[volunteers] Speaker for Jan 4th SVLUG meeting?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Kevin Dankwardt (kevin.dankwardt at gmail.com):

> I reached out to a colleague at the Linux Foundation asking him to
> recommend some folks to give talks at SVLUG.
> 
> What do folks think about the following list? I will reach out to any of
> them and ask about the Jan 4th meeting.

My rule of thumb is that _almost_ any topic that the speaker finds
interesting will turn into a good talk -- and that is what I always told 
candidate speakers, too.[0]  Certainly all of these people you list can be
counted on to have intresting things to say.

If possible, I'd recommend lining up as many consecutive meeting dates
as you can.  You could just work down the list and get Jan 4th, Feb.
1st, Mar. 1st, Apr. 5th, and May 3rd all arranged.  

I'm listing those dates (courtesy of /usr/bin/cal) on a guess that
you'll retain the customary 1st Wednesday regular meeting date for
SVLUG:  There's nothing sacred about that regular date, but (1)
attendence improves with a regular date, and (2) if you change it, it'll
take a long time chasing down many third-party sources of information
that will keep advertising the old date.

Speaking of dates, here's a resource you may find useful:
http://linuxmafia.com/bale/holidays.html
Why?  Because it'll help you spot comfortably in advance meeting days
that will conflict with major holidays, e.g., we've in the past
cancelled July meeting days that would fall on Independence Day.
Cited page is a resource I maintain and use in editing BALE, and lists
upcoming holidays both major and minor from a number of sources,
including the ones that are not on a fixed Gregorian date.  (Honestly,
though, significant conflicts between 1st Wesdnesdays and anything major
other than Independence Day are unlikely.)

One other tip:  Speakers seem to find most attractive a lead time of
about 1-2 months.  Less than that, it's rare to get people to even agree
at all, as it qualifies as 'last-minute preparation', and the speaker
fears not getting it done on time.  (This is a bit irrational, because,
if you know a subject pretty well and have a couple of evenings free, it
really takes only about two days to create a creditible presentation --
but it's how most people think.)  In my experience, speakers are also
reluctant to commit to longer lead times, and I'm not entirely sure why;
maybe just that far out being off their planning horizons.

It's really, really useful to check in with signed-up speakers, say, 2-3
days to a week before the meeting date, just to remind them and make
sure everything is OK.  If you re-verify the speaker's availability a
week out, there's even some chance you can arrange a last-minute
substitute if the speaker flakes out, rather than needing to cancel the
meeting.

Last, it's important to send a meeting announcement to the
svlug-announce mailing list[1] during the 24-48 hour window before meeting
time.  For many years, we've used a now-traditional format for those
announcements, so I've basically just used a prior month's announcement
as a template in creating a new one.  _And_ don't forget that because
svlug-announce is moderated, any posting must be manually approved by a
listadmin.

Being a regular thing, the meeting announcement really ought to be
automated, but isn't.

The svlug-announce reminder is _particularly_ important on months like
Feb. and Mar 2017, when the 1st Wednesday falls on the first of the
month.  Why?  Because I get the feeling that regular attendees are cued
by the changing of the month to think 'Oh, it's probably SVLUG time
again.'  But if this cueing happens _on_ the 1st, said regular might not
be able to free up evening time on short notice -- unless he/she got
reminded by a timely mail, too.

My working assumption is that most people pretty much suck at advance
planning and keeping (even) recurring dates without timely reminders.
And of course, this includes speakers, who might in some cases flake out 
merely because they forgot.



[0] Many speakers worry that their topic won't be of interest, and this
concern is generally overcaution on their part.  Thus my rule of thumb
that 'If you're interested in this topic, your presentation should
reflect your enthusiasm and interest, and be good', which obviously is
less than a universal truth but generally seems to hold.

[1] All subscribers of the svlug@ mailing list receive postings to
svlug-announce@ (because the former is subscribed to the latter).
This is why the listinfo page for svlug-announce@ advises that it's 
not necessary to subcribe to svlug-announce@ if you're already on
svlug at .