When I was given the dates for HP World 97, I immediately noted that a day
was missing.  (I notice things like that.)  However, there was absolutely
nothing I could do about it, and I had to deal with it.  I increased the
hours to 8:00 AM to 6:00PM and usurped some of the traditionally
non-compete time, such as the MRT.  In my estimation, the MRT is something
which is not useful.  It was blocking a good portion of the session time,
and (again in my estimation) is not generally well attended.  This year
marked my 16th consecutive HP3000IUG, Interex, HPWorld annual conference.
 I have seen the usefulness of the MRT decline over the years.  Using
almost half of it, this year, to go through a survey underlines my
impression of the MRT.  I figure it would go faster if the HP folks simply
used numbers instead of responses to the questions:

1- We will look into it and report back (but not in your lifetime)
2- We have no plans to do that (but we might change our minds)
3- We are committed to doing this (but we might change our minds)
4- We are currently investigating this (but we can't make up our minds)
5- Our market research (conducted in Lower Slobovia) shows that no one
wants this.
6- That is good feedback, we will take this back (and then ignore it)
7- The appropriate person for this is not here, but we will inform him/her
(in your dreams)
8- We will inform Interex of the answer (then blame them for not passing it
on)
9- (A rare one) We have never considered this
10- (Extremely rare, only seen once) We will do this, and I guarantee it.

Contrary to Brian's comment, the conference did not end early on Thursday,
that day was a full day, just like the previous two day.  (Unless Brian's
turn of phrase is misleading me about his comment, most probable.  It's
that Canadian accent of his, eh.)  In the past years, we ended the
conference on Friday at noon, and the attendance the Friday sessions was
always pitiful.  It seems that when the vendor show closes on Thursday
evening, most people figure the conference is over and skip the Friday.  So
we decided to pack more stuff into the three days.

Back to the MRT, in my estimation, it is a waste of time and an
embarrassment (year after year) and as such, it should be eliminated.  I
wanted to do that this past year, but I relented, my mistake.  Instead we
scheduled sessions against it.  In past years, too many people complained
about not having anything else but the MRT.  It made a huge gap in the
program between 12:00 and 3:00 PM.  Maybe we should have the MRT on Fridays
like in the good old days.

Kind regards,

Denys. . .

Denys Beauchemin
HICOMP America, Inc.
(800) 323-8863  (281) 288-7438         Fax: (281) 355-6879
[log in to unmask]                             www.hicomp.com



-----Original Message-----
From:   Brian Duncombe [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Thursday, September 11, 1997 7:47 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: Re Interex Round tables

At 11:46 AM 9/10/97 -0700, John Burke wrote:
>Tony Furnivall writes (somewhat passionately but for good reason because
>he has given signifcant time and energy to Interex):
>
<more snips>
>success and all involved deserve our respect and support. My point, and
>I assume Ken's, was that we attended what was billed as a Management
>Roundtable; yet the first 40 minutes were consumed by the
>presentation/analysis/response of the Advocacy Survey. The concept of
>"truth in advertising" comes to mind. Had there been a session devoted
>to the Advocacy survey, I might have even attended. Because I wanted to;
>not because I was lured under false pretences.

<plug>
AMEN
</plug>
Especially when I heard many people (including my own echo) who lamented
that the Management RT [MRT] was being run at the same time as a number of
other extremely interesting (to me anyway) sessions.  I know that I would
have much rather attended another session for the first hour of the MRT
time slot, but was duped into choosing the MRT because I assUme[d] that it
would follow it's historical format!  Also, I may be wrong but it seems to
me that the MRT was historically run without conflicting sessions,
certainly not so in 1997.  This was made all the worse by the totally
unacceptable conflicts that occurred because of the number of excellent
presentations combined with a serious shortening of the effective duration
of the conference.  Yes, I know that there were added cost sessions earlier
but the core conference didn't start til tuesday and it wound down early on
Thursday.



Brian Duncombe  [log in to unmask]  http://www.triolet.com
"Inside every large program is a small one struggling to get out."
          C. A. R. Hoare