RE: iSociety Welcome page -- MIDRANGE-L

Thanks Trevor. That does clear things up quite a lot.  Even though the
isociety.org home page declares the same thing in summary, I needed your
full blown version to get higher understanding.

I agree with the concept that we should use existing resources (i.e. why
recreate what David Gibbs has with midrange.com's lists).  I think it just
needs to grow on me some more to get a better feel for what it is meant by
community (I have a lot of assumptions now).

For yourself, Aaron, go here: http://www.systemiportal.com/isociety/members

and register your web site as one of the iSociety Member Sites.

Consider it done :-)

Thanks again for the clarification,
Aaron Bartell

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Trevor Perry
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 1:36 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: iSociety Welcome page

I see there is some confusion to be removed.

iSociety is a community of websites and people. There is no one person
running it. IBM is not in charge. Nor is COMMON. The iSociety Welcome page
was designed to bring it all together with ONE face. There ARE a lot of
tidbits - because iSociety is engaged in fostering a System i-minded
community to bring all these bits together.

iSociety is not ~one~ thing - but contributions from a lot of people. Some
of the initial contributors are:
- COMMON is part of iSociety, and they provide the My iSociety pages -
including membership profiles.
- System i Portal is part of iSociety, and they have gathered System i
specific information from all over the web and the planet. This is a new
resource, which was built to support the development of iSociety.
- Midrange-L is part of iSociety, and provides System i mailing lists and
information from all over the web and the planet.
- System i for everyone is part of iSociety and provides a means to publish
marketing ideas developed by anybody and everybody.

iSociety is YOU. If you feel out of it, then join. Contribute! The My
iSociety home page is hosted at COMMON. While there are teething issues -
some related to logging in, etc - COMMON is working hard to enhance that
experience and provide a means for all members of iSociety to have a
membership profile and connect with each other.

Aaron, this is not a marketing initiative. It is designed to be a community
that grows. It is getting more traffic as people become more aware of
iSociety.

My personal contribution is time. I do believe strongly in the power of
community and am supporting iSociety. It needs two things to grow -
recognition and contributions. The contributions are coming, and the
recognition is also starting to take hold. If Joe Pluta would contribute to
iSociety, that would be a huge positive. If Aaron Bartell would contribute
to iSociety, that would be a huge positive.

For yourself, Aaron, go here: http://www.systemiportal.com/isociety/members
and register your web site as one of the iSociety Member Sites. That would
be a great contribution - and actually may lead to more people benefitting
from your good work - which is the goal of iSociety.

Hope that helps reduce the confusion.

----- Original Message -----
From: "albartell" <albartell@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 1:11 PM
Subject: RE: iSociety Welcome page

I get the feeling that iSociety "came out" before it should have.  Being
that it is largely a marketing initiative I would consider it lacking.  I
still remember getting a flyer from a "moving ad" at COMMON Miami and I
immediately went out to isociety.org only to find that they didn't own the
domain yet - ouch.  When I finally figured out how to sign up for it I was
confused that I needed a COMMON Id to do so, or rather they were going to
create a COMMON Id for my iSociety membership - very confusing.  Now when 
I
click on some links on the isociety.org page I get routed to COMMON.  Why 
is
COMMON putting their stuff all over everything?  And like Joe is saying, 
why
all the links to systemiportal.com?

I don't get it (or rather I catch small tidbits here and there). Too many
faces/facades.  But maybe they aren't trying to market to me, an iSeries
developer.

Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com