications possibilities and platforms, like for example specific domestic and world-wide notebook-forums etc., which can be seen as todays sort of user groups.
When I decide to buy a new computer, I always do a lot of research and information retrieval first, dependent on my individual needs. I use therefor the whole bandwidth the Internet offers and a bunch of my own personal made experiences.
February 5th, 2009 9:37 pm
Hi,
Face to Face meeting has a lot of value but it is very difficult for me to describe what/how value it is.
YLUG (Yokohama Linux Users Group), which is based in Tokyo area, Japan, is very active users group. We have a technical meeting almost every month. Our mailing list subscribers are more than 1000.
Though most of information can be got from the internet, we need to have face to face meeting to get and exchange non-verbal information.
http://ylug.jp (writtin in Japanese)
February 11th, 2009 11:34 am
dinosaur? It is a funny question coming from Lenovo, which is based here in Beijing. You just need to look out your windows to see the very active members of the Beijing Linux Users Group gathering about (usually drinking that free beer and eating chuan’er, while we chat about Linux, write software, or build Linux quadcopters).
We meet regularly the 2nd Tuesday of every month. Check the web site for the location and come join us!