Spreading the technology goodness across the south
What GeekSouth Is/Could/Should be
We all talk about it at meetings, lets talk about it here and see if any of us agree!
I'd like to start out by thanking Austin, Jose, and Donna (to name a few) that have been the force behind getting this group started, and have held us together. As I told Donna at the last meeting, if it weren't for her email reminders, I'd miss most meetings!
First and foremost, I like the informal nature of GeekSouth. When we start having dues, officers, board meetings, and sponsors (with strings attached) I start getting nervous. I went through that once with a certain NE TN organization I'd prefer not to mention. Before GeekSouth, I used to drive down to Asheville for the "Meet the Geeks" they have monthly. The Asheville Chamber kicks in some money, usually to pay for a deli platter or finger-foods, but thats the extent of it. They do have corporate members who will occasionally sponsor an event that is really just a demo of their products/services, which is fine, but the meetings tend to be just mixers for people to get acquainted and catch up with each other. I like that model. As soon as you get into having corporate sponsors, they start expecting "favors" in return for their money. If we decide to go with a ning-based site, the most I think we might consider is selling google adsense banners or similar on our site. That could offset the cost of hosting the site.
Mostly, I think GeekSouth should be about the Geeks that are members. Our website should be a place to share information amongst ourselves, but also a place for people looking for geek-talent to be able to see who does what and contact them. Many of us have lots of sites and passwords to juggle, and I like ning's one-time sign-on approach. It also has built-in event notices and emails when comments are made or events are updated.
So I'd better shut up and see what kind of response if any this generates...
I'd like to start out by thanking Austin, Jose, and Donna (to name a few) that have been the force behind getting this group started, and have held us together. As I told Donna at the last meeting, if it weren't for her email reminders, I'd miss most meetings!
First and foremost, I like the informal nature of GeekSouth. When we start having dues, officers, board meetings, and sponsors (with strings attached) I start getting nervous. I went through that once with a certain NE TN organization I'd prefer not to mention. Before GeekSouth, I used to drive down to Asheville for the "Meet the Geeks" they have monthly. The Asheville Chamber kicks in some money, usually to pay for a deli platter or finger-foods, but thats the extent of it. They do have corporate members who will occasionally sponsor an event that is really just a demo of their products/services, which is fine, but the meetings tend to be just mixers for people to get acquainted and catch up with each other. I like that model. As soon as you get into having corporate sponsors, they start expecting "favors" in return for their money. If we decide to go with a ning-based site, the most I think we might consider is selling google adsense banners or similar on our site. That could offset the cost of hosting the site.
Mostly, I think GeekSouth should be about the Geeks that are members. Our website should be a place to share information amongst ourselves, but also a place for people looking for geek-talent to be able to see who does what and contact them. Many of us have lots of sites and passwords to juggle, and I like ning's one-time sign-on approach. It also has built-in event notices and emails when comments are made or events are updated.
So I'd better shut up and see what kind of response if any this generates...
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Austin Moody on -
I've played around with Ning quite a bit and sort of like it. I've brought it up a few times and no one seemed to bite, plus to actually host www.geeksouth.com here it costs $4.95 a month.
We could always forward the domain to geeksouth.ning.com, but personally I just like having it at the actual domain. So then we are down to who and how we are going to pay the $4.95 a month. Maybe let a local business "sponsor" the site... $4.95 for a monthly add on geeksouth.com? Think we could get some people to go for that.
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