Hm,
It definitely seems like a reasonable effort. I am not a member of COMMON, nor have any employer's in my experience ever sent employees to COMMON, so all I can comment on is MY perception of relative value...
COMMON is caught between the proverbial rock and hard-place... How many discussions about declining memberships and the graying of its members... COMMON seems to be fighting a good fight to preach the modernization message and teach the technical workforce how to remain relevant, but it needs to bring in more members to hold its own. By offering "free" content, the carrot, you entice potential new members to realize the benefits afforded to COMMON membership.
Paying membership and conference fees is the stick for most of us. Add on having to use vacation time, all travel and housing expenses, and so forth and so on... Well, I feel I get exposed to much of what COMMON can offer right here for free. Definitely a dilemma for me.
-Eric DeLong
-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John Allen
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2013 1:59 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: COMMON Virtual Conference
Let's also keep in mind if something is free there is no
revenue generated by it.
Therefore, it would make sense there would be less marketing
for something free.
The more marketing done for something free = more $$ lost on
the product. Even a virtual conference
has costs associated to it
If it costs then there is revenue and some of that revenue
is spent on marketing it.
It's not necessarily up to the company giving something away
to make sure that everyone hears about it (is marketed to)
Some of the responsibility of furthering our education is
for us to find them not wait for them to find us.
John
-----Original Message-----
From: John Yeung [mailto:gallium.arsenide@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2013 2:39 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: COMMON Virtual Conference
On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 1:18 PM, Trevor Perry
<trevor@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Your posting was unnecessary, rather it seemed to be a
complaint that
COMMON did not market according to your own personal
standards, beefed
up by identifying more of COMMON's perceived failings.
Ironically, you
even suggested that you "long ago tuned out anything
having to do with
COMMON", so how would you know whether "this free,
virtual, open event
was not more heavily promoted"? Your posting, overall, was
more
complaint than neutral observation. And that complaint can
be easily
perceived as an attack.
My primary exposure to IBM i news is this list. I would
have expected more of an announcement on this list than
Pete's post (starting this thread). He even starts it off
with "Not sure if everyone knows...".
It feels like an afterthought. If there had been even a
modest campaign to put notices on this list, by now I would
have expected messages to be more like "Don't forget that
this Tuesday is...". If I'd seen that, then I would have
assumed that I simply missed previous messages, due to my
being too tuned out to COMMON events. (At least I caught
this one!)
I actually do see a lot of buzz on this list for paid COMMON
events.
To my "tuned out" ear it sounds like a bunch of COMMON
members telling each other "hey, I look forward to seeing
you at the upcoming COMMON event!" But there is usually a
flurry of such messages, so I do tend to notice. I don't
have any kill list or filter that hides COMMON from my
inbox. I just don't read them as carefully as some of the
other posts.
So I often hear about paid events, yet I hadn't heard about
tomorrow's free event until I checked my e-mail this
morning. And no, it's not my intention to blame anyone else
for my own lack of information.
Just reporting a data point, which is me. (I will say that
when I e-mailed the link to my coworkers, it was the first
they had heard of it, and one of them *is* a COMMON member.)
If you want to consider me a complainer, that's certainly
your prerogative. I think the i is a platform worth
promoting, and the community surrounding it worth reaching.
I am utterly amazed by the value of this list. I think
COMMON would add more value to the i community *and to
itself* (in the form of a greater chance to win over new
members) if it mentioned its free events more *on this
list*.
That's my opinion.
Pete, thank you for your subsequent (long) post about
COMMON, and why it may be worth another look.
Eric, thanks for the heads up about watching the material
later; I hope people see it in time and register!
John
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