Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!ucbvax!DECUSERVE.DECUS.ORG!KILLEEN From: KILLEEN@DECUSERVE.DECUS.ORG (Jeff Killeen Exec Committee) Newsgroups: comp.org.decus Subject: FYI - From DECUServe Message-ID: <7606D57CE0003C40@decuserve.decus.org> Date: 1 May 91 23:49:00 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Lines: 273 <<< EISNER::DUA3:[NOTES$LIBRARY]SOAPBOX.NOTE;1 >>> -< DECUServe Soapbox >- ================================================================================ Note 340.128 The DECUS reorganization 128 of 144 EISNER::KOZAM 60 lines 30-APR-1991 23:42 -< View from the bottom up >- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I write as one of the masses - an active participant for 10 years, but never a committee member or involved in DECUS management. I've benefitted greatly from DECUS - the Software Library, various symposia (once as a speaker), an active LUG, the SIG newsletters, and DECUServe. Until reading this thread, I have been completely ignorant of the management structure of DECUS - I didn't even know that MC stood for Management Council. The distance between active DECUS members and the leadership is very large. As a novice, I have several questions and a few impressions. 1. What problem(s) prompted the Arthur D. Little (ADL) reorganization proposal? From a user's perspective, everything seemed to be working pretty well. Is there some concensus as what the problems have been and to what the goals are? 2. I had never realized the extent to which politics surround DECUS. There seems to be a lot of hostility in these notes. Much energy is consumed by politics and power struggles. I used to believe that the leadership was made of primarily altruistic people who wanted to help the society advance, to the benefit of all members. Does the leadership actually have an alternate agenda? Can any reorganization reverse this so that the leadership is once again interested in the needs of the rank and file? 3. There seems to be an impression that the DECUS membership is uninformed and unqualified to vote. I've just finished spending many hours reading the thousands of lines posted here. I barely understand the most basic issues involved. I want to become informed, but if that takes hundreds of hours, then I need not apply. 4. I used to feel that DECUS was my organization, and as a user of DEC products, I felt that DECUS had my interests at heart. #3 above has made me feel alienated. #2 makes me feel that the leadership views themselves as directors of the corporation, with me a mere customer. Is the new bottom line the expansion of DECUS for its own sake or is it the degree to which the needs of the membership are served? I think back a few years when the topic of making the software library on-line was first brought up. The discussion revolved not around whether this would be of benefit to DECUS members, but rather, the degree to which it would reduce the profitability of the Software Library. An organization that is responsive to the needs of its members will be financially sound. An organization that is unresponsive will find that it has no members and the issue of financial status becomes irrelevant. 5. Does ADL really understand DECUS? I suspect that few of ADL's customers are similar to DECUS. DECUS is a volunteer organization. Members are geographically disperse. The degree of organization of the membership is loose. How has ADL taken those special characteristics into account? Regardless of the final vote, my view of DECUS is very different. ================================================================================ Note 340.129 The DECUS reorganization 129 of 144 EISNER::LEDERMAN "Bart Z. Lederman" 164 lines 1-MAY-1991 07:35 -< Your view is very helpful. >- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | <<< Note 340.128 by EISNER::KOZAM >>> | -< View from the bottom up >- | | I write as one of the masses - an active participant for 10 years, | but never a committee member or involved in DECUS management. I've As a sort-of middle level DECUS person (I'm a SIG Library representative) I would like to give my comments. | Until reading this thread, I have been completely ignorant of | the management structure of DECUS - I didn't even know that MC stood for | Management Council. The distance between active DECUS members and the | leadership is very large. I suspect that's true of a lot of members. And as long as DECUS Leadership (however you define it) is doing it's job, that shouldn't matter. It ought to be possible to be a participant in DECUS without having to bet involved in leadership if you don't want to. There are some groups within DECUS which are concerned about the distance between DECUS members and leadership. Unfortunately, closing that gap often depends on members telling leadership where the problems are, but if they aren't familiar with leadership they might not know whom to inform. If you can give me any suggestions on how to get around this problem I'd be happy to pass them on. | 1. What problem(s) prompted the Arthur D. Little (ADL) | reorganization proposal? From a user's perspective, everything | seemed to be working pretty well. Is there some consensus as | what the problems have been and to what the goals are? The reorganization seems to have been driven mostly from the board level. There have been some disagreements between the Board and MC, and a way to correct those problems is needed. Another problem is the one you mentioned: the gap between 'members' and 'leadership': but that seems to have been lost in the dust. There is no consensus at all about what the problem is and what the cure should be. My impression is that most of the operational unit people (the services you mentioned, Symposia, Library, LUGS, etc.) are happy with the current organization, and are doing their job. I'm sure they'll be happy to hear a user say that the services are getting through. To a lot of people, this indicates that the current structure is basically sound. But a few people at the top (i.e., the Board of Directors) apparently don't agree. | 2. I had never realized the extent to which politics surround | DECUS. There seems to be a lot of hostility in these notes. | Much energy is consumed by politics and power struggles. I | used to believe that the leadership was made of primarily | altruistic people who wanted to help the society advance, to | the benefit of all members. Does the leadership actually have | an alternate agenda? Can any reorganization reverse this so | that the leadership is once again interested in the needs of | the rank and file? I believe that most of leadership is in fact primarily concerned with just making the society run. You have not seen any of the messages on DCS from various members of leadership who are basically saying "enough already, lets drop this and get back to work". There were also calls for a cooling-off period before deciding on the changes, as many people didn't see any reason to rush into this. But they didn't get anywhere. As for a hidden agenda: I'm willing to believe that the original motivation of the BoD members was to improve the society, but now I'm not so sure anymore. One of the problems is that most of the BoD members who supported the change, including the president, won't talk to us anymore. You just can't get a straight answer from any of them. The only one who'll talk to us is Tom Provost, and he didn't run for re-election so he won't be on the BoD if the changes go through. I don't think the proposed reorganization will change any of this. Many people believe the new structure will put even more power into the hands of fewer people, which would be worse from the hidden agenda point of view. But there isn't even any consensus on that. The only thing which could make a change is changing the members of the BoD and MC (if there still is one). | 3. There seems to be an impression that the DECUS membership | is uninformed and unqualified to vote. I've just finished | spending many hours reading the thousands of lines posted | here. I barely understand the most basic issues involved. | I want to become informed, but if that takes hundreds of | hours, then I need not apply. I sure hope there are a lot of DECUS members like you out there, whatever the outcome of the vote. Unfortunately, a lot of people believe that the small amount of information sent with the ballot is not going to be enough to make an informed decision. Most DECUS members don't read these notes on DECUServe (don't have accounts), and many in leadership think that DECUS members who aren't familiar with the leadership structure as you weren't aren't going to know enough about what's going on, and are not going to read dozens of pages of background material. I hope we're wrong about this, but considering how few people even vote for the President of the United States, getting people involved in a DECUS election seems a difficult task. | 4. I used to feel that DECUS was my organization, and as a | user of DEC products, I felt that DECUS had my interests at | heart. #3 above has made me feel alienated. #2 makes | me feel that the leadership views themselves as directors of | the corporation, with me a mere customer. Is the new bottom | line the expansion of DECUS for its own sake or is it the | degree to which the needs of the membership are served? I believe that most leadership people view the goal of DECUS is to share information, and work actively to that end. I hope the current difficulty is a temporary aberration. | I think back a few years when the topic of making the software | library on-line was first brought up. The discussion revolved | not around whether this would be of benefit to DECUS members, | but rather, the degree to which it would reduce the | profitability of the Software Library. An organization that | is responsive to the needs of its members will be financially | sound. An organization that is unresponsive will find that it | has no members and the issue of financial status becomes | irrelevant. The issue of benefit to the members is always present. But somebody has to pay to keep things running. Computers and sites and operators don't come for free. It's unfortunate that the issue of an on-line library would be seen publicly as an issue about dollars, but I can assure you that a group of dedicated volunteer leaders kept pushing on this until something got done. The result is that we now have DECUShare running as a demonstration on this system and you can down-load software right now. But behind all of the services you use (Symposia, LUGS, Library, and this system) leadership has to be concerned with who pays to keep it running: a fact of life most leaders are willing to tackle to achieve the end goal of service to the membership. I agree that an unresponsive leadership would lead to the demise of the society. | 5. Does ADL really understand DECUS? I suspect that few of | ADL's customers are similar to DECUS. DECUS is a volunteer | organization. Members are geographically disperse. The | degree of organization of the membership is loose. How has | ADL taken those special characteristics into account? My impression, from seeing the ADL presentation, is that they did grasp some aspects of DECUS, and they did point out some real problems with the society. But by no stretch of the imagination did they really understand the entire problem. But one of the big problems a lot of leadership has with the reorganization is that ADL didn't (wasn't allowed) to explain what they did or how they came to their recommendations. So a lot of us believe that we don't really know what ADL was thinking. One thing I do know: one of the two ADL people who did the report mentioned that he had been president of a college alumni organization. I got the impression that he was basing his proposed structure on that kind of organization, which would not suit DECUS at all. But as I said, a lot of us really aren't certain that ADL got the 'big picture'. | Regardless of the final vote, my view of DECUS is very | different. That may be unfortunate. I hope you will pass your views on to leadership: of course, with this note you have already done so to a considerable extent. I hope others will be willing to take the time to let their views be known. That's the best way to have a positive affect on DECUS. ================================================================================ Note 340.130 The DECUS reorganization 130 of 144 EISNER::KILGALLEN "Larry Kilgallen" 31 lines 1-MAY-1991 08:10 -< Answer from the outside in >- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > <<< Note 340.128 by EISNER::KOZAM >>> > -< View from the bottom up >- > > 4. I used to feel that DECUS was my organization, and as a > user of DEC products, I felt that DECUS had my interests at > heart. #3 above has made me feel alienated. #2 makes > me feel that the leadership views themselves as directors of > the corporation, with me a mere customer. Is the new bottom > line the expansion of DECUS for its own sake or is it the > degree to which the needs of the membership are served? DECUS _is_ your organization. If you find some group within DECUS not responding to your volunteering, it is surely due to disorganization rather than malice. If some volunteer power gets lost in the shuffle, it is just one of the inefficiencies of our volunteer economy. Another aspect of people working together is that sometimes feelings get hurt. Now there is a segment of the DECUS membership who seem to have lost an interest in the computer aspects of DECUS. They spend all their time _organizing_. These are the people who are so motivated about which way the committees are arranged. Although they spend a lot of DECUS money doing this rearranging, it is not at all clear that this money would be used for other things if not for the DECUS bureaucracy. Who would decide what it would get spent on? Who would argue that it shouldn't go back to DEC? Think of the money being wasted on committee rearrangement as being kind of like taxes -- It gives you somebody to whom you can complain when DECUS messes up. So Technical contributions are still welcome (DECUServe is a good example). If Technical exchange is not your preference, DECUS also runs a debating society on the side.