[Sigia-l] The Menace

[Patrick Neeman]

Let's break this down:

I've actually been on the other side of the equation. I help run a good sized web community (http://www.netslaves.com). We recently
instituted a subscription fee because the bandwidth costs were costing me specifically a lot of money because I own the box it runs
on, and I took over hosting because the other owners financially couldn't support it.

Many of the users complained about the fees, and we basically said that's the cost of keeping this community going. The users
supported us, and now the site is not only covering costs, but slightly running in the black, and we're adding more services for the
users. Consequently, we have a very pleased user base that has their own community, and we can continue growing the community
without significantly hitting anyone's pocketbook.

---

The same goes on here -- The AIfIA wants to become an ongoing concern. I think it's a great idea, and I think supporting
professional organizations like this isn't just about making more money (which we all like), but mostly about meeting other IAs and
Product Managers and whatever title people in field have, and talking about the craft and learning about the craft. I'm a member
(not actively, but paying) of a few other professional organizations, and I do it just because I like to see those who join the
organizations get the same educational benefits out of it I did when I orginally joined.

I also think that the benefits of this organization fall into a grey area. whether they want to give something back to the
community, whether they want to see more education, whether they will benefit finacially. I think saying they are going to profit
completely off it is wrong, but I also think that
saying their intentions are 100% percent altruistic is also wrong too. It's somewhere in a grey area.

I think the concern of the poster who started this is that many times when we get involved in the organizations is that work that is
featured in online case studies, books or magazines, is sometimes a close colleague or a friend so it's basically the same people
who we see over and over again. The same concern was echoed about viewing most of the board and seeing a similiarity of names.

---

I spoke up because I would also like to see a variety of voices because that encourages a variety of viewpoints, and thus better
thinking and results.

Is that so bad?

P@

Patrick Neeman
pat at nexisinteractive.com <mailto:pat at nexisinteractive.com>
949 643-0910 land
949 633-3054 cell
949 215-1659 fax

nexis interactive
our skills. your solutions.

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org]On Behalf Of
> zapolsja at WellsFargo.COM
> Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 6:36 PM
> To: sigia-l at asis.org
> Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] The Menace

[snip]
> I think the books have nothing to do with AIfIA, frankly.  While I won't
> argue that folks like Lou and Peter, Christina, and Jesse won't sell any
> more books as a result of their relationship with AIfIA, I don't think the
> desire to have more people purchase their books was cause for their
> association with AIfIA.  The two may have some correlation, but this isn't
> bad in my mind.    Writing books is part of what people like Lou and Peter
> do for a living, just as practicing IA is what many of you on this list do
> for a living....
[/snip]

[snip]
> My point isn't to suggest that AIfIA is about helping IAs get paid more.  It
> isn't.  But it's wrong to suggest that if IAs (those part of AIfIA or not
> part of AIfIA) do get paid more (in salary, from royalties, from consulting
> fees, whatever) as an indirect outcome of AIfIA's activities that the people
> who worked to help found the organization should be criticized as profit
> mongers.
[/snip]

> -jz

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