RE: i NATION ListServer Confusion/ownership -- MIDRANGE-L

Veronica,

Good questions, all! !  See >>

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
[mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Proctor Lawson,
Veronica @ BU
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2001 2:07 PM
To: 'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
Subject: RE: i NATION ListServer Confusion/ownership


OK, keep in mind that I am new to IBM/AS400/iSeries/iNation...but didn't IBM
come up with the concept of iNation?

>> For being new, you catch on pretty quick !  ;-)

This subject wouldn't be an ongoing
thread otherwise would it?

>> True.

Has iNation been established long enough to
legitimately complain like this?

>> MHO:  Yes and no, as I see a huge difference between complaining and
giving contructive criticisms/suggestions.  Another opinion: haven't seen
many realistic suggestions.

What would the world be like if iNation
didn't exist?

>> Hard to tell.  I think another question is:  What would the world be like
if the iNation ever DID exist?  (I'm waiting to see what it will become.)

Again, I know I could live to regret these questions, but being so naive and
impressionable  I just had to ask.

>> Shucks...  I always thought naive and impressionable were assets. ;-)


>> Being new, you might not have heard how a lot of the leaders of this
Community formed an AS/400 Advocacy Group.  This was largely in response to
the very unpopular renaming of the AS/400 to the iSeries 400.  There were a
lot of things talked about from writing letters to Mr. Gerstner to hanging
him in effigy.

>> By a fluke of nature, I got swept into the group.  Total accident, as I
had just started looking at the Internet forums for a couple months before
that, and there I was "talking" at some of the heavy-hitters of the
industry.

>> You say _you_ are naive and impressionable??  Sheesh...

>> I ended up leaving the group and writing Mr. Gerstner.  Wrote 3 letters
early September, took 40 to 60 hours to put together less than 5 pages.
Wrote a couple or 3 right before the announcement.  I practically pleaded
with him not to do it, and gave him (IMHO) a better name, if he _had_ to
rename the AS/400 to something.

>> I suspected, but later confirmed, that the name change was a done deal in
September.  Nothing nobody could do about it.

>> Failed, but at least tried.  Waste of time?  Hail no.  Read a book and
learned about Mr. Gerstner, IBM, and how they operate.  (This time last
year, I didn't even no who Mr. Gerstner was.)  One of my goals was to
entertain and inform Mr. Gerstner, but I knew going in I'd probably never
find out if I had succeeded in that.  But I did learn an awful lot about
writing executives at IBM, which I put to good use later (IMHO).

>> <GRIN> Sorry to put you down, Veronica, but you shouldn't be bragging too
much, because you are in the presence of a master when it comes to naive and
impressionable!  ROFLMAO

Seriously...  Thanks for asking these questions, Veronica.  And I hope you
didn't regret, too much, that you asked them...:-)

jt




Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 09:53:43 -0400
From: Buck Calabro <Buck.Calabro@commsoft.net>
Subject: RE: i NATION ListServer Confusion/ownership

>I appreciate your comments and web offer on
>iSeries Nation.  It might work  for the choir but
>one hopes, even dreams one day IBM will do
>something to get others knowledgeable of
>this wonderful system.

I am probably out of line here, but being in my "late youth" has made me a
bit skeptical.

Waiting for IBM to organise iNation seems terribly like waiting for my
employer to send me off to Java school, Database school, Security school,
Computer science school, give me a raise AND my choice of brand new
development projects.

Why not stand up for ourselves and tell IBM what we want?  And tell the
world too, while we're at it?

Waiting for IBM (or my employer!) just hasn't worked that well in the past.
Maybe my recent reading of Hamlet has got to me, but in order to continue to
exist, "to BE", I feel we should "take arms against a sea of troubles, and
by opposing; end them."

Buck Calabro


+---
| 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
+---