RE: COMMON

Bill,

An excellent set of questions. Here is my take.

a.. The social networking available at the annual meeting

A first class benefit of COMMON - this is one of the most important
assets to me.

b.. Conference presentations on a particular topic (you pick)

Very, Very valuable. When I want to do a deeper dive on a topic, I love
being able to hear about it from someone who has already traveled that
road.

c.. Conference presentations from the IBMers who designed
and wrote the code

Less and less valuable. While there are certainly notable exceptions,
many of the IBM presenters out of the labs are lower quality presenters
who just try to do a core dump in 75 minutes. Rather than listen to
these technical people drone on for 75 minutes, I prefer to corner them
at a networking event and get specific answers to specific questions I
really care about. Otherwise I have found a number of these sessions to
be too dry to sit all the way through.

d.. Conference presentations from the name speakers in our industry

Valuable - but they are starting to get repetitive.

e.. Conference presentations from other users

This could be real valuable, with some amount of vetting. Unfortunately
without any vetting all of the same criticisms in item c) would apply.

f.. Training on nontechnical topics

No thank you. When you are cutting sessions I would hate to see a good
technical session cut so that a fluff session could persevere.

g.. Reduced car rental rates (okay, just kidding)

This is so totally useless that we should drop it.

h.. Beer at $2/pop (I'm serious about this one)

It's not the price, it is the networking opportunity that is valuable.
Closing this down at 9:00 or 10:00pm is sad. A cash bar that stayed
open longer would increase interaction possibilities.

i.. Year-round education in the form of webcasts and webinars

Ambivalent. Everyone is doing this. What value does COMMON bring that
is not already present (saturated?) in the market place.

j.. The Career Center

There is a career center? :)

k.. The Requirement and Top Concerns processes that
provides feedback to IBM COMMON is the only place where we
can get all of this, so "all of the above" is not allowed for
this thought experiment.

Sorry, I didn't understand this question?



--
John Earl
The PowerTech Group, Inc.
Direct: 253-479-1408
Mobile: 206-669-3336

www.powertech.com





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