Re: Did ITJungle say Common was a waste of time?

[Jerry Adams <jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

COMMON is a user advocacy group.  Whether or not it is successful in 
that endeavor depends upon whether or not one's own issues are being 
addressed.


Among other things COMMON has re-instated the Requirements process.  
Actually, re-invented would be a better description since on the old 
model one had to attend the conference to enter a requirement.  I think 
that has been removed.  In fact, if I heard (and remembered) correctly, 
even non-COMMON members can enter them.


I attended the Town Hall meeting last week.  I got ticked off and left 
after the 10th person during "open mike" griped out "changing the 
name."  Once was more than enough, plus it was addressed *before* the 
"open mike".  My point here being that this was a great venue to say 
something useful to Mark Shearer that was mostly wasted.


        * Jerry C. Adams
*IBM System i Programmer/Analyst
B&W Wholesale Distributors, Inc.* *
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        jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>



Steve Richter wrote:

> Is, should COMMON be a user advocacy group?
>
> from http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh032706-story01.html
>
> "...As I prepare to fly out to Minneapolis to attend yet another
> COMMON iSeries user group meeting, I find myself pondering how iSeries
> shops could bring their collective weight to bear on IBM to compel it
> to behave in ways that the user community desires. Because the iSeries
> does not have direct competition, IBM doesn't price and package the
> iSeries in a way that many of us believe it ought to so it can compete
> against Windows, Linux, and Unix platforms. While IBM has a large
> customer advisory council, COMMON, and regional user groups all
> feeding in requirements and offering advice to Big Blue on how to
> improve the iSeries, that is not the same thing as having the power to
> actually compel IBM to change its behavior. ..."
>
> "... Like many people in the OS/400 community, if I have an argument
> at all, it is almost never with IBM's Rochester labs, where the OS/400
> platform is created and manufactured, but rather with IBM's Somers
> offices, where the marketing and sales plans are hatched and where the
> pricing and packaging decisions are made. Getting Rochester to listen
> is easy, since the techies aim to please. Getting Somers to listen is
> hard, since the marketeers aim to make as much money in the shortest
> term with the least possible amount effort. They do this because
> that's what marketeers at public companies do.  ..."
>
>