RE: COMMON Update... - the closing event

 >> However, I think it would be great if the conference coordinators sat
down with a list of those potential people and their skill sets, and then
tried to create a "suggested" course of education for each of them.

Couple of comments on this.

We try to do exactly that.  But because of the nature of COMMON it can only
work in a limited way.

1) We already have the FERs (Focused Education Roadmaps) that are intended
in part to help fill this role.

2) You can always schedule for a beginner, but once you get past "beginner"
no two people can agree on what constitutes intermediate - let alone
advanced.  For example, would you consider a programmer ready for "advanced"
topics if they are not even familiar with subprocedures?  I wouldn't - but
attendance at advanced RPG sessions indicates that a lot of COMMON attendees
disagree with that notion.

3) You can _never_ avoid conflicts.  I can (and do) try my darndest to avoid
conflicts.  But there are so many factors that play into this.  In fact the
FERs and another item known as sequence groups, were in part invented to
help resolve this problem.  But - and it is big BUT - I cannot avoid
conflicts for the attendee - because I don't know what _combination_ of
classes they are looking for.  If you are interested in "Beginning
WebSphere" for example - there is no way I can avoid all conflicts with an
Ops nav sequence, or "RPG Subprocedures and prototypes"  - to do so would
require a single threaded conference that ran for about a month.  This is
why I feel that, much as I love COMMON, conferences such as DevCon and
<vested interest> RPG World </vested interest> are a better bet for someone
who wants to focus on a specific topic area.  Go to COMMON if you want to
"butterfly" - but go to a specialist conference if that is what you need.


Jon Paris
Partner400

www.Partner400.com
www.RPGWorld.com