Ken Sletton writes (much more charitably than I will) about how the
Management Roundtable came up short:

>One of the reasons many of the pre-submitted questions for that HP
>Management roundtable did NOT get addressed during the session is
>that plus-or-minus a couple minutes (I timed it), it ended up that there
>was only 60 minutes available for questions, not the 110 minutes
>scheduled for the RT....  And that happened because:

>(1)   The Management RT started 10 minutes late.
>(2)   The Management RT ended on time (10 min before the hour).
>(3)   The first 40 minutes were taken up with the "Oprah Winfrey" style
>       interchange between Dick Watts and Jeff Odom and others;
>       where they showed various "customer satisfaction" slides and
>       talked about a range of subjects..  110 - 50 = 60 min.

I left at the end muttering several unkind expletives in the direction
of Interex and HP.

The first 40 minutes were an Infomercial for Interex and HP. If it were
published in InterexPress, I would read it. If I knew what we were going
to be "treated" to in the first hour, I would have gone to the
concurrent MPE "Supersession" - a far better use of my time.

We are constantly encouraged to pre-submit questions for the RTs.
Interex and HP make this very easy. So why are pre-submitted questions
passed over so questions can be taken from the floor?

Fortunately Duane Percox had the chutzpah to ask his very reasonable and
timely question from the floor after the written version had been passed
over.

<Flame suit on>
The question time is very limited (by Ken's count only 60 minutes this
year). We are chided by the Chairman of Interex each year to keep the
questions short and forego lengthy "preambles". Every year one or two
Japanese gentlemen get up with their interpretors and give lengthy
preambles in Japanese. Which are then translated, followed by the
question, again in Japanese. Which is then translated. All the while
5000 people are left to squirm. Invariably, after the 60 second answer
is given, we get a follow-up from the same person! Again in Japanese,
which is again translated! I counted about 10-15 minutes out of our
precious 60 minutes spent this way.

May I respectfully suggest that in the future, questions will be
accepted from the floor ONLY after all pre-submitted questions (with
follow-up) have been read and answered or dealt with in some other
manner (too specific, will be followed up offline, etc.). This makes for
a fair, productive, RT for everyone.
<Flame suit off>

John Burke
(speaking only for myself)
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