RE: COMMON Europe

I have spoken at COMMON Europe (CE) the last 3 years, and was looking forward to speaking there again this year. They have great users there, just like those over here in the states, and I have made friends whom I was looking forward to see. I have read what was published on the website, I have heard first hand from people on the COMMON Europe board, and I have heard from IBM. As Dan K stated in his post, CE is an umbrella group of all the COMMON organization countries in Europe. Quite different than COMMON North America. In fact, you could almost think of CE as a collection of country user groups. CE has the member country (COMMON France this year) that is hosting the event do much of the planning, and the local user group had picked out a fantastic location. It was not too far from Geneva, so getting there wasn't that difficult. Of course, traveling in Europe isn't as easy as traveling between states here in the US. Remember here in the states a few years back when we went into our recession, and what is the first thing that is cut is education and travel. With the economic concerns in some of the member countries in Europe, I am sure that was an issue for attendance. I don't know what the attendance numbers were, but remember they have multiple language issues over there, that we don't have to be concerned with here in the US along with the travel issues. I know that from IBM's perspective, they have a lot of requests for speakers during the June time frame, so I am sure the highly sought after IBM speakers were being pulled in every direction. Now, couple this with the 25th birthday party happening in June, and I bet this was causing even more requests for Steve Will and others at IBM. I don't know to what extent IBM changed its commitment, nor what the original commitment was. I am not going to get into the middle of who said what, as I am sure that between what was written, what was said, and what was requested, expected, answered, and whatever..... lies the truth.

It's unfortunate that COMMON Europe had to pull the plug on this year's conference. But this doesn't mean that the member countries aren't still doing their own events this year. Some of the countries have some pretty large events. I know IBM is also providing speakers to those countries, in various degrees. There are many local country events planned throughout the course of the year, and I am speaking in one of the countries in November. Plus COMMON Sweden sent a large contingent of like 25 people to this year's COMMON conference is Austin. It might be a silver lining in a dark cloud that CE has cancelled the event, as they can take some time to reflect, look at themselves, and then determine how they can best serve their users. CE and COMMON North America (CAN) have many similarities and many differences, and I know that CNA each year looks at itself to determine how it can best serve its members, and what we need to do as an organization to change to meet those needs. Randy continues to do an excellent job in leading us to keep the organization fluid and agile as we adjust to the market and the users.

I think the thing to take away from this is that CE has cancelled their event this year for some reason, but that CE is still out there serving its members as an umbrella organization, and the member countries are also serving their constituents with local events. CE will be back next year, in what form I don't know. What I do know is they have a highly motivated board who work hard for the users in the European community. That board has their work cut out for them, but I believe they have the resources, intelligence, and desire to rediscover themselves. Plus I am sure that CE and CNA will continue to work close together for the good of Power Systems professionals all over the world. I know the upcoming Fall conference in St. Louis is ahead of last year with people already registered for attending, the expo has sold more booths at this time, and the speakers were just informed of their sessions for the fall that have been selected. I would expect the agenda to be published sometime soon. Sept 9 to the 11th in St. Louis looks like another successful fall event.

Pete (the opinions expressed are mine, and not the opinions of the COMMON organization).


--
Pete Massiello
iTech Solutions
http://www.itechsol.com
http://www.iInTheCloud.com





-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Hoteltravelfundotcom
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 4:46 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: COMMON Europe

I know in the past they had huge conferences. I am talking more than 10 years ago. I know vendors like Cybra used to go there. Pete Massielo goes there he may shed more light.


On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 11:08 AM, Dan Kimmel <dkimmel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

I know no specifics of this situation, but let me pitch in a little
info here.

The organizational structure of COMMON Europe is very different from
COMMON (US). Common Europe is a congress of individual country users group.
There's representation on the board from each of the country user groups.
So the reference to " change of IBM policy towards European umbrella
user groups" may indicate that IBM has decided to spend more on the
national user groups. Many of these national users groups have their
own conference each year.

This may have to do with the economic situation in Europe. Germany is
doing quite well, thank you, while Spain, and Portugal, and maybe even
Italy are suffering. I can see IBM making a decision to spend more of
their marketing dollars in Germany.

Pure speculation on my part.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of rob@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 9:39 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: COMMON Europe

Read the article. It said the expo was sold out but the number of
delegates actually going was very low.
http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh052013-story03.html

Is European travel (for Europeans) more expensive than North American
travel is for Americans? I would think that everything so tightly
packed together would make it easier. But perhaps that's countered by
you can't swing a cat without crossing some country's boarders and
perhaps that adds an expense. Maybe the location, while nice, was
expensive. COMMON America has been battling this occasionally.

Are European's more inclined to not travel and rely more upon other
methods of getting educated?

Or is the economy really tanked over there?

Let's not blame IBM for all of this. If IBM refused to send a team to
your local user group when the only people attending it were your
board of directors would that be a sign that IBM is dropping support
for a broad product line or just an economic decision? After all, if
it was your marketing money for your company and it cost just as much
to physically market to some kid with a banjo on a bridge in some
backwater rural area than it was to target electric or printed media
reaching a much larger audience wouldn't you rather you get more bang for your buck?


Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1 Group Dekko Dept 1600
Mail
to: 2505 Dekko Drive
Garrett, IN 46738
Ship to: Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com





From: Richard Schoen <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Date: 05/22/2013 10:23 AM
Subject: RE: COMMON Europe
Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx



You never know if it's budget related, market related or politically
motivated.

In any case a bummer for the EU folks.

Regards,
Richard Schoen
RJS Software Systems Inc.
Where Information Meets Innovation
Document Management, Workflow, Report Delivery, Forms and Business
Intelligence
Email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web Site: http://www.rjssoftware.com
Tel: (952) 736-5800
Fax: (952) 736-5801
Toll Free: (888) RJSSOFT


-----Original Message-----


message: 7
date: Wed, 22 May 2013 14:16:04 +0000
from: Paul Fenstermacher <PFenstermacher@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: COMMON Europe

There's a small story buried in the IT Jungle e-mail on Monday about
COMMON Europe cancelling the June conference. Included is this verbiage:


* IBM has traditionally been our major sponsor, as our events are
aimed primarily at users of the POWER platform. However in 2013 there
has been a change of IBM policy towards European umbrella user groups
and this support has been vastly reduced.
At short notice, the availability of several key speakers from the U.S.
has been withdrawn. This would have forced us to dramatically change
the structure and the quality of an agenda which has taken many months
to compile. In the short time remaining, we feel this simply would not
be feasible.


Later in the article is this information:

"four key speakers (who were not identified) from the United States
and who were presumably from IBM were withdrawn, and that messed up
the agenda."



Most of us can probably guess who those four might be but this doesn't
seem like a good thing for the Power platform. Trevor, Allison, Pete,
Jim, Dr., Dawn, Jon, Susan, anyone care to shed some light??


Paul Fenstermacher | Sys/NW Admin,Sr | Corporate Systems - POWER
Systems Administration | Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.(r)
663 West Highway 60 | Monett, MO 65708 | Ph. 417.235.6652 | x177389 |
pfenstermacher@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:pfenstermacher@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>


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