[Tfug] Bringing the FSF to Tucson

[Jim Secan]

At 01:19 PM 07/30/2008 -0700, you wrote:
>On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 09:33:25AM -0700, Andrew Lenards wrote:
>> On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 7:07 AM, Claude Rubinson
<rubinson at u.arizona.edu>wrote:
>> > Just a quick followup.  There didn't seem to be much interest in
>> > organizing an FSF event so I've let the FSF know as much.
>> >
>> 
>> There really isn't any interest?
>
>My suspicion is that there enough peoplw would show up to a meet 'n
>greet BBQ or talk or whatever.  But there also needs to be a few
>people who will take the time to organize it.  But only one person
>volunteered to do so, which isn't enough.

Actually, I think the interest died off with the issue of paying for one or
more FSF folks to trek out here to the fringe of civilization.  I think you
could get people to help set something up, but getting people to help pay
for someone to come out to Tucson for a beer is iffy.

My 2cents - I've seen attempts to lure techie speakers (FSF and otherwise)
to The Moldy Pueblo several times over the past nine years, ranging from
simple meet-and-greets to workshops.  They've mostly gone nowhere because
Tucson just doesn't have a big enough critical mass of people who would
really be involved in such an event.  Yeah, moan and groan about how many
people are on TFUG and TJUG and a handful of other local techie groups, but
there's lots of overlap in the membership lists and it boils down to Tucson
just ain't a techie town.  I don't think it will ever be, given the utter
folly, ignorance, and ineptitude of those who have been trying for several
decades to MAKE Tucson a techie town.

Maybe this should be on the FLAME list.

Anyway, Tucson has a serious chicken-and-egg problem when it comes to
growing a tech economy.  A healthy techie economy comes from having lots of
small techie operations going, but those need a larger techie operation to
feed off of in various ways (NOTNOTNOT something like Raytheon).  If they
had bothered to try to snag that 600-person Google office that went to
Phoenix last year that might have jump-started the process.  Someone who's
making more than they should dropped the ball big-time on that.  Until the
number of serious techies working in this town grows, it's always going to
be hard to attract speakers or groups to hold events here, particularly
with Phoenix just up the road.

Jim
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| Jim Secan           | Northwest Research Assoc, Inc |
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