The MRT serves very little purpose other than letting some people vent, as
you say.  Actually, in my estimation the venue and format are totally wrong
for anything productive to occur.  I firmly believe that SIGs and the other
roundtables are much more productive.  To wit, SIGIMAGE.  This SIG has
accomplished more in excellent partnership with the IMAGE labs than
anything that has ever transpired at the MRT.

The MRT is a no-win situation for HP and the users.  It is long, covers a
whole lot of ground, but very superficially and there is virtually no
follow up.  Having this farce once a year is not conducive to anything.
 The format of the SIGs is much more a propos to technical and strategic
information exchange than the MRT.  The conversation with HP must be
on-going, not the once a year bitch session.  The flow of information needs
to be constant.  If we really believe that advocacy is a main raison d'etre
of Interex, then we need to do things very differently, because up to now,
save for a few SIGs, Interex seems to have had precious little effect on HP
as a whole.

The once a year survey is also not useful.  It is difficult for a single
survey to pin down a moving target.  We need to do with selected areas,
what has been done with SIGIMAGE and a few other SIGs.  A representative
collection of users should be made available to HP as a quick sounding
board and as unpaid consultants.  I have been on the SIGIMAGE Executive
Committee for 7 years now, since Boston, and the flow of information, both
ways, has been tremendous.   I trust HP has found my participation useful,
and I on the other hand, have enjoyed pissing and moaning and gripping
about some things in IMAGE and suggesting new things and new directions.  I
cannot say that the IMAGE labs have always done what I thought should be
done, but they have always listened and explained why they would or would
not do something.

This kind of give and take is what I expect from an HP-Interex relations
hip.  This is not what I see at the MRT.  The MRT is about sound bites,
posturing and appearances.   The HP management team up on stage would find
it more productive to talk more one on one with users in a smaller venue.
 Notice I did not say SELECTED users.  If, instead of the one big dog and
pony show like the MRT, we had multiple smaller meetings with each
division, it would be quite useful.  The management of the division could
be there with someone from marketing and some technical gurus, and we could
really go to town.  (Geez, that sounds a lot like IPROF and Interworks.)


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:   Guy Smith [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Saturday, September 13, 1997 2:57 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: Re Interex Round tables

Denys wrote [in part]
r
> Back to the [Management Round Table],in my estimation, it is a waste of
time and an
> embarrassment (year after year) and as such, it should be eliminated.

On this I must disagree with my old friend.  One of the most valuable
processes for a decision maker is to be exposed to real-life end users.
 All managers (including those in HP) need an occasional visit from people
who deal with their products in day-to-day situations.  The more direct,
the better.  It prevents ivory tower product design or marketing apathy.

In the past the MRT has bordered on class warfare, and some shows (say
Boston), small arms fire would have not been unexpected.  But even this
venting process is valuable.  There are many components to demand (some
logical, some emotional) and HP does well to take the heat of their
decisions (when they make bad ones).  If anything, we as the consumers
should be more generous with our praise when they make smart decisions
(918DX, 64-bit MPE, Netscape/iX).

So, I say (a) let's keep MRT and (b) let's focus on having HP's management,
marketers and design engineers interact with their customer base . . . up
close and personal . . . arms length at most.

Guy Smith

(my opinions do not reflect those of my management, employer, or anyone
with common sense)