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.
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.
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