Alfredo says HOLD ON:

First:

> > Well, I think if we're going to spend the money we should
> > have at least three or four paragraphs extolling the virtues of
> > the 3000 ......

I'm interpreting Alfredo's reply to mean that he is not necessarily
against the above part (I may be wrong)...

> > Ah, what if everyone who contributes a certain amount (say
> > the current $1000 cap on contributions) gets to list a URL of
> > their choice next to their name?

> I am VERY sorry but I disagree with Gavin.  This would
> cheapen the message and would put it on the same level as
> the fully-packed ads we see all the time.  The "signatures"
> and URLs would not be elegant.  How about just signing as
> "MPE users, worldwide" (or HP3000, or HPe3000)?

I can see Alfredo's point....  and I will grant it's valid from one
(maybe several) points of view...   but on balance think I will call
myself undecided right now (maybe by tomorrow I will fall off on
one side or the other);  i.e.:  IF the WSJ thing turns out to be
possible, expect most subscribers (if they read anything on that
page at all) might at most say "hmmm....  wonder what all that's
about.....".....   but I'd like to think it's not impossible that one out
of a few hundred readers might actually be interested enough to
invest a few mouse clicks;  if they were obvious and available...
If there is nothing on the page that even gives them a hint on
where to go for more info......  well, "interesting, whatever it was"
might be all they go away with...  anyway, as a very minor
contributor I will go with consensus on this, if there is one and
the ad flies...

> .....  We want the equivalent of a sweet love letter to HP from
> Cinderella, back in the kitchen, addressed to the folks who are
> enjoying the company of courtiers at the Royal Ball.

Maybe......   I'd like to think about that a little more....    :-)

> What we really want, though, is to make people wonder and to
> motivate some journalists to ask some deep questions :-)

Yup.....  IMHO that may be more important than the love letter
from Cinderella....   and, BTW:  If it ends up being a love letter,
may I humbly suggest "tough love" ??....

> Short and sweet and in BIG letters, that's my proposal.  The
> final text is still up for editing, of course, but I believe we have
> some excellent ideas.

Guess I *was* wrong about the first part....  In which case I
respectfully suggest that my words or similar few for a "Carly
card" should NOT be the only words in any one page ad (WSJ
or INFOWORLD or whatever).....    sorry, Alfredo:  Guess I
disagree with you on this one....   Whether or not there should
be URLs I could perhaps be persuaded on one way or the other
(although at the very least I think any ad should include one or
two HP URLs;  i.e.:  http://businessservers.hp.com/  or etc.), but
surely it would be a terrible waste of...   sheesh...  we're talking
15 percent of a million bucks here...  to ONLY say:

======================================

                                Dear Carly:

    We like the HP 3000 that Hewlett-Packard
          invented 25 years ago so much that
               we took out a full-page ad in
        The Wall Street Journal to tell you.
======================================


SIDEBAR:  Let's see if the HP legal eagles *dare* to complain
if we the users put one of *their* URLs in an ad that *we* pay
for.....

May I humbly offer a modified counter-proposal:  Put something
like the above in the top one-third or even one-half of the page..
Then put at least *some* "beef" in the bottom half.  "Impact
difference" between font size for the above as full page and half
page seems pretty minimal to me (in fact if you fill an entire
newspaper-sized page with just the above, the font gets so big it
may start to look a little weird);  there's just GOT to be something
worthwhile saying that we can put on the bottom half or so of that
full page,  while we have the attention of the WSJ readership
(whatever that is)...

My $0.02.....
Ken Sletten