At 08:54 AM 6/5/97 EDT, Jim Phillips wrote:
>If Interex is a non-profit organization (and I assume they are), then
>this information should be available, especially to its members.

Interex is not a non-profit organization, as trade organizations that are
deemed manufacture-specific not allowed to obtain this status under IRS
regulations.  However, you can get financial information, simply ask or
attend the annual mtgs held at the conference.

By the way, the group has had a number of budget deficits and I know
has been trying to put away about $200,000 a year towards a retain
earnings in order to have sufficient resources should the annual
conference be cancelled (remember New Orleans), that they would be
able to survive a year and provide the same level of service and
also cover the cost of the cancelled conference which was not
recovered (pre-conference travel, printing/mailing, contracts, etc.
which would not be covered by a insurance (which itself is expensive!)).
Bottom line is without the annual conference either a lot of
activities would cease immediately or the group would probably
go bankrupt.

Consider this:

The printing/mailing costs of multi-color publications plus the salaries
and overhead of the editors/clerical staff are probably not fully
covered by the advertising revenue.  There has always been talk of
lowering these but in most every meeting, no one felt that lowering
the quality of the publications would be good, as this is what is
in front of most people all year.  And it does have a reflection on
the organization.

The InterexPress was established because the lead-time for the INTERACT
was such that timely information was 2-3 months late dur to the lead
times.  So the simplier format was setup and the lead-time reduced to
1-1.5 months.  However, advertising was essentially minimized because
this tends to extend the setup time/etc., which is not consistent with
the short lead time.  Besides, the content was focused on current
information, leaving acticles on products/techniques/etc. for the monthly
magazine instead.

And then there is the cost of copying/mailing the various SIG newsletters.
When I was SIGIMAGE Chair, just one newsletter along was between $600-$700.
Do that 2-3 times a year and now a SIG needs $2,000.  Given there are no
dues, Interex funds this cost.

Out of an individual membership, clearly 50% of the membership fee goes
to publications.  I suspect that even the publication-only membership
is barely a break-even on publication costs only, and doesn't have
anything left over to help defray the other costs like the 800 number,
office space, people, etc.. I don't know if even the estimated publication
costs are fully burdened costs, I only heard these values several years
ago and have to assume they've gone up since, as everything does.

I remember that at one time there was talk that a member would only
get one publication (INTERACT for example) and if they wanted the
HP-UX publication they'd have to pay an additional fee.  Of course
this went over like a lead balloon, as those who wanted both
let it become plainly known they didn't want to pay 2 membership-type
fees, expecially when a number of other trades can be obtained for
free.  Obviously one wonders how they can do it for free...look at the
ratio of advertising space vs. articals.... :-)

Setting this low-cost membership category aside and questions as to
whether the publications % is fully burdened costs, out of the
$115 membership fee let's assume that there is $60 left after
publication costs.  Given that the membership is around 3,000 and
half are individuals (for the sake of discussion), this would mean
that there is approx. $90,000 income from individual memberships.
Site membership cost of $595 also incurs the costs of the annual
tape, say another $40 (which is probably quite low, but makes my
numbers easier...;-)  ), this would make the income from the
1,500 site memberships at approx. $750,000, or an overall membership
income of $ 840,000.

From this, one now has to cover fixed costs, including computer
equipment, travel, local RUG support, phones, network costs,
support staff, conference staff, board of directors travel and
meeting costs, the SIG newsletters, professional staff salaries,
employee benefits, and so forth.  Supporting all this takes
several more millions of dollars than is provided simply by
membership fees.

So yes, Interex does indeed have to make money at the annual
conference to finance the infrastructure/etc. so provide the
things that are in place.  Keep in mind, in case you aren't
aware, Chicago is a fairly expensive locality to hold a
conference at, although not as expensive as New York.

In the past we've had a number of meetings about trying to
reduce the costs to Interex so fees/etc. can also be reduced.
However, most everyone was not willing to give-up anything
to do that, and in fact, was looking for other things, such
as a better WEB site, etc.  I'm sure as anyone else is that
there are ways to reduce costs without impacting services.

And yes, there are other professional organizations with lower
fees that provide services.  Look at IEEE... But also consider
that they may have 100,000+ members paying, say $100 each, giving
them a $10,000,000 budget.  So any conference simply have to
be break-even affairs.

There has been talk about simply being a publication house with
no trade show, but then there is the issue of funding the
advocacy activities.  There's always the option of only running
an annual conference and eliminating the publications, but
most people who were polled indicated the publication gave them
valuable information. So....

Don't get me wrong, as I'm not trying to defend Interex and the
continual increases in fees/etc., which I too, don't like to
see.  But awhile back I did spend time to study the economic
model and how it worked, thinking I could identify changes in
the model but to no avail unless the users were willing to
change.  And of course everyone was willing.... ;-)

We could try and change Interex to be more like COGNOS's group, or
CA's, or even IBM's or DEC's.  These groups tend to receive a lot
of funding from their respective vendors.  But then the vendors
have a strong hand in who can do what and what is said.  There's
a fairly well-known HP volunteer who's been involved with MANMAN
for a number of years who is now 'persona-nongrada' at the
CA/MANMAN conferences because of differing views with CA. If
INTEREX had been like this with HP, I wonder what really would
have happened after Boston in 1990....?  Also, what affect might
this have on the content of the material in the publications?
Would people be able to expose disclose certain things or would
it be edited out?  Would those vendors who compete with HP be
able to advertise?  What would happen to this generally 'open
market'?

Over the years I've seen a lot of folks complain about the costs
but I've never seen many of these people offer to take over a
leadership role in the organization, or even attempt to run for
a postion on the board and try to see if they could help improve
the funding model.  Sure, complaining does get attention. And
even not paying/participating does have an impact.  People do
go away mad, never to return as well.

It kinda reminds me of little league softball. You probably
all know the drill...  The parents that are always complaining
about what is going on and how things should be done 'right'.
The coach should be doing this and something is not run right,
etc.  However, when you ask them to help-out they don't seem to
be available, willing or simply have too many other plans to
have time to volunteer.  Yet these are the same parents that
are first in-line to sign their kids up.

One can either be part of the problem, or part of the solution...

Oh well, I've clearly rambled long enough on this from my arm
chair.  I'm sure others have plenty to say, as this subject
tends to invoke a lot of comments from folks...

/jf