WHITE PAPER ON DECUS BYLAW CHANGE REFERENDUM Are you a part of the Digital Equipment user family: an end-user, developer, pundit, or Digital employee? If the answer to this question is yes, then this article is important to you. DECUS, the Digital Equipment Computer Users Society, may or may not be on your list of important information resources - but it ought to be. This 30 year old, volunteer-driven organization is in the throes of a major internal struggle over its bylaws that may permanently relegate it to the class of irrelevant, "over-the-hill" user groups. If you are a DECUS member you will soon receive a ballot to alter the bylaws. The changes are supported by a majority of the nine members of the current DECUS Board of Directors, but are opposed by a substantial number of the rest of the DECUS volunteers. More than 700 DECUS volunteers devote their energy, time and expertise to make DECUS events, educational activities, publications, and other information-sharing services happen. Through this article, we hope to explain to you that more important changes are needed to assure the effectiveness of DECUS as a credible user organization, and as a useful resource for you in today's computing environment. The proposed bylaw changes either impede these important changes or ignore them; you should reject the proposed changes by voting "No". The focus of the debate is whether to retain the current consensus-driven, decentralized model or to convert to a highly-centralized structure. The question is, which organizational model is more responsive to the needs of the Digital community and is more consistent with the culture and values of this volunteer society? The opponents of the bylaw change believe a highly-centralized approach is inconsistent with the nature and culture of a volunteer-operated organization, that it will permit growing domination of the Society by Digital marketeers, and that it will, therefore, damage the long-standing relationship between DECUS members and Digital product developers. Today, DECUS volunteers in partnership with over 200 Digital counterparts (developers and field support specialists) provide a broad spectrum of services including: local user group meetings; electronic conferencing systems; the DECUS Library, a large collection of public-doamin software; a monthly technical newsletter; regional and national seminars; and regional and national symposia. Distributed authority is exercised by the 150 Local User Groups (LUGs), 23 national Special Interest Groups (SIGs), and a host of support committees. A Management Council of senior DECUS leaders coordinates efforts between units and with the Digital-supplied, paid staff. The Board of Directors is responsible for developing a DECUS voice in the computing industry and creating a vision that sparks the changes which leads the Society into the future. Despite a persistent lack of an industry-wide vision by the Society as a whole, the last seven years have seen significant changes in DECUS. Over half of the Special Interest Groups have changed to track the evolution of the industry. There has been an increased emphasis on delivery of services through local user groups. New member services have been added, such as regional seminars and conferences, electronic conferencing, symposia session notes, and on-line Library services. Four new User Interest Groups have been created in the past two years, two of which seek to expand DECUS' reach to new groups of professionals and new problems beyond the tightly-defined realm of bits and bytes. DECUS continues to grow and meet new challenges. Services now in the pipeline include a new third party providers technical update (to be presented in the spring of 1991), no-fee electronic conferencing (likely for the fiscal year beginning in July), improved organization of symposia schedules (probable in 1992), and an exploration of ways to serve new audiences. Regardless of the success of any organization, the future is always made up of challenges, pitfalls and the organization's own hidden potential. In the case of DECUS, this is especially pertinent. The computing industry changes on a daily basis. Even Digital, which for so long seemed to be able to run a maverick course, has had to face up to new economic realities and to a world that is rejecting traditional proprietary technologies for the allure of "Open Systems". DECUS, as the ultimate provider of information on _existing_ Digital technology, has traditionally trailed the marketplace in order to support users of existing products. Clearly this is a role that DECUS must not abandon. However, DECUS must take on new responsibilities. There should be a focus on leading the industry and using the collective muscle of more than 60,000 members to positively influence the computing industry. This requires some level of independence from Digital. The key is to avoid stagnation while continuing to support traditional DECUS services. Some of the challenges DECUS must face in the near future are: supporting a broader cross section of the computing community; making services more accessible to the membership; exerting leadership in the industry; responding to the change from proprietary to open systems; and influencing Digital to be responsive to its customers' needs. The proposed bylaw changes create a new beauracracy centered on the Board of Directors that concentrates activities and control of the Society in the Board of Directors. The change will disperse and decrease participation of the elected chairs of DECUS committees in the decision making process. This breaks the process of building enthusiasm in the volunteer workforce. This will dramatically reduce the ability of support committees to deliver services to members. While most of the business world, including Digital, is moving to decentralize and distribute decision-making, the proposed reorganization goes in the opposite direction. In addition, the new organization would mire the Board of Directors in details of DECUS' day-to-day operations. This would drain their creative energies and preclude the development and promotion of the vision we need to succeed in the future. The new services and organizations DECUS has spawned over the past three years indicate that the current organizational structure is fundamentally sound, and is capable of responding to perceived needs among its members. Indeed, the study that is used to support the proposed changes reaches this conclusion itself. Volunteers continue to deliver high-quality products and services. It's not uncommon for volunteers to contribute 1,000 hours or more to DECUS in the course of a year. Volunteers do this because they perceive that they have input in the decision-making processes in their product/service delivery units... volunteers don't get paid. The changes needed in the current organization are changes to further expand DECUS' reach into, and relevancy to, the global computing community. DECUS needs Board members who are industry visionaries to design and support DECUS' expansion beyond its roots. DECUS needs empowered and enlightened volunteers to implement those designs, and to "network" the Society with other user organizations. DECUS needs more support, but not more control, from Digital. DECUS needs to make Digital aware of the broad constituency DECUS represents. DECUS needs to get Digital's ear on matters of policy, as well as technical details. DECUS needs to solve personality problems and communications problems at the topmost level of the Society without disenfranchising volunteers. DECUS needs to develop more new methods to reach today's computer users who cannot afford or justify the travel costs of Symposia and who are inadequately reached by our other current products and services. DECUS needs to begin to represent all Digital customers/users, not just the largest companies that Digital seeks to service. DECUS _urgently_ needs to develop fully-open methods of informing its voter/members about election issues and candidates' stands on them. DECUS needs to work hard on open communications across all parts of the Society, to eliminate the pockets of resistance that are sometimes felt by members with new ideas. (Current DECUS bylaws and procedures do not even allow concept documents like this one, opposing major ballot issues, to be circulated with the ballot or to be published in many major DECUS publications.) DECUS needs to accelerate its recent evolutionary changes, and that means still more volunteer hours to debate the issues and solve the problems. Yet the proposed changes meet none of these needs. DECUS does not need to endorse a "rush job" that alters the organizational structure of the top layers while ignoring the needs of the users, the needs of the volunteers who deliver DECUS products and services, and the needs of the industry around us. DECUS does not need to disrupt its organization and operating procedures _today_ while simultaneously facing the triple threat of a recession, of reduced Digital participation, and of demands for new and nontraditional products and services. DECUS does not need to alter the fundamental balances that have made it work -- the balances between the volunteers who provide products, services, and information, Digital which provides financial support and information and receives feedback, and the members who consume Digital and DECUS products, services, and information. DECUS does not need to cede additional influence over the Society to Digital or to become a Digital marketing tool. DECUS does not need to be top-driven. Yet the proposed changes do all these things. There are two parts to DECUS: DEC and US, joined together into one body with mutual respect. Let's keep it that way. When you get your bylaw change ballot this spring... Just Say NO! PARTIAL LIST OF SIGNATORIES: Frank Borger Rick Bowen Milt Campbell Chair, Newsletter Vice Chair, Business Chair, SIG Council Audience Committee Practices UIG Task Force Co-Founder, CARTS LUG Past Chair, RT-11 SIG Carole Fleming Dave Frydenlund Joe Gallagher Past Chair, National Session Notes Chair Newsletter Editor, 4GL SIG LUG Council Executive Committee, Past Chair, DTR/4GL SIG Past Chair, Santa Communications Unit Barbara LUG Bob Hassinger Steve Jackson Dave Johnson Library Representative, Chair, DECUS Standards Past Chair, National LUG OA SIG Committee (SIG Council Past Board Member Council) Co-Founder, BAYVAX LUG Jeff Killeen Marg Knox Sandy Krueger Chair, DECUServe Director-Elect, Board Member, Board of Directors Past Chair, RSTS SIG of Directors Chair, Management Council Vice Chair, SIG Past Chair, SIG Council Council Past Chair, DBMS SIG Past Chair, VAX SIG Chair, Austin LUG Robert H. Luten Bill Mayhew Charles Mustain Chair, VAXELN Ada Chair, Business Chair, SIG Council Working Group (DAARC Practices UIG Past Board Member SIG) Steering Committee, Past Chair, EDUSIG Third Party Past Chair, RSTS SIG Providers UIG Co-moderator, DECUServe Conference Structure Sysop, CompuServe VAX and DECPC Forums Joe Pollizzi Clyde Poole Robert B. Robbins Chair, Languages and Chair, Communications Member, Board of Directors Tools SIG Unit Vice Chair, Management Past Newsletter Editor, Council VAX Systems SIG Past Chair, National LUG Past Chair, LOTA LUG Council Bob Roddy Ralph Stamerjohn Karen Startzenbach Seminars Rep,. THE Director-Elect, Board Vice Chair, National LUG SIG and DAARC SIG of Directors Council First Recipient of the Past Regional LUG DECUS Award for Coordinator, Southern Technical Excellence Region Katherine 'Kit' Trimm Jim Welborne Joe Whatley UIG Coordinator, SIG Past Board Member Chair, OA SIG Council Past Chair, Management Past Chair, OA SIG Council Past Vice Chair, SIG Council Past Chair, COBOL SIG