RE: Common or IBM Tech Conf?

["John Earl" <john.earl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Larry,

For me some of the biggest difference between the IBM Tech Conference
and a COMMON conference are the pace and the tone.  In my experience
Tech Conferences are a bit more subdued than COMMON conferences (good or
bad, depending on your perspective).  The days are a little shorter, and
the socializing opportunities are a little less.  COMMON is more high
energy, lots of after hours events, etc.

As for the education, there are an awful lot of similarities - The Tech
conference is essentially a subset of the educational offerings you get
at a COMMON conference (OK, you may be able to point to a couple of
sessions that you can attend at the Tech Conference but not at COMMON,
but then again, maybe you can't), with the main difference being that
about a third of the speakers at a COMMON conference are not IBM
employees, so you can get some different perspectives at a COMMON
conference (personally I like the different perspectives - and would
like to see more of those kinds of speakers).

At the IBM Tech Conferences all of the speakers are IBM employees with
the exception of John Paris and Susan Gantner (who also speak at
COMMON), and any expo vendor who pays to deliver a vendor specific
session.

Here are some basic statistics about a COMMON conference...

-IBM Speakers              - 65%
-Other Speakers            - 35%
-Sessions by IBM                   - 72%
-Sessions by others        - 28%

So from an educational perspective the two conferences are getting more
and more alike.  The major differences are in the inclusion of non-IBM
speakers, the after hours events, and all of the other hoopla that is
sooooo COMMON. :)


jte

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