Re: Common in SAT

Bob,

In a message dated 6/30/99 3:17:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time, cozzi@rpgiv.com 
writes:

> We're trying to hold two meetings. The Business meeting would be more
>  business oriented, as required by our bylaws, then we'd hold a 2nd meeting
>  that isn't being called "COMMON Sound Off" but that's effectively what it
>  will be. We decided that holding the business meeting with the Q&A session
>  just went on too long for most attendees and we'd end up loosing all but a
>  few. This new format, we hope, will allow the people interested in the
>  business issues to listen without the "burden" of the Q&A session. The
>  second meeting will be used to accommodate the Q&A session.

While I understand the premise behind this decision (being an unwitting 
contributor to the length of last COMMON's MOM), I disagree with the 
solution.  COMMON is too busy an event to ask people to attend _two_ business 
meetings, especially when attendance is already poor at the one.  MOM and 
Soundoff both have a common (no pun intended) problem -- some people just 
come to complain.  Case in point, my complaint about the guest program (I 
believe that _you_ held the mic for me) -- I brought nobody with me to argue 
the point and received several unsolicited endorsements; however, many of 
those endorsements were from people that had already spoken several times on 
_other_ subjects and were, as we say in the South, "Jest itchin' fer a fight".

As an alternative, I would suggest limiting voting attendees to two questions 
and/or responses at both MOM and Soundoff.  Non-voting attendees would have 
no say.  This would prevent large companies from bringing hordes of people to 
represent a particular point of view, prevent "complainers" from complaining 
about everything they see fit to, and encourage "networking" among those that 
have several issues to address so that either more people attend (to handle 
the two issue overage) or that those issues are of import to more than one 
member.  IMO, two meetings are only going to get you a lower quality of 
content, a plethora of "Robert's Rules of Order" afficionados, and lower 
attendance.

JMHO,

Dean Asmussen
Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
E-mail:  DAsmussen@aol.com
+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---