We had a meeting to discuss the current state of STIC. Introductions were made and a big round of applause was given to Bob Nemec, the new head of STIC.

I won't go in to all the details of the discussions had, you can read them on Jim's blog, but I will say that while there were some negative forces at work in the group, over all there were many great stories of success and advocacy that has been paying off.

For my part, I write a blog that is advocacy of Smalltalk and of my company's products, both Software WithStyle and Wizard Information Services. I've also been involved in training university students in the use of Smalltalk and in theory, the new culture of Smalltalk including unit testing, refactoring, etc.

I can't say I particularly appreciated some of the negative comments that were made, given that they were typically made from people not trying to contribute to the advocacy of Smalltalk and the growth of our community - but they have a right to their say.

One thing that disappointed me a bit is that while STIC standands for 'Smalltalk Industry Council', there was very little 'Industry' discussion going on - it was all community discussion. So you may as well rename STIC to STCC. The growth of the community does affect the Industry, yes, but a strong Industry leader helps build communities.

The odd thing about that is that I know that Bob Nemec and the board have been discussing Industry issues at length and have some ideas about directions they can go. Bob didn't discuss any of these - in fact, he let the conversation drift to the inevitable community topic. It was his first go at herding cats, sure, so I'll cut him some slack ;)