Re: The relevance of COMMON (was Penton to buy Duke - News400 magazine)

dkeck@idt.net writes:

> While working the IBM midrange since about 1985, I have never
>  attended COMMON,  as my employers never perceived the benefit to be worth
>  the expense.  Local seminars were more palatable (less time & $$).  I'm on
>  my own now and would have to justify the cost, down time, and time away 
from
>  family.  I'm sure COMMON would be educational and fun, and meeting folks
>  face to face would be exciting, but it's hard to justify the tradeoff.
>  Thirty years ago the  most efficient and effective way to evaluate 
products,
>  get some education, and establish business contacts was the convention
>  model.  That's not really the case any more.

It has been a while since I have managed to attend a COMMON but based on what 
I got out of those I did attend, I feel that we need a spectrum of 
educational resources to stay current in our profession, and COMMON fills a 
void for a portion of our educational experience, which is more valuable for 
some of us at particular points in our pathway to proficiency.

There was a time that I was seriously considering paying for COMMON out of my 
own pocket, but now with the spectrum of educational opportunities, some of 
which my employer is willing to pick up the tab for, this is no longer needed.

If you attend a lot of seminars, the $$$ add up.  Going to COMMON is like 
attending the best seminars available, hour after hour, day after day, from 
as early in the morning as you are able to get woke up, to as late at night 
as you can handle, and when it is time for nutrition, you are seated in a 
catered dining area, or buffet style where there is a speaker's podium & 
while stuffing our faces we are also listening to really relevant material.  
COMMON is wall to wall education available, in which the unit pricing is 
below that of seminars.

COMMON is generally held in large cities with an abundance of treasures that 
the family probably would love to visit, although they would prefer to do it 
with you.  At one time COMMON had support for families of attendees, to help 
them take advantage of what that city had to offer.  When I go to something 
intense like COMMON or IBM school, I try to take a few vacation days in the 
host city before the event to play tourist, and after the event to do further 
digesting & review of what I absorbed to figure out priorities of applying it 
when I return to the office, and there is also a need to recover from the 
intense expreience before returning to normal work.

If you only need or want one or two seminars, then go to them, that is the 
economical way.  If you need in-depth education in SQL or some other language 
or tool, then attend the classes in that whatever.  If there is a broad 
spectrum of know-how that you need because perhaps your employer is new to a 
particular box or language, then do COMMON or IBM CONFERENCE & take advantage 
of the spectrum of seminars on that box or language.  If you need to stay 
current in something you know a good bit of, but not enough, then subscribe 
to News/400, lists like this one, and occasionally hang out at the on-line 
400 forums.  If you want to do a better job in some area, such as 
performance, then pick up one of the books on the topic, and update your 
sizing questionairre.

Al Macintyre  ©¿©
MIS Manager Green Screen Programmer & Computer Janitor of BPCS 405 CD Rel-02 
running on AS/400 V4R3 http://www.cen-elec.com Central Industries of 
Indiana--->Quality manufacturer of wire harnesses and electrical 
sub-assemblies
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