Re: COMMON - the week's over...

Sorry to hear that Scott. However I think COMMON's thought process was
that it was a place for all to share their presentations. You speak on
'X' and someone else speaks on 'Y'. With enough people willing to give
you end up getting more than you're giving. But if you're one of the
"anchor stores" or speakers that really draw people to the conference you
end up speaking at every conference, and more and more sessions. I'm
hoping that the Jon Paris' type people can line up education gigs out of
doing many of these presentations. But other folks who are doing it while
working at a non consulting type of gig (like you) start to wonder when
enough is enough. We like to do our share but not to the point where it's
taking food out of our kids mouths.
Sometimes I wonder if the Jon Paris type people lose business because of
this. Why hire him onsite for a week versus going to COMMON? Although I
bet if he was the sole reason you went to COMMON, on site would be more
cost effective and better training.
I've done both.

A lot of these other conferences that are popping up pay their speakers
and are competitive in price to the attendees.

Many of us work for places where employees took turns going to COMMON. And
with the economy in the tank your turn comes up even less because now your
work skips a year or two. How do you work that? "Hey, I get to go to
COMMON this year. Is there a list of open topics that I could cover for
people who can't make this one?"? A decade or so ago we tried to cover
DDS with alternating employees.

Rob Berendt