Leaning forward on member communications

[Steven Ayres]

The SDC has a lot to be proud of in terms of longevity and a large, involved membership. I'd like to open a discussion on how its member communications can evolve for the future.

I'm a communications professional, in the business for nearly thirty years. I was a member (Grand Canyon Chapter) for several years in the late '90s when I got my first Stude, and I joined again last year when I began working on my second. I don't expect to renew, however.

Turning Wheels is a beautiful thing, and again something to be proud of. But I submit that the monthly-magazine format, with its attendant heavy costs in production and mailing as well as its inherently month-old-and-even-older content (where it's not the same as every previous month) cannot serve younger members anywhere near as well as it has in the past.

In similar fashion, the standard online forum format we see here, which is over a generation old, from the younger person's perspective is dated and stodgy as social medium and critically difficult to deal with in terms of locating the best answer to a problem or question.

Younger and smarter people than I am can furnish the range of vision for the social side of the hobby, and I invite those comments below. I'm most interested in the SDC as a repository for technical expertise and lore.

To that end I want to suggest that the club phase out the magazine in favor of a comprehensive, active web presence providing access to the best technical information and tips available, winnowed from the club's decades of letters, articles and forum postings, vetted and edited by our technical gurus with the help of our best editors for clarity and utility. I see the potential for a wiki that's as prideworthy as Turning Wheels has been. Let the forum or something like it be a noisy source; pick the best from it and continuously build the wiki. The great historical articles that TW is famous for would find a new home where they can integrate new research and stay current and accurate, and find linkage to others as a knowledge base for yet more research.

TW's advertising partners should be every bit as involved in rebuilding an up-to-date, well maintained online compendium of available parts and services that feeds back to them what members need, link-integrated with the wiki and the forum.

To maintain its amazing record for longevity and relevance, the SDC must avoid the trap of inadvertently filtering for a certain age group or political stripe, as I have seen painfully often. We all hope to pass these cars on to others who'll love them as well. I urge the SDC leadership and members to open up the thinking, embrace change and be there for the coming generations.

[E. Davis]

Personally, I think it works pretty well just the way it is. I have never had any trouble getting current information or answers from members that solve my problems. Turning Wheels is a gem in its self and a definite credit to the club. Remember the old adage....if it ain't broke , don't fix it.

[Commander Eddie]

Steven,
I get what you are saying here and I agree with much of it. Times are changing and so are the ways in which people communicate and share information. But wow, I hate to see print media getting relegated to the dust bin. Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but there is something satisfying and comforting about holding a printed book or magazine in my hands and turning the pages.
Perhaps we can incorporate new forms of digital communications and still hold on to TW. Sure, it costs a lot of money to produce, but it is a beautiful thing and we should hold on to it. We can have both forms so that everyone can get what they need from the club in whatever way is most satisfying to them.
I'll be curious to read what others have to say about this thought provoking subject.

[53commander]

I agree with E. Davis. I like paging through TWs at least 4 times cover to cover. I also photo copy articles that I know I will need in the future. Hard copies filed neatly are easier to access then searching the net sometimes IMHO. I also enjoy this site for the wealth of info that is easy to navigate.

[j.byrd]

I think I have not been one to reply in a negative tone so far on this forum, but what in the world are you thinking to suggest taking away one of the prettiest and best liked magazines in the "club world" for ? There are a LOT of people who would be very affected by that, some of us don't even like the web, we have just got used to it. The magazine goes from some of our hands to Dr's offices, veteran's hospitals, rest homes, friends without internet, kids that are interested at car shows,on and on. Besides, that is putting even more people out of work, Mr. Communications professional. No thanks, leave the magazine that makes so many happy or at least satisfied alone. And, just to further show my backwoods-ness if that's what this will seem to you, what is this "leaning forward" term. I seen it on one of the major news networks that I also don't care for. To all the rest of you, I'm sorry for my out of character rant, it would have been worse if I had replied as soon as I read the post. Signed, usually laid back John

[Skip Lackie]

I agree with posts 2, 3, and 4. I would have no problem with adding and expanding our on-line presence, including a wiki and any other tools, but only if we maintain TW in its present form (and can afford it). I much prefer holding a hard-copy magazine, and find looking up facts and specs in the hard copies to be much easier than trying to use an on-line tool (at least for Studebakers).

It's also worth noting that for more than half the members, TW is the ONLY thing they get from SDC. Thus, the term "phase out the magazine" scares me to death. What would we do, tell everybody to get on line by 30 Dec 2014, or suffer without any further products from SDC? I realize that (as a geezer myself), most of those who do not use the Forum are probably about my age, but "phase out" implies we're gonna just cut 'em loose.

At most of the IMs I have attended, those in attendance at the general membership meeting have strongly endorsed strenthening and expanding TW as the thing they would most like to see their dues used for. Again, adding some 21st Century tools is a great idea, but not at the expense of TW.

[jimmijim8]

"I can't go for that---No can do" Hall and Oates

Blasphemous. I'd rather give up my gun, if I had one. I love the magazine and when I'm done reading it give it away at multi make car shows. The recipients are enamored and thankfull. I am proud to give such a fine magazine away. I've been in the club many years and have but 2 magazines to show for it. This is just one of the ways I promote the club and cars. Others do the same. cheers jimmijim

[johnod]

While I very much like magazines, a lot, I'm not a fan of TW, in fact while I am a club member I do not subscribe to TW any longer.
I find the mag full of filler, minutes of long ago meetings ,pictures of long defunct assembly lines, correspondence of people long dead, month after month helps me in no way.
Once in a while that could be interesting, but month after month, no thank you please.

Just my opinion.

[8E45E]

To that end I want to suggest that the club phase out the magazine in favor of a comprehensive, active web presence providing access to the best technical information and tips available, winnowed from the club's decades of letters, articles and forum postings, vetted and edited by our technical gurus with the help of our best editors for clarity and utility.

NOT A CHANCE!!!! I still enjoy my cold hard copies of TW, and any other magazine I've been reading for years! A rather insidious suggestion, if you ask me.

Craig

[Corvanti]

keep TW in hard copy!!!

However i don't see a problem adding the option of TW online for members that would rather get that version. after start up costs, the postage cost savings may be substantial.

this may not be a fair comparison, but i get by local ENCSDC newsletter (much smaller volume than TW) online. i save them to a file and can check them out with a "click".

idk if a substantial drop in the number of printed issues would rise the cost per issue published. some here could answer that.

besides, i'd rather not take my laptop into my, ahem, library!

[PackardV8]

To that end I want to suggest that the club phase out the magazine

Absolutely not!! Keep "Turning Wheels." At this point in time, it shouldn't be "either-or". Twenty-five years ago, at the dawn of the internet, I worked at a daily newspaper. The marketing manager there wanted to make a name for himself nationally and went all-in on the internet. He traveled the country to conferences making speeches, "Sell your printing presses to third-world countries and put all the content on line; newsprint is dead. In ten years there will be no daily newspapers left in the US." Yes, twenty-five years later, newspapers are less profitable than they were, but very few have figured out how to replace any of that money off the internet. I still subscribe to that same daily paper and the Sunday New York Times. I hope to be receiving "Turning Wheels" many years from now.

To that end I want to suggest that the club phase out the magazine in favor of a comprehensive, active web presence providing access to the best technical information and tips available, winnowed from the club's decades of letters, articles and forum postings, vetted and edited by our technical gurus with the help of our best editors for clarity and utility. I see the potential for a wiki that's as prideworthy as Turning Wheels has been.

2. Agree - Design and host a Stude-wikipedia format where each technical area can be edited and updated by the best minds we have here. This would be a huge help, because the same questions are asked over and over and over and over. If there were an easily searched and accessible repository, an on-line Shop Manual, it would save everyone much heartburn. Yes, some newbies are lazy, some technically lame, but face it, the present "Search" function just isn't our finest hour. The genius of the Wikipedia format is it is self-edited, self-directed, self-correcting. The software is known, so little investment would be required and little overhead involved. All it takes is a couple of hall-monitors to rein in those who go with opinions not based in referenced facts.

3. The real challenge is the "Classifieds" section of "Turning Wheels". That's real revenue SDC needs to continue to fund TW. If the classifieds were available free on line, too many CASOs would stop subscribing to TW and too many advertisers would drop their monthly ads. Some newspapers have an on-line subscription for which they charge a fee. The hard-copy subscribers get it as part of the daily paper cost. Non-SDC CASOs would have to pay an on-line subscription fee.

jack vines

[jclary]

I'm a communications professional, in the business for nearly thirty years. I was a member (Grand Canyon Chapter) for several years in the late '90s when I got my first Stude, and I joined again last year when I began working on my second. I don't expect to renew, however.

Not to call into question your credentials...but, really??? One important tidbit of communicating is knowing your audience. We, are a group of relics/relic fans, and those who are not yet relics, are well on their way to being one. Our entire reason for being a group is in the interest of preserving relics. It is natural that our way of communicating involves and includes methods that contain elements "behind the times."

If you want to add more current methods, have at it! I recall how weird I felt the very first time I made a cell phone call while driving one of my Studebakers. Equally strange was the first time I pumped a gallon of gas into my Studebaker that costs more than fifty cents per gallon!

However, suggesting we simply scrap probably the best club publication in the car hobby industry in favor of a communication method that probably less than twenty five percent of our paying membership using...smacks of a bit of elitism, a lack of insight, and somewhat of a misunderstanding of the reason for the "In hand Publication" itself.

As we have seen already, digital data can be corrupted, lost, and abused. Someday, when the hard drives crash, the power goes off, and the transmitters fall to the ground...some survivor may dust off a tattered Turning Wheels, and have a restful moment...dreaming what once was.

This wonderful forum is populated (at any given time) by only a few of thousands of members world-wide. Although growing, it is only one tool, of many, that set the SDC apart from other clubs. Additional means and tools are welcome, but, lets not degrade one in an attempt to promote another.

That would make about as much sense as scrapping our old cars merely because they are outdated and newer ones run better...Good Grief!

[Skip Lackie]

An addendum to my post above: new ideas always are welcome. Suggest you contact SDC president Carl Thomason and volunteer for a committee position focused on either recruitment or the adoption of modern media.

[dictator27]

Get rid of TW? SACRILEGE!!! I'm with Craig. No way.

Terry

[studefan]

Don't take away my hard copy TW! I was reading that magazine in bed until midnight last night. No wise cracks.