Re[2]: The relevance of COMMON

[MacWheel99@xxxxxxx]

Gary, some of your CON pricing is over-stated.  I have not got to go to 
COMMON very often, but invariably I use BED & BREAKFAST in the host city at a 
commute distance of 30-60 minutes from the con site.  The cost of parking my 
car downtown during the day is nothing compared to the cost of parking my 
body at the con hotel during the evening.  MY CAR ... Oh yes the cost of 
driving myself to & from the con city is smaller than the cost of flight & it 
also means my car can be packed with handouts that can be a bit difficult to 
fly out.

There is a baggage restriction when going by air & arrangements for shipping 
handouts back home are not exactly user friendly for people who only do this 
once in a blue moon.  But by driving myself, I can pickup an infinity of 
hand-outs.  This is one of the great values of COMMON.  We will forget a lot 
of what we learned before we can apply it, but the hand outs will help us 
remember.  I do review them from time to time & some co-workers who did not 
get to go to COMMON do get some value out of the handouts that come back.  I 
get handouts from seminars I was not able to attend but wanted to but there 
are only so many hours in a day.

This means of course that the COMMON I attend is the one for which driving is 
a one day journey each way, not the other side of the continent.

By residing in lodging that is NOT the con hotel, we get to shop around a bit 
for restaurants that are priced considerably below the con hotel.  I can eat 
good for several days for what one hotel meal costs.

Hotel food in my experience is over priced and under quality & operated by a 
management that thinks its clientele has all the time in the world to wait on 
service, and expects really big tips.  When I am at home, I eat Taco Bell.  
What makes a business trip any different?  I do not have any clients to 
impress, just a brain to feed.

When I was at COMMON Dallas TX, the hotel was several hundred dollars a night 
& my Bed & Breakfast had free parking for my car & was $ 45.00 per nite as I 
recall.  When I was at COMMON Chicago IL, the Bed & Breakfast place was 
within walking distance (a long walk for me but I did it in 20 minutes) from 
the con site, it cost me in the range of $50.00 to $75.00 per nite (I do not 
remember exactly), and the parking, in downtown Chicago, was free as part of 
the deal.  You have to shop around for this stuff, but it is doable ... 
Warning DO NOT BELIEVE the B+B people when they say that this or that place 
is only 30 minutes from the con site.  They are not familiar with the con 
site & there are traffic jams of commuters.  Seek alternative math on 
probable commute times.

There is not enough Bed & Breakfast for the thousands of attendees, but most 
attendees are not attentive to such details, so you not have much competition 
for the economy route.

Talking with other attendees about such economies, I learned that some get to 
COMMON not by AIR but by RAIL so I was interested in the smoothness of ride, 
baggage hassles, relative cost, etc.  Apparently RAIL transport, while 
frequently NOT available for many communities, has vastly improved over 
sterotypes of long ago.  We can make a reasonable drive from the big city, 
park our car in a secure area that costs a heck of a lot less than leaving it 
in an Airport parking area for a week, then get on a TRAIN that is much more 
user friendly than a modern Airport.  And there is taxi service & other 
shuttles from the train station at our destination city just like from an 
Airport.

When I go to IBM School & ask about ground transport, I am invariably advised 
to rent a car, but I have never done so.  I figure that $ 5.00 taxi each way 
between hotel & school each day & sometimes when weather is good some of this 
stuff is in walking distance, this is much more economical than renting a 
car.  There was one IBM school I attended in which there was a city bus 
service between IBM school & my hotel, but after I had to miss one bus 
because it was full of people, I went for the $ 5.00 taxi one way for the 
rest of that trip.

> From: midrange-l@nexsource.com (Gary R. Patterson)
>  
>  Eric,
>  
>  I have been on all three sides of this one - I have been the programmer 
that
>  could not get my boss to send me, then the only one that ever got to go, 
and
>  now the business owner (and occasional speaker, along with NexSource
>  co-owner Kevin Vandever) who has to decide who to send.
>  
>  I now understand why it is a difficult decision:
>  
>  PRO
>  - Employee satisfaction
>  - Education = increased productivity/reduced learning curve (hopefully<g>)
>  - Wide range of education offerings under one roof (this is one of the
>  biggest benefits, in my book)
>  - Networking results in new technical contacts
>  
>  CON
>  - Cost: $1000 registration, $500 hotel bill, $500 airfare, and $250-500 in
>  additional expenses for parking, cars, food, taxis, and phone bills PER
>  EMPLOYEE! (We are a training/consulting firm, so add in lost revenue.)
>  Payback is tough to nail down, too.  Does it pay for itself?  Over what
>  period?
>  - Many COMMOM speakers are not professional trainers, and some sessions are
>  of dubious technical value (based on personal experience)
>  - Networking results in increased recruiting
>  - Lack of support and project headaches back in the office (applies to all
>  off-site training, of course)
>  
>  Don't get me wrong, I think COMMON is a very valuable resource.  They do a
>  great job with a tough task, and staffed by volunteers, no less.  I always
>  get a lot out of it when I attend (plus a few disappointments, but that is
>  the way of the world).  It is just a tough decision to make if it is your
>  money.
>  
>  Gary R. Patterson
>  NexSource, Inc.

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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