Well what can I say
Yesterday was supposed to be a culmination of some recent efforts actually coming to life. Well maybe I did something that wasn’t quite right or my target audience needed more advertisement. I will let you decide.
I had been planning a picnic, one of the things I think I can do fairly well (that is until yesterday), you know party planning. Simply getting some folks together for some outdoor fun.
Here are the steps that I took and I will show you the example of where and what went wrong.
I have for a while been listening in on community discussions on several “so called” linux communities mailing lists and kept hearing discussions that were going nowhere about having a get together or what they call “a meetup”. These discussions went on and on and basically about nothing trivializing on the plus one methods of where a suitable location may be.
Well call me impatient but I did not understand why they were making this into a major ordeal when it in fact was intended to be a simple community type of event ‘A Geeknic’ (a picnic for geeks). I had been to my fair share of picnics, and having had more than several picnics or cookouts, decided that the idea just needed to be moved past the +1 stage to an actual thing. I contacted the mailing list and started by setting a date and a city (at first hypothetical) with some resistance. Then I got serious and started thinking of all the what when and where and simply let it roll.
What might be so different about a picnic that geeks might attend. That is simple geeks don’t get outside unless it is required or demanded. Many even have issues regarding working outside. So the simple part of the equation is what would be needed to make this work.
I let the others on the mailing lists know of the picnic ranging from several weeks to a week in advance of the day. Constantly updating many sites with information and creating Calendars, Public Waves, several times on several sites with links to a common resource that pretty much anyone could have edited or replied to.
Here is what happened yesterday. I will start by posting the actual verbatim invitation:
http://www.connect.facebook.com/event.php?eid=141043199263138&locale=en_US
Texas Geeknic – Arlington
A simple picnic for geeks.
To get outside and away from the computers for fun.
George Stevens Park
400 West Sanford
Arlington Texas 76011
We will have some refreshments
BBQ and hamburgers and hot dogs
Please RSVP so we can have a good idea
for the food
You are welcome and encouraged to
bring your flavor of food or refreshment
Please join us.
Here is a link to the map on google maps
View Larger Map
Since I had used ubuntu mailing list to get the topic started here and had some reaction to a meeting I had scheduled using the list prior I was thinking that the list and followers were responsive. I even posted a discussion on their forums and had reply that “Can’t wait” I thought that I was definitely on the right track.
Well I mentioned this picnic to a few people in the chat for fedora asking if maybe I could get a few fedora buttons or pins and in turn I was asked to do other things to fulfill their requirements to send me a few fedora things (which wheren’t even the pins or buttons) so I did and they also said with such enthusiasm I should be a part of another team (which is a topic for later discussion) so I followed the instructions.
So yesterday we show up early at the George Stevens park and seen a group of folks all sitting at the pavilion. I thought ‘oh wow people are already waiting’ and immediately started setting up. Unfortunately these people were just hanging out in the park and dispersed shortly afterward ‘I thought that’s ok they will come’.
We placed streamers and balloons, had a table just for software, had over fifty pounds of meat (already prepared) and the fixin’ stuffs on another table. We threw some coals on the grill just in case something needed heated. We felt we were ready. Now just wait for the people right.
Well after a while some of the people that had been at the pavilion were still around so I decided to at least share in our bounty of food and talk about software or actually explain what a geeknic was to them. During the conversation they told me that ‘it was cool that geeks did things like that’ I agreed. They later told me ‘That’s why they didn’t come they are geeks’ … ouch but true.
Shortly after that I met Carlton who brought all five of his kids. He said his wife couldn’t come and needed a break from the kids anyway. He had explained to me that his children were gluten intolerant previously and he had brought a solar oven to make cookies from specially prepared dough. I watched as I had never seen an oven of that type.
Meanwhile Arron and Jennifer and their two children had arrived and we started serving again. We all carried conversation but soon the need for a restroom caused Carlton to take his children to somewhere nearby that had one. He asked if I could watch his stuff. I said ‘Sure’ thinking to myself he would only be gone a few minutes.
Well we sat around enjoying the shade and conversation and an overly zealous parks worker had expressed worry that he needed to clean the pavilion for the next party. I think we all mutually agreed that by 2 we would start packing it up. Carlton was still at the restroom at that point so we were packing up at 2 and he had not returned. I told Lucy to go ahead and leave and I would wait for him to return since he had been gone for a while.
After a while Carlton returned, he explained that he stopped off at an old friends and lost track of time. I sat around with him for a while and then left at around two thirty but at that point Carlton, Jennifer, Aaron and all the kids were the only ones to come and everyone besides Carlton had left.
What I learned is simple ‘Geeks are by nature antisocial creatures – to measure someones geekness generally is often direct relation to social behavior. If someone is involved in software most of the time they become reclusive.’ So what I was told earlier was true ‘That’s why they didn’t come they are geeks’
Well that was the end of this Geeknic but the day got better.
I had all of this food and what should I do.
I call some folks and later we had a picnic at my house with almost no advance warning. So my lesson learned is simple.
People are who they are by nature and if you want to have a gathering invite your friends and even in a pinch your friends will come.
