Re: COMMON Virtual Conference

Trevor,

I don't have any beef with COMMON, and I thought I used quite neutral
language. I said it has a reputation. Regardless of whether you
think that reputation is deserved, it most definitely has that
reputation. If you think that expressing the existence of a
reputation is "perpetuating a myth" then how are we supposed to
discuss anything at all? How are we supposed to *overturn*
perceptions if we aren't allowed to even say what the perceptions are?

In all seriousness, please read my previous post again, but without
the assumption that I am in any way attacking COMMON or the IBM i. I
never said COMMON was unjustified, unfair, or even overpriced.

I do want to respond to one thing you said in particular, though:

When you say "it has a reputation for high-cost membership, high-cost
events", you are helping propagate a strange myth. This years Annual
conference will cost you a standard rate of $1695. The recent IBM Power
Systems Technical University cost $1995.

I take issue with calling this not only a myth, but a *strange* one.

From the point of view of many IT departments, it is just as *strange*

that you think $1695 is NOT a high cost. You can express disagreement
without the value judgments. You have a better chance of changing
someone's mind if you can educate them without implying that there is
something wrong with them for not already holding your point of view.

John