I agree completely with Gavin.  The value of such an advertisement would be in
taking the ball out of HP's court and putting it out in public, where HP can't
ignore it.  While it would be nice to get this done in time for HP World, it
should be useful anytime.  After all, it's the computing public at large and not
just HP World attendees that we want to see the message.

At last count there were a little over 1000 subscribers to HP3000-L.  If each of
us contributed $37, that would provide the $37,000 Denys said would be needed
for a full page black and white ad.  If someone will coordinate this campaign,
I'll be glad to send in my $37.

Wayne




Gavin Scott <[log in to unmask]> on 08/14/2000 03:45:41 PM

Please respond to Gavin Scott <[log in to unmask]>

To:   [log in to unmask]
cc:    (bcc: Wayne Brown/Corporate/Altec)

Subject:  [HP3000-L] Publicizing the e3000; Plan A again



Julie writes:
> The idea of my first post was to address the concerns that the
> e3000 wasn't getting enough publicity.  Making a card for Carly
> is fine, but that still doesn't alert others outside HP (besides,
> I thought the "contact HP's executives" idea had already been
> tried to no avail?).

I think Julie is right, and I think it's important to recognize that it's
not actually Carly that a magazine advertisement would be targeted at.

Back in the good old days, if your local HP representatives managed to annoy
you mortally, you always had that magic silver bullet, i.e. calling
Bill/Dave (or John, or whomever was CEO that year) and complaining.

This wasn't something you could get away with very often, but for those who
were eventually driven to do it, it always would get immediate results.  You
usually didn't get to speak to the CEO, but you might have a nice chat with
some random VP followed by an edict to the field to make you happy at any
cost.  Occasionally a couple dazed looking lab engineers would arrive by
plane the next morning and wander around your computer room looking somewhat
lost for a day or two.

The "some customer called the CEO" event was always treated as an indication
of a serious breakdown somewhere in the chain of command, and never failed
to get a "lot" of people's attention.

In a sense, this is what everyone is talking about trying to do today.
People seem to feel that they have exhausted their options with HP (though
in this case it's upper management that has you annoyed), so you're talking
about complaining to higher authority.

In this case, the higher authority is the shareholders, analysts, and
journalists at large.  The best way to complain to *them* is not to send a
QueryCalc poster to Carly, but to run a full-page "open letter to Carly" in
some national publication.  The publication does not have to be computer
related, and in fact the best choices would be things like The New York
Times or the Wall Street Journal.

If this was done then the corporate level of HP would suddenly find
themselves having to answer questions from the press and analysts about why
this group of HP customers felt that they needed to do this.  It would
definitely get Carly's attention :-)

> I was talking to a friend today about the ad idea, and he suggested a
> cheaper alternative:  having the president of the user group (or anyone,
> really) write a letter to the editor of INFOWORLD.

Good luck.  Like we're the first ones to think of calling a magazine editor
and suggest that they write an article about what we think is interesting.
They probably get 100 press releases / requests to be interviewed, etc.,
each day.

If we did come up with the money to do a full page "open letter" in a
national publication, then in addition to annoying Carly it would almost
certainly generate some calls from publications like Infoworld who will be
interested in knowing what the whole story is.

So, in my opinion, only a full page "open letter" in a national, well known
publication is going to have any significant effect.  Anything less can be
ignored the same way that all other complaints seem to be.  You certainly
won't win any friends at HP by running such an ad, but you certainly will
have an impact.  Just the fact that the 3000 community has done such a thing
when none of their other customers ever felt the need to do such a thing
means that there is clearly something that needs to be fixed.

G.