I'm speaking my own personal opinion here, not representing LOPSA or the Board.
At the risk of distracting from Matt Simmons' message, which I completely agree with and think folks should really think about, I'd like to answer Chase: On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 4:18 PM, Chase Hoffman < driftpeas...@driftpeasant.org> wrote: > I asked this in the other thread - what advocacy? For what? Against what? > > I've never seen LOPSA take a position on anything publicly. > It's so easy to beat up on LOPSA or its leadership. And I think that is because we feel there is a lot of unfulfilled potential. But let's not lose sight of the fact that while we do need to kick the energy and activity up, we're a healthy organization. And that didn't Just Happen; people gave a lot of themselves in some difficult and stressful times to ensure that (I'm not talking about myself here). The simple fact that LOPSA continues to sustain itself is a collective statement that people in our industry want to work together, that we're eager to make our industry stronger, that we want advance the profession, and that we believe we can do all those things. So, Chase, IMO you aren't wrong that LOPSA is silent at moments when we should speak out and take a specific position that's meaningful to system administrators. But every single thing LOPSA does (a new chapter forming, sponsoring a conference, having a table at a linuxfest, giving an award, etc) is a form of marketing the organization and therefore advocating for awareness of system administration. And that advocacy, even if it isn't around a specific position other than awareness of our profession and community, is a service to all system administrators. I also believe that our advocacy should not just be outward-facing. We should be advocating within our community for certain things: ethics, diversity, sharing knowledge, best practices, etc. All that having been said, last year I pitched an idea to the Board about how to better execute advocacy and develop professional content. I'll share it below. We have not pursued it in its entirety, but the Professional Content Committee has some goals that are close (e.g. Body of Knowledge). --- I suggest we establish a procedure for developing: 1. Quick position statements on public policy or awareness issues in the spotlight, e.g. The Snowden thing. 2. Technical briefs of things for the IT community, e.g. Cloud, DevOps, etc. I think tech briefs should describe a technology in very clear and accessible terms as well as explore the composition of that technology and factors to consider in its use. 3. Position papers on technologies or methodologies, e.g. Control change rates and use automated testing in your organization to minimize change-based errors. My own view is that we have a small standing committee to handle number one in a very agile way. Maybe the communications committee. Maybe board approval. Two and three should be ad hoc committees assembled on a per issue basis, consisting of relevant experts from our community. There should be someone in charge of polling/selecting experts as well as shepherding each brief or position paper. And we should probably create guidelines for briefs and position papers. We could also consider having RFC periods for those before a final revision is released and then having them e-voted upon by the membership. I've had this feeling for a while that LOPSA should/could be the anti-Gartner. This points us in that direction and does so by leveraging our community. --- The ideas were well-received but the Board essentially voted for our top priorities and, to my disappointment, it didn't make the cut. And at the time, due to work commitments, I was not in a position to find a way to make these things happen. Thoughts? Are those three types of content reasonable for LOPSA to produce? And are those the right ways to have our community produce them? (Sorry for such a long email!) Thanks, Matt Disney
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