* Reader responses concerning the future of user groups
In our continuing discussion of user groups, last time Michael Finneran mentioned the Wall Street Technology Association (WSTA) as one of the relatively few surviving advocacy organizations. We also heard from ACUTA, the Association for Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education http://www.acuta.org.
Jeri A. Semer, ACUTA’s executive director, wrote, “There is definitely still a place for user associations, and the fact that ACUTA is thriving is proof of that. We have a clear focus serving communications technology professionals at colleges and universities (the only such organization with this specific focus) and we offer our members the opportunity to share information and to network.
“The great old organizations you mentioned, such as ICA, TCA, and CMA, are no longer around partly because their need for an advocacy role faded, but also because, in my opinion, they didn’t evolve. Like those groups, ACUTA’s focus at one time was on voice technologies and the people who led telecom departments. But unlike them, we saw the trend of a converged voice-data function, and successfully transformed our organization to mirror the changes taking place at our members’ institutions.
“As far as the question you posed, whether organizations like ours are still needed, we answer with an enthusiastic yes. While we do serve a regulatory advisory capacity on behalf of higher education interests, our larger role is to afford our members the opportunity to network with and learn from each other. That’s why most of the speakers at next week’s annual conference are ACUTA members, sharing with other members the ways they have implemented and managed technologies on their campuses.
“There’s a comfort level in a community like ACUTA, with members knowing they can contact each other, or post requests for information about technologies, vendors, applications, and other issues, and get helpful, cooperative responses.
“We would like to see more organizations like ours out there, going strong and helping their own communities deal with the dizzying pace of technological advancement.”
Many thanks to Jeri for sharing these thoughts. Indeed, one of the major challenges over the past few years has been for these organizations to converge the scope of their focus, just as users have had to implement organizational convergence within their own communities.
