Sunday, June 10, 2012
PRP 2012 Cancelled
So I'm bemused that the PRP cancellation due to only 5 (out of what, 50,000 something?) members bothering to vote is now causing people to be all up in arms and complaining that they didn't know about it, that it wasn't promoted enough.
I'm no longer on the editors' or webmasters' elists, so I cannot count how many times messages were sent to those lists encouraging editors and web masters to vote. However, I went back through my regular-vanilla-member emails and found that I'd been nudged to vote a total of 7 times:
AML Today: March, April, May
InterLink: February (description of change), April
AMLNewsflash: April, May 4, May 21
I still didn't bother. It was too much work and I was not inclined to put in the time and effort to look at other groups' efforts if I'm not allowed to crow about the work of my own editor's and webmaster's products. I would imagine other people felt the same. It seems that the editors and webmasters were more interested in winning recognition than in giving it to others.
I had a few wicked moments of considering asking a few friends who are members of other Local Groups to log in and vote for Chicago. I also thought about voting for the most dismal newsletter and site, just to be snarky and disruptive. I didn't do either of those things, of course, but still, when I get helplessly slammed by nut jobs on YouTube or Facebook for work I did on behalf of Mensa, I have my dark passing thoughts, like anyone.
So now the fault for the failure of PRP is being blamed on lack of information and promotion. Bah... there was plenty. Self-proclaimed active, involved members were "caught" being apathetic and are trying to assuage their guilt by blaming whoever they can find to blame.
Marc and I are waiting to see how this will eventually be twisted into being my fault.
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4 comments:
I've been a PRP judge before. I know how much work it entails. I consciously decided I did not want to vote in what appeared to be an EXTRA "People's Choice" type of award.
As far as I am concerned, it was not made clear from the get-go that this was a totally revamped program. They had to get that right from the get-go, otherwise any extra "prodding" would do nothing for those who actively chose, like me, to not participate. Had I understood the process, I could have at least helped get the word out better within the chapter (akin to my missives *every* month between the time of the epubs motion passing and it taking effect).
And *why* is it that something that is this large a change is relegated to ONLY the electronic communications? This is something which should be put into the one publication which goes to the ENTIRE membership, if you have any interest in the entire membership having even the opportunity to see it: the Bulletin.
As a relevant aside, is there any idea of how many people receive, let alone pay much attention to, AML Today, InterLink, and/or AMLNewsflash? Is there any way of comparing that to the number who actually read the Bulletin? (I tend to doubt that the metrics of how much people really read any of these is known, though subscribership should be for all of them.)
I was not in charge, obviously, so I cannot speak to the promotion of the changes and requests for votes. I certainly knew about it. Yes, via electronic means, but come on, who among the active caring membership still relies on paper for their information? I dont know for sure, but my gut says more people will read an email newsflash than will read a paragraph of text in the Bulletin.
I'm sure there is data on how many people receive the three electronic news publications you mentioned. Certainly many thousands of members. I don't have the hard numbers, but they're a phone call or email away.
I wonder if the changes were sent on paper to the editors and LocSecs in their monthly packets. I don't know.
The confusion you had because there seemed to be an extra award is what made you decide not to vote on anything else? Really? Um.. ok. Perhaps you could have talked to your RVC, who would have been well-informed. For that matter, the RVCs could have promoted things in their columns in LG newsletters. Sharing changes from the national level with the locals is part of their job, after all. Did any RVCs do that?
Bottom line is this-- we DID know about the voting requests... and we blew it off for a variety of reasons. Only five members were willing to put in time and effort to give recognition to their peers. Five. The rest of the ~fifty thousand didn't care enough.
No, Robin, it wasn't the confusion about the process that led me to decide against voting. (In fact, I had no confusion. Turns out my understanding was wrong, but I wasn't confused about it at the time.) It was my not wanting to take the time (having done so previously and knowing how much time it would take, which I didn't have/want to scrounge up) that was the basis for my not bothering to vote.
Ah, gotcha. No judgement from me. I was not willing to put in the time either.
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