Re: Fall COMMON conference focus -- MIDRANGE-L

Joe,

It seems obvious from your previous postings about your issues with COMMONthat you would side with a complaint about the processes at COMMON. Thatdoes not make it right to complain in a public forum about a personal beefwith an industry association - even if you think by doing so, you can affectthe process.

I would suggest that no matter what your stature, or your stature at COMMON,or your stature in the industry, airing a personal complaint about thescheduling process at COMMON in a public forum is simply a bad choice. Itcan definitely tailor you as a whiner, and someone not willing to work withthe volunteers and staff at COMMON who are in charge of the process.

Besides, the final schedule has not been set for the fall conference. Whenit is completely finished, if Al were to have more of his sessionsscheduled, he would look sillier for having complained. As a speaker ofexcellence, I believe Al should have a responsibility to ~encourage~ morespeakers to COMMON, and his email was not encouraging in any way.

It is my opinion that Al should use the influence he keeps for positiveimpact. And he knows I think that.

Trevor

----- Original Message -----From: "Joe Pluta"

Subject: RE: Fall COMMON conference focus

I've stayed out of this one, but since it's evidently an open forum for
opinions regardless of their relevance, I may as well throw in my twocents.
If you know anything about COMMON, you know what an invaluable resource Al
Barsa has been over the years. Al has typically done nine or ten sessionsa
conference, and including the new speaker's orientation.  He's been voted
COMMON's Best Speaker before, and has gotten the COMMON Distinguished
Service Award.  Like it or not, Al is one of the faces of COMMON.

And it's the same in the iSeries industry.  I don't want to guess how many
bugs we as users haven't seen because Al has already reported them and IBM
fixed them--especially horrible, nasty bugs in save/restore that don't
appear until it's too late to fix them.  I don't care whether you like or
dislike him, agree or disagree with him, Al has achieved a position in the
iSeries community that precious few of us will ever attain.

Al and I are not close; we're at best nodding acquaintances.  I do no
business with him or his company. So why bother with this missive?Because
as far as I'm concerned, Al has earned the right to gripe if he wants to.
There aren't many people who have contributed as much to the industry;afterCozzi, Klement and Paris (and a few others--this ain't a contest, so Idon't
need to name 'em all), the list starts to thin out pretty quickly.
So if you don't want to hear Al's gripes about COMMON, don't read theposts.But until you've presented a couple of hundred COMMON sessions of yourown,
it's MY OPINION that you really don't have the standing to take Al to task
on it.

Respect.

Joe