BAA Publicity Ideas

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed. Read it in the PDF of the issue, page 17

If any of you have ever looked at the inside back cover of VECTOR you might have wondered who the Publicity Officer is and what he does. Well, last year when I joined the Committee in this very role, the same thoughts went through my mind. The way I see it, the Publicity Officer is someone who promotes APL by whatever means possible, to keep existing BAA members happy and to raise the profile of APL. As a result, I have put together a list of possible ideas for publicising APL and the BAA.

Improving Attendance at Meetings¶

There should be some incentive to come to meetings. There could be an APL brain teaser competition in VECTOR with the various solutions discussed and a prize given out at the next meeting. This type of activity would increase audience participation at meetings. The J workshop was a great success where everyone had a go at J on the machines provided.

Ideas for interesting topics to be presented at meetings are desperately needed. In order to attract people other than the few committed members, and those who have only vaguely heard about APL, it might be a good idea to host meetings with other language specialists, for example Mathematica or Smalltalk. Work would be needed to find out how to contact the potential participants.

The meetings are usually in London, but we need to analyse the membership list and work out other locations. Many people cannot make it to London, so we should go to them. I believe that we have had this type of meeting in the past, and that they have been well attended. The members of the committee that took part in the Publicity Meeting all agreed that this is a good idea and that we should approach people who live and work elsewhere to help us organise such an event.

Rather than going to the pub after the meeting, maybe we could hold a social occasion, such as wine tasting at or near the IEE. This way, members could bring their partners and friends along, or even bring a colleague along to the meeting as well!

Meetings should be more widely advertised so that we attract those who have only just heard about APL.

The corporate membership is being split into individuals, who will then get all news of meetings, etc. A lot of people working in companies probably do not know that they are members!

Some years ago we used to sell APL books at meetings, and this could be started up again.

Education¶

Do an APL presentation at a teachers’ conference or similar. Find out which conferences would be most appropriate and get suitable APL experts to attend to try and spread the word. Education Vector could be used to show what we have done already.

Make sure that schools and colleges are kept informed of BAA activities, and have a permanent invitation to attend meetings.

Outreach¶

APL diary, general stationery, calendar with meeting agendas.

Communicate with APL groups all over the world and find out what they are doing. Co-ordinate with them to host joint events either in the UK, overseas, or produce joint articles through a medium such as VECTOR.

Past copies of VECTOR could be used as publicity material to send to people who might be interested in APL.

We could hold a 1 day event which is both social, has vendors and speakers. David Eastwood went to one such event in Copenhagen which was very successful. Having this on the weekend would mean that APLers from Europe could attend, people could bring their families. There could be a family event or Cricket match.

Help!¶

If you have any more ideas, then I would welcome a phone call or letter with your suggestions. Please call me, Misha Jovanovic, the Hon Publicity Officer. Address and telephone number is in the back of Vector.