User Group Boards, Voting, Oh Yeah and ODTUG
I think we’ve just about all heard enough about voting this election year, but I want to discuss a slightly different angle and that’s when it comes to user groups. As most people know, I’m pretty passionate about everyone contributing time to your local and national user groups. I also think it’s important to take pride in and be responsible for the promises you make.
I was sent a reminder to vote for the Oracle Developer Tools User Group, (ODTUG) Board of Directors as a member today. I’ve already voted, but it also reminded me that I’d been politely approached by Eric Helmer via Linked in asking if I’d consider voting for him, (which is in the rules, you are supposed to campaign peeps!) Now Eric doesn’t know me outside of a few nods and hellos at Oracle events. I don’t think I’ve ever sat through a presentation of his, but that’s not what I go on when it comes to voting for a board of director. I’ve worked on a couple boards now and supported a couple more. User groups are often not impacted so much by their changing membership, but by those that want to be part of a user group board, but don’t want to contribute.
Got my Vote
I was able to quickly respond to Eric and tell him, “too late, I already voted for you.” I did take my vote seriously for ODTUG and was responsible to not just vote for my friends or those I recognized the names of, but to actually read the campaign statements and do a quick Google or Linked in search to see what the person has accomplished.
Eric got my vote for having a well thought out and well written campaign statement. He didn’t just discuss who he was, what he had done, but what he WAS GOING TO DO for the user group. User groups need people that GET things DONE and by my research I believe Eric will follow through with his promises from his statement.
So if you are voting or looking for those to join a user group board, take the responsibility seriously and realize that user groups die or survive by the heart of the people that run it. Take the time to research and read the statements. If someone can’t put the time into a campaign statement, how can you expect them to follow through with the demands on a board of directors?
By the way, I was allowed four votes, so I also want to put a shout out for the other three candidates I voted for:
There were some other great campaign statements out there, so if you did your duty and voted for some other people, you’re not going to hear anything from me. I do realize the guts it takes to put a campaign statement together and put yourself out there. It did take research and data, along with the campaign statements for me to make my final decision on who got my vote.
Now, if I don’t get started on my review of KSCOPE 2017 abstracts, Galo Balda is sure to hunt me down and remind me I’m not living up to the promises I’ve made! Go out there and vote, peeps!
