Re: COMMON Update... - the Porsche give-away?

Speaking as one who did attend the scam event I will say that I don't feel
"guilty" but I do feel "scammed".  If the car would have been given away to
*anyone* then I probably wouldn't let it bother me so much.  By not telling
the whole truth it was a sin of omission, and a sin of omission is still a
sin.  I'm not a drinker (maybe one beer a year) but I'm all for good food
and a fun raffle.  I am the type of guy who wanted to attend Trevor's
session but I made my choice and it was the wrong one for me.  I did ride
in the elevator later that evening with a guy who was so drunk that he was
ready to fall down.  I'm sure that he paid for his choice later.  Quadrant
will probably pay for their choice in terms of bad publicity.  In the long
run we will all get over it.  We just need to make sure that we learn from
the choices that we made.

I did love Paul's comment about the Porsche giveaway in his presentation at
the closing event.  Classic!  It wouldn't have been funny if there weren't
some truth behind it.  Having a room full of people laugh at your promotion
should tell Quadrant something.


Dave Parnin
--
Nishikawa Standard Company
Topeka, IN  46571
daparnin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx





                                                                                
                                 
                      "Trevor Perry"                                            
                                 
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Technical Discussion"              
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                      midrange-l-bounces@m        Subject:  Re: COMMON 
Update... - the Porsche give-away?        
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                      09/24/2005 10:18 PM                                       
                                 
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Ron,

You are one attendee. Regardless of how you scheduled your time, you do not
have to feel guilty for attending the scam event - and it seems you have a
well thought out approach to the entire conference.

However, I do not expect that you speak for the majority. When there was a
decision to be made between the conference educational events and a $90,000
Porsche, the people I spoke to decided on the raffle. There were so many
people who told me they would have been at the COMMON sessions if it was
not
for the raffle. I even spoke to many people who finally made it into
CUDS/Domino and they told me the alcohol was a large draw over the
conference educational events. Ok, so some of them were very tipsy and I
did
say "nyeh nyeh you got scammed".

I expect that if the scam was not held, the number of attendees at the PD
night would have been substantially higher. If you looked closely, these
four sessions were meant to be more of a break and a balance against the
pure technical content of the conference, so maybe we would have even had
you there.

I do agree with your ideas on how to approach Quadrant. And I would add
this. When you call Quadrant, call your favorite COMMON board member and
let
them know how you feel.

Trevor



----- Original Message -----
From: <Ron-Zimmerman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, September 24, 2005 7:54 PM
Subject: Re: COMMON Update... - the Porsche give-away?


> I've been thinking about this for several hours since first reading it.
> I'm personally offended by the implication that the attendees are to
blame
> in any way for this.  I know in my own case, when I had looked at the
> sessions for the week I had made the decision early on that none of the
> four educational sessions that evening were of interest to me.  I was
> interested in and did attend Al's BOF on the new time functions of the
> operating system.  I made those decisions before ever knowing anything
> about what Quadrant had planed
>
> I did go to the Quadrant event because their software may be of interest
> to us and I wanted to hear about the announcement that was supposedly the
> real reason for this party.  (Sure it would have been nice to win the
> Porsche, but I had no illusions of really winning it - besides, I
couldn't
> afford it on my salary anyway.)
>
> When you want to blame the attendees, remember that the whole week is a
> series of decisions about which sessions to attend.  We are constantly
> making choices as to whose session to attend, or sometimes even choosing
> to not attend any session at all during a particular time slot to give
> yourself a chance to rest a little bit.
>
> I certainly agree that Quadrant was way, way off base on this one and I
> hope the BOD takes action to make sure nothing like it ever happens
again.
> I hope they also have some serious talks with the folks from Quadrant to
> make sure there is an understanding of how badly this has damaged their
> relationship with COMMON and it's members.
>
> I would also call on all Quadrant customers and potential customers that
> were there to be sure and tell their Quadrant contact what they thought
of
> the whole thing.  I know in my case, I will be telling them that they are
> going to have to do an even better job of selling me after this and they
> are going to have to rebuild their reputation with me before I will be
> ready to do business them.
>
> Thank you,
> Ronald L. Zimmerman
> I.T. Applications Manager
> Swiss Valley Farms, Co.      http://www.swissvalley.com
> "The Good for You Company"
> Email: Ron-Zimmerman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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