Star Trek User Group?

Skypee?

I guess that’s how you pronouce it right Chuck Thomas? Anyway, our keynote speaker says that Skypee is what you do when you excuse yourself from a VoIP conversation and go use the restroom. Something like that anyway.

Tonight I’m going to make some observations that I honestly hope do not offend anyone. But at the same time I’m going to solve, tongue in cheek, in one swell foop, all of the membership problems we face all over the world, OK?

Every time I come to Vegas and visit with APCUGers and the CES hordes, I make connections that I try to take back and use in Bowling Green. But this means more than just business cards and deals for my friends at home. By connections, I mean drawing a parallel between what we are as a group, and what is cool.

We have always wanted cool. Women associate cool with Prada, or Hello Kitty, or bitchin fingernails, or shopping in general. Men associcate cool with large engines, any arena with goals at both ends, slamming 24 pound balls down a slick alley, or very hot chicken fingers and tall flagons of ale.

The question is, can we hope to associate with cool when we market ourselves as a User Group?

Here is a little exercise. When guys get together for Monday Night Football, is it called the Football User Group? Is there a Hot Rod User Group, or a Corvette User Group? Miniature Locomotive User Group? No, of course not.

Not meaning to stereotype here, but let’s just go with the network demographics for women. Days of our Lives User Group? Mary Kay User Group? Of course not.

Leaving the gender motif alone for a moment. Do we have Prayer User Groups? 12 Step User Groups? Genealogy User Groups?

My point is there is little that interests humans, other than PCs, that seems to require forming, specifically, a User Group. Your Average Joe, (which by the way we’ve been trying to recruit, right?) either does not relate to the concept, or believes that at best User Groups are usually for computer geeks or the socially maladroit or at worst they are for the guys and gals in high school that sat in the front row.

So, while the content of what we offer is no doubt important, I think we should make a sea change in what we call ourselves, which means changing how we market ourselves. I don’t know what the term is yet, but perhaps by the end of the week I’ll have some suggestions. We need to become the Bowling Green Microcomputer “something cool that anyone can look good with.” I am talking not about a name change, necessarily, but more of a concept change.

Now, this won’t happen overnight. To some extent , the geeky nature of computists like us derives from the geeky nature of the personal computer. So part of changing our image is tied to changing the image of this tool we use every day. That really is changing, but in directions that are not germaine to the average Joe.

Computers are becoming sexier, more colorful, and more affordable. Unfortunately, to get under the hood of the computer still does not strike the same image as, say, rebuilding a Chevy small block, or finding the very best drapery color to go with the carpet. No, PCs have only so far found cool with the (very) geeky Computer Gamer, who maybe would not mind having a User Group all to themselves.

Until computers become fashion, or transportation, or chick magnets, or until we can eat them with a fine wine, we are not going to find respite from this social moniker, the User Group. Meanwhile, I guess we’ll have to make do with computers as democracy enablers, as Iron Curtain destroyers, and as implements that level the socioeconomic playing field. Ho Hum.

Mike Moore