RE: Re[2]: The relevance of COMMON

Before I disagree with you :-) I do want to say that some of your cost
saving ideas are certainly well-mentioned, and may help some attendees save
money.  I particularly like the nearby B&B idea (but see below).

That said...
Overstated?  Certainly not.  Perhaps they do not reflect your experience,
but I suspect that my numbers are pretty typical.  They certainly match my
experience.  (I have the receipts to prove it!)  It might be possible for
some attendees to cut costs as you state, but it is not practical for the
vast majority of us.

B&B's are often missing essential services that business travelers require:
individual phone lines, copiers, fax machines.  You already mentioned the
capacity issue.  I don't know about you, but I have work to do while I am
out of town, and need a place to plug in my laptop, and a decent phone line
for my modem.  The rate savings must be balanced against increased local
transportation costs, (plus of course travel time, which if you value at
more than zero, adds up fast).

At conferences, I am on a tight schedule, and have to find time to return
calls, pages, and emails, plus deal with emergencies.  Plus, attend the
conference, meet the people that I want to meet, AND try to have a little
fun!  IT is a lot harder to get the most out of the conference, plus keep up
with the rest of it if I am staying 30 minutes away, fighting traffic,
parking hassles, and shopping for a slightly cheaper place to eat.  Again, I
value my time at more than zero (you are probably noticing a theme here...)

As far as food goes, I agree with you.  Even cheap dining adds up, however.

As far as driving, bus, or rail transportation goes, those sort of cost
savings only work if (again, and finally!) I assign a $0 value to my time
and that of my employees - which is not the case.

There is a balance, but no matter how you add it up, converence travel is
expensive.  It does not stop me from attending.


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
[mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of MacWheel99@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2000 3:21 PM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: Re[2]: The relevance of COMMON


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.


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