By Mike Hodges, Treasurer, Tampa PC Users Group
mphs@aol.com

Bob LaFave and I attended the Florida Association of Computer User Groups, FACUG, conference on Saturday only. We left North Tampa at 7:30 am and we arrived at the conference at 8:45 am, in good time to enjoy breakfast if not being able to concentrate on what Marcy Gunn had to tell us about Smart Computing. Since we have heard her presentations before, I do not believe we missed anything that was new or significant. Bob kept up a continuous dialog in both directions on the journey, and so our time spent driving I-4 seemed to take just minutes. We left Kissimmee at 8:30 pm, and I was home by 9:45 pm, having had a most enjoyable and full day. The breakfast, lunch and dinner were superb, and we as individual attendee members certainly received good value for our $40 each registration fee, even if we only attended for the one day.

The three most significant things I gained from the days event were:

• Our group could save $120 per year if we availed ourselves of the APCUG’s (Association of Personal Computer User Groups) free web-start hosting service.
• It was recommended that groups retain paper mail-outs of their newsletters, so that members could use the hardcopy to best remind themselves of upcoming events. I wholeheartedly agree with this premise.
• Florida has a continuing growth in the number of user groups enrolled as members of FACUG. Most of the growth occurs as new gated communities, particularly in the Broward County area, set up computer clubs for their residents. I would surmise that most large urban areas, however, are experiencing a decline in individual memberships from area-wide groups as compared to gated-community groups. The only states in which APCUG noted overall membership growth were in the retirement states of Florida and Arizona.

The sessions I attended were:

• Cyber Mentoring, presented by Dave Dockery
• APCUG Membership Objectives, Vision & Strategy, by Peggy Ireland and Suzy Ball
• Lunch Presentation on Intel’s Presentation in a Back Pack, by Dave Whittle
• Building and Maintaining Attendance, by Bob Schneider
• How to increase membership, by Sam Wexler of the Valencia Falls Computer Club in South Florida
• Vendor Panel, moderated by Larry Tyler
• Dinner Presentation, by Microsoft’s Richard Katz & Matt McCann.

The presentation skills exhibited by each presenter were outstanding. This made it a pleasure to be in the audience for all the breakout sessions that I attended. Obviously, I was most happy with my selections.

Although I had attended Dave Dockery’s session in October on NetMeeting as a means to help members resolve their PC problems remotely, I gained a far better insight at the Spring Conference thanks to the live demonstration in Cyber Mentoring. This was a back-up demo as the Conference Center did not radiate wifi for the initially planned presentation. Unfortunately, NetMeeting is about to become not supportable by Microsoft as they convert us all to Live Meeting for an additional fee. NetMeeting can truly help a coach or an instructor help individuals, including novices, with their problems remotely from the instructor if a broadband internet connection is available and active.

Peggy Ireland’s Q&A format was also most informative relating to the benefits afforded APCUG members. Again, a well prepared presentation kept us all most interested in what the APCUG is all about.

Bob Schneider gave us valuable tips on how to ensure our SIG leaders gain the respect of their audience. Prior inspection of the leader’s agenda or outline is the key, along with clear diction that keeps material from becoming too dry or archaic. Minimizing technical jargon and detail are critical aspects of a good presentation. Bob himself was dynamic.

The way to membership growth as presented by Sam Wexler was also outstanding. His advice was similar to Bob’s. Do not be overly technical if you are to maintain your member’s interest at most sessions. It is the novice who will make up about two thirds of the membership. The techies will continue to attend in any event. Limiting the audience to one question per member per meeting was also advised. I am not sure that I can agree with this, however, since some people are much better at asking questions than others.

Gee as to the vendor presentations, I am sorry that I could not experience the Corel girls’ presentation at breakfast on Sunday morning, but I have seen enough Digital Studio presentations as demonstrated by Microsoft, even with the lively duo of Dave and Matt at the helm. These products, be they Pinnacle, MS or Corel, keep getting better with each new product.

The vendor handouts or door prizes are generally very useful. Unfortunately, all I got from Microsoft was a free music download. My musical interest is nil; I really had hoped to get a coffee mug as everyone knows that I do drink coffee. Unfortunately although my ticket entitled me to a mug, I dallied towards the end of the line only to find all the mugs were taken already. I got another blue key light from Intel, and this is always useful to have, even if I rarely use it.

As for the Vendor Panel, as last year but even worse this year, there was little value to be gained. These sessions were far better when technical questions filled the forum. As I recall from last year, I was embarrassed to keep hearing the same begging by the audience for vendor freebies, particularly requesting free software. I think this begging does us harm and recommend that the session be limited in the future to truly technical questions or product announcement plans. Dave Whittle was between a rock and a hard place as he was attempting to tell the audience to understand the predicament of the vendors in today’s marketplace. His business is User Group Relations. Unfortunately, the retirees cannot change their spots. They do not appreciate that the marketplace is now highly competitive and that unit software prices are these days in the tens of dollars, whereas yesteryear they were in the hundreds of dollars.

Larry, my congratulations to you and your staff for another great conference. u