I've remained quiet during recent days on the issues that still surround RM-11306, but I have been emotionally pulled into the discussion by recent exchanges. First, I fully agree with Tom. If we remain so arrogant as to think we can successfully promote our ideas by limiting our avenues of communication to our own, we are likely to continue to lose the PR battle. The way to reach the greatest number of people is to go to where these people "are." Preaching to the choir, primarily, may make us feel warm and fuzzy, but it ignores relatively huge number of folks. Lets assume that 30% of amateurs are relatively pro-ARRL, that another 10% are firmly anti-ARRL, that 0.1% are the Teller's of the country, that 30% don't give fiddly squat about the League and, finally, that the rest are no longer involved in Amateur Radio. By restricting our message to ARRL web sites and publications, we abandon the rest of the web to the 0.1% to spread their malicious distortions and lies to the 30% of "uncommitted" hams and the 10% anti-ARRL folks. With no effort by us to spread the true and accurate word, we've already lost in any show of hands for or against our initiatives. This is not the way a consumer product organization works to ensure its products are accepted by the public. As I mentioned before, the only difference in selling an automobile, shampoo, computer, etc. and selling our primary produce is that our primary products consist of ideas. Why is the US auto industry in tough shape these days -- because after WW2, it ignored a philosophy of manufacturing and development developed by a guy from Michigan. The Japanese paid attention to him. US industry is still playing catch up. Why has ARRL lost attempt after attempt to forestall FCC initiatives and to have our initiatives adopted -- because we are still operating under the delusion the Amateur Radio community remains willing to accept what we say through our historic channels and in our historic sterile manner as gospel. Times have changed. I join with others who suggest we should promote our ideas and philosophies through any legitimate means available. I also suggest we should learn how to word and frame our messages using language typical amateurs these amateurs not only understand, but find comfortable. Comfort leads to trust. 73, Jim Jim Weaver, K8JE, Director ARRL Great Lakes Division 5065 Bethany Rd. Mason, OH 45040 E-mail: k8je@arrl.org; Tel.: 513-459-0142 ARRL - The Reason Amateur Radio Is! Members - The Reason ARRL Is! -----Original Message----- From: Tom Frenaye [mailto:frenaye@pcnet.com] Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2007 9:46 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: [arrl-odv:15495] RE: [arrl-odv:15492] RE: [arrl-odv:15485] Interesting Poll on 11306 At 09:29 PM 4/28/2007, Joel Harrison wrote:
They already know what we post on our web site, Andy. They visit our website daily and look at the posts and make reference to them.
The guys in the chat rooms see our posts. We just need to stay focused and get our factual message and educational material out via our medium.
I completely agree with Andy, not Joel, on this one. We need to look beyond our own web site. One of the reasons we're in such a bad situation on the bandwidth issue is because we're too ivory tower. We have to risk something by trying to use all of the options we have available. Why would the ARRL be different than any other company? The others understand the value of advertising and use many outlets. I hope we'll be using some PR expertise in our self-evaluation - we have a PR manager and an incredibly talented PR Committee. From what I've seen they haven't been involved in any part of the process with the bandwidth issue. -- Tom ===== e-mail: k1ki@arrl.org ARRL New England Division Director http://www.arrl.org/ Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444