Re: COMMON -- MIDRANGE-L

I have often learned as much in the social networking as the classes, so
Experts night and such are very important, but I'd rather pay full price on
alcohol and let Common keep their funds to keep conference going.

I lean more towards labs, hands on stuff, than "overviews".
Have done the Sunday all day several times & been pleased.
I like the other all day sessions, and would suggest going beyond and taking
something like PHP programming into a multi-day course.
There is great value in the presentations by some of the industry's best speakers.
I do get value from the IBMr's who are passionate for their subjects, as well
as speakers from end-user companies who walk the session through how to implement
something...
I've never attended a nontechnical session & never will (I do consider industry things like PCI compliance, etc to be technical, and also some sessions (example: Trever Perry did a session, quite humorous, but it was really about great UI design).
Have used Common to get and stay certified in several areas.
I am passionate about the Requirements, Top Concerns, SoundOff, etc - I've seen a big corporation listen and take advice, and even implement suggestions.
If your not making money in the webinar business - don't try to play in that sandbox.

I didn't make this Common as planned - and the reason was 100% financial.
Have funded my own way to Common for 10 of the last 20 years

JIM FRANZ

----- Original Message ----- From: "William A. Hansen" <whansen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 4:31 PM
Subject: COMMON

All,

In difficult financial times, many organizations decide to focus on their core strengths. In my job as the COMMON SET manager, I'm trying to put together some proposals for making the best use of the resources we have available. (Feel free to suggest anything...like that is ever a problem for this group!) Where I am stumbling is in prioritizing why people join COMMON. Here are some suggestions. Which of these make up the essence of COMMON? If you could tell COMMON how to spend your membership dues, how should they allocate it?
a.. The social networking available at the annual meeting
b.. Conference presentations on a particular topic (you pick)
c.. Conference presentations from the IBMers who designed and wrote the code
d.. Conference presentations from the name speakers in our industry
e.. Conference presentations from other users
f.. Training on nontechnical topics
g.. Reduced car rental rates (okay, just kidding)
h.. Beer at $2/pop (I'm serious about this one)
i.. Year-round education in the form of webcasts and webinars
j.. The Career Center
k.. The Requirement and Top Concerns processes that provides feedback to IBM
COMMON is the only place where we can get all of this, so "all of the above" is not allowed for this thought experiment.

Bill
William A. Hansen
whansen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Manta Technologies Inc.
Toll-free: (800) 406-2682 x 101
Direct: (303) 862-4562
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