DevCon was great thread

Paul,

 

Here, here. Well said. And yes, come back Joe.

 

Ron

 

 

 

 

Paul Nelson wrote:

 

With all due respect to Zak Metz, et. al, you are taking what I feel is 

the wrong approach when you talk about throwing out your COMMON membership 

renewal forms. There has been a healthy discussion going on in the COMMON 

discussion thread about various "opportunities", and one of the volunteers 

made the following comment that speaks directly to the point of where to 

look for education:

 

"Membership  and conference attendance have become all confused, too. Do 

you belong to COMMON  or do you go to conferences? Is there some value in 

the collective beyond the  information gleaned in sessions? Is COMMON all 

about education, or is there also  value in a collective influence on the 

industry, the vendors, and the culture?  But this is a subject for another 

conversation." 

 

Let us never forget that first and foremost, COMMON is an IBM midrange 

systems user's group dedicated to sharing knowledge amongst its members. 

Remember that each and every attendee becomes a member. Currently, there 

are over 20,000 members. COMMON is a not for profit entity. Are any of the 

other conferences? Despite some false starts, COMMON has worked to assist 

local user groups to remain viable and to prosper. If you haven't been to 

your local user group meeting lately, get off you duff and network with 

your peers. If you don't have a local user group, talk with Glenn Ericson 

or Don Rima, and they'll help you. These guys are first class.

 

I've been around COMMON for 23 1/2 years now, and I've been a volunteer 

for 22 1/2. A lot of the COMMON bashing being done on this list is 

justified, but a bigger percentage is not. Before you can say one negative 

word about COMMON, you need to EARN the right by actually being one of the 

people that makes these conferences happen. Only when you are part of this 

"family" can you start spouting off. Joe talks about disagreements, etc. 

for his departure from COMMON. Hell, I used to quit every 6 months about 

one thing or another. I came real close to punching out the president 

once. The thing is, though, that these people are my friends and we get 

past the problems and disagreements. Where else can you establish such a 

good relationship with an IBM developer that he or she will give you their 

home phone number, and not be pissed off when you call them with a problem 

at 10 PM on a Friday night? Don't laugh, I've done it. COMMON, warts and 

all, is still the best bang for the buck. To paraphrase American Express' 

motto: COMMON membership has its rewards.

 

Come back, Joe. We need you.

 

Paul Nelson

Arbor Solutions, Inc.

708-670-6978  Cell

pnelson@xxxxxxxxxx

 

"Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of 

others are often stiffened." ~~ Billy Graham