Thursday, May 17, 2007

NGCOA Listserv Helps Out!


The National Golf Course Owner’s Association has a tremendous tool that I use almost everyday. A LISTSERV enables discussions to be conducted through predefined groups but uses e-mail mailing list servers instead of bulletin boards for communications.
It’s really quite simple. If you encounter a problem that you need some advice on you can usually use your network of friends and colleagues for advice. With the NGCOA Listserv your network of friends increases exponentially.
You can log in with your user name and password and e-mail your question to the rest of the people that are on the listserv. People from all over North America, thousands of people, participate and they range from operators of small nine-hole golf courses to operators of some of the largest golf clubs in North America.
Most of the time you can get some great ideas, some of the times you get some “wingnut” responses. I find it a useful tool to help me with situations that I have not encountered before.
The biggest problem is some of the misinformation out there. I too often see important issues get brushed aside on the listserv or downright answered completely wrong. This could be dangerous and give a person some really bad advice. However, the rest of the participants usually will respond and correct any misinformation, hopefully before anybody acts on the bad advice.

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