RE: COMMON slated to change education delivery in 2007

[makins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Common is or was a national conference with a broad curriculum that 
brought together a wide group of as/400 users and IBM employees.   That is 
the strength of COMMON and what I believe that it does well.  There are 
many other small conferences and seminars already.  I go to Common for the 
broad variety of sessions.    I can go to hear about things I am 
interested in plus find some things that I should be interested in.    It 
gets you out of the office for several days so that you can learn and 
think about how to apply what you have learned.    I have considered 
attending one of many other smaller conferences that are out there but I 
prefer the format of COMMON.   That's just me and what I prefer.   I'm 
also one of those middle aged gray haired guys who started going to COMMON 
back in the early eighties.

I don't know if COMMON has been very successful at it's other endeavors.  
This discussion list and others are not brought to you by COMMON.   The 
journals that I read like iSeries News and iSeries Experts Journal are not 
produced by COMMON.     At one time COMMON might have been able to start a 
discussion list or popular journal but for whatever  reason it just never 
happened.  If COMMON switches to smaller regional conferences they will 
have to stand out from the crowd.

I also think that COMMON's board and management structure is not well 
suited to smaller conferences.    The people who run the competing 
conferences have a personal economic interest in the success of their 
conferences.   Their management is smaller and should be much more nimble 
than a board of nine.

There's a lot to be said for sticking with what you do best and maybe 
better than the other guy.