Re: Fwd: "State of the Midrange" by Don Rima

You know, no matter how many actually contribute, the very fact that it
is being done is probably news worthy especially to InfoWorld's Maggie
Biggs who has been very sympathetic to the AS/400 lately.  

There is a book called 'Guerilla Marketing' by Jay Levinson, and in that
book Levinson says that when you are an upstart you have to do whatever
you can to get FREE press.  Just about all the books I have read on the
subject agree on this fact, that for an upstart company blowing your
entire budget on one ad in USA Today is futile because there is no story
behind the ad and you give them (reporters) no reason to help.  

I am not at all against doing something to get the attention of IBM and
the rest of the industry but I think that an ad alone (or even several
ads) is not the way.  There needs to be some reason for the reporters to
get on our side, or even against us for that matter.  I think that a
snail mail campaign is a great way to do this.  You fill their inboxes
with the same comments with different signatures and that will wake them
up.  If you make news then their jobs will be in jeopardy if they don't
egt the scoop, thats how you get their attention.

 

nina jones wrote:
> 
> I was thinking about usa today.  it's not as financial or business
> oriented, but it does have a big reading.  i read it all the time when
> out of town.
> 
> i've had no experience in keeping contributions for something like this,
> but i would imagine some kind of record of contributors and amounts done
> in a spreadsheet would work.  If you really wanted to do it special, a
> bank account could be set up specifically.  and before money is sent,
> would a pledging type system be in order to see if we have a prayer of
> meeting the goal?  we could volunteer to handle the financial end if
> you're taking names.
> 
> for ideas on gathering contributors, there are several other as/400
> related newsgroups.  would places like news/400, midrange, and
> source/400 be willing to put up a blurb to go to, say a website to
> solicite funds for this?
> 
> we need to look at this as our one bullet to get:
> 
> - the attention of ibm as to the opportunity they are missing to capture
> market share on a great system
> 
> - the attention of the business community that the as/400 is a great
> system, and they too are missing out.
> 
> for example, last week i was visiting my dad and his wife, (who live in
> tennessee) and they have a company that writes and markets a p/c
> application for job contractors.  they started in commercial basic for
> dos, and rewrote it for windows in visual basic.  they were moaning
> about the support nightmares they have and most of them are p/c related
> (specifically windows), and how hard it is to draw the line on what you
> can and can't do.
> 
> i told them we almost never have these kinds of problems, and they were
> surprised.  they've known i'm true blue ibm midrange, and in fact,
> katherine (dad's wife) worked long ago on 34's.  but they have been with
> p/c's so long, they now accept general protection faults, files
> trashing, etc, as a normal part of doing business.
> 
> nj
> 
> DAsmussen@aol.com wrote:
> >
> > Folks,
> >
> > I found Don's article to be quite insightful, and the "eunuchs" reference to
> > be rather funny to us AS/400 folk rather than an affront to other system
> > proponents.  Considering the fact that most UNIX professionals, even on AIX,
> > earn an average of 20% less than do AS/400 professionals, this should be
> > _YOUR_ concern as well.  AS/400 professionals earn more, obviously _NOT_
> > because the system is harder to use, but because we generally understand
> > business processes that most computer professionals of other ilk do not.
> >
> > I somehow doubt that those of us that participate frequently in these lists
> > be able to come up with the cash necessary to run a full page ad in "The 
>Wall
> > Street Journal"; however, we probably _COULD_ come up with the funds for
> > publication in a similar national forum.  Frankly, if we had WSJ money, I'd
> > be more than peeved that David has to beg for donations every year for the
> > maintenance of these lists.  If you'd like, I'd solicit "the trades", as
> > including publications such as "USA Today", to see what they'd charge for a
> > full page ad.  IMO, less than a full page ad would be ineffective.
> >
> > We could solicit "open letters", vote on the results (if David were amicable
> > toward such an arrangement), and vote on the publication in which to post
> > based upon advertising rates.  What we _NEED_ is someone to research, or who
> > already knows,  how to place donations for group advertising in an account
> > for which contributors would be reimbursed if we didn't meet the advertising
> > dollar target.  We'd also need a method by which to offer amendments to the
> > "open letter".  But, finally, we'd need a method by which to solicit
> > donations from persons and enterprises other than those that are members of
> > midrange.com lists in order to receive the necessary financing.
> >
> > I'm game, is anyone else?  Any alternative plans or ideas that would enhance
> > this one?
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