Joe R. writes:

> When asked the question where do you see Interex in 2002, one of the board
>  candidates responded:
>  "... I think we will find ourselves being less "member oriented" and more
>  "services oriented". We may charge a small membership fee which will give
>  members access to the services and products at a lesser price."
>
>  Is that where Interex members want to the organization (with a lowercase
>  "org") to be in 2002?

Without having ever heard anyone at Interex say anything like that, that is
exactly the message that they've been hinting at for quite some time, and
it's certainly the one that I've derived from their public statements.

As I said earlier, I don't have any problem with the concept. Indeed, it may
be possible to form a new users' group that will be completely independent of
Interex, one that is a minimalist organization, of very low cost, and wholly
user-focussed (essentially equivalent to the HP3000-L is now, if an
organization even needs to be formed), and yet still work symbiotically with
a commercially-oriented Interex in a manner such that everyone benefits.

One of the easiest ways to make this happen is for Interex to continue
provide a vendor extraganza ("all things HP") exactly as they're doing now --
and have the various independent user groups conduct their own meetings
nearby (perhaps in the same building), synchronously.

The costs of attending the user meetings could then be dropped from $1500 to
$100. Interex could decide on their own whether they would want to charge
admission to exhibition floor; they could similarly provide training and
certification classes; and they could provide any other services they might
think of.

Such a plan would clearly be to Interex's benefit. They would no longer be
potentially encumbered with "obsolete" user groups, clinging hopelessly to
dead or dying platforms. Instead, they would be free to adapt their services
to whatever's hot at the moment.

Similarly, the advantages to the various user groups would be that they could
greatly lower their costs to those in attendance. And they would also be free
to focus on those items that are of significant concern to they alone. Their
meeting's content and direction would be theirs alone to decide.

If Interex divorced themselves from the various user subgroups -- and each
subgroup (NT, UNIX, MPE, etc.) formed itself into its own distinct
international users' group, their otherwise independent, once-a-year meetings
could all easily be designed to coincide with the Interex show. That would
meet Winston's general concern of his engineers only having to attend "one"
meeting and yet still allow some real degree of synergy/symbiosis/leverage
(pick your buzz word here) among the independent groups.

There are a number of smaller scientific organizations that have grouped
together to do precisely this. The largest is FASEB (Federation of Associated
Societies for Experimental Biology), a raft of about 30 biochemistry
societies that get together once a year for one humongous meeting.
Icthylogolists and herpetologists have also done this with their several
(about 5) societies. If you belong to any one of the societies, you are
admitted to most of the meeting as a whole and are able to attend other parts
only as a member of that particular society.

Wirt