Hi all,

The MPE Forum (Tony Furnivall, Leslie Virgilio, Duane Percox, Debbie Lawson
and myself (Bill Lancaster) have been in discussion for the last several
weeks regarding the future of the IPROF conference.  It is our intention to
draw others into this discussion, especially MPE-related SIG members.
Several other long-time HP 3000 people have also been, and will continue to
be, consulted (as will others) during the process of further discussions.
Please keep in mind that we are at the early stages of these discussions
and that it is our intention to be as inclusive as possible.  To that end,
we would like to open a public discussion on the future of IPROF.  I am
posting this initial message to 3000-L but would like to not have the
discussion there.  Rather, we would like to have the discussion via the
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The MPE Forum has formed a task force responsible for the next IPROF
conference.  That task force is made up of myself (as chair), Duane, Debbie
and Leah Robertson, with Gavin Scott, Ken Sletten and Birket Foster
agreeing to participate, as their schedules permit.  We're also looking to
HP to provide an HP person to join in on the task force as a fully
participating member.  It's very important to us that HP's concerns, goals
and issues are considered during the process.

I'd like to ask your indulgence for a few minutes in order to explain why I
am personally interested in participating in Interex's efforts for IPROF
for the next few years.

I travel extensively throughout the HP 3000 community and am alarmed at the
small size of the technical "middle class".  We seem to have an inverse
Bell curve in that most of the population of 3000 technical people are
either very, very experienced or relatively inexperienced with the 3000.
In addition to that, the people responsible for managing or programming
3000's seem to have a much broader scope of things for which they are
technically responsible than in the past.  This signals, to me at least,
that they are responsible for a much wider range of technical subjects than
ever before.  If this is true, it stands to reason that there just isn't
enough time in the day to learn any one subject very thoroughly.

Hand-in-hand with this decreasing technical expertise in the 3000 is the
fact that more 3000's than ever before are in, or going in to, shops that
aren't doing *any* programming on the 3000 at all.  This is shifting the
knowledge requirement from deeper programming issues into system management
and operations issues.  I am NOT saying that programming issues aren't
important!  I AM saying that the immediate technical needs seem more and
more to be "How can I use feature X to accomplish my business task" or,
"What technology is available on the 3000 to implement Project Y so I don't
have to add another server in my environment?".

Tied in with the decreasing technologist base and the shifting sands of
knowledgement requirement is the continuing development of MPE itself.  We
have all these whiz-bang features of MPE but how do people gain knowledge
on how to use them?  How long can we expect CSY to invest significant
engineering resources in features that people may or may not even be using?

Next, it seems clear to me from attending for many years (although I don't
have any documentation to prove this) that HP World attenders are more and
more management and less and less grass roots technical people.  This,
coupled with a vast technical scope, makes HP World less able to address
deeply technical MPE issues in a meaningful way.

The last piece that ties in all in for me is that IPROF attendance has seen
consistent decline over the years, probably for a lot of reasons.  What are
these reasons?  Could it be because companies have a harder time justifying
sending people to training?  Could it be because the "value proposition" of
IPROF itself has reduced substantially (attendees themselves have commented
as such)?  Could it be because people have their MPE systems working the
way they want and don't choose to enhance the environment further?  We
don't know if these are the reasons or if other reasons are affecting IPROF
attendance.  Something is causing it and we'd sure like to know your
thoughts about why.

In any case, we'd like to propose significant changes to IPROF.  From a
philosophical point of view we believe that IPROF should become a
conference committed to broadening its appeal as a technical conference
across a broader scope of technologist.  To that end, we'd like to throw
out for discussion the following outline for IPROF 2000:

  1.  One full day (Tuesday) fully committed for SIG activity.

  2.  Three full days committed to technical training somewhat as follows:

      a.  Track One -    MPE Programming issues.
      b.  Track Two -    MPE Systems and Operations issues.
      c.  Track Three -  Hands-on laboratory.

  3.  Tracks One and Two would have material suitable to both beginning and
      advanced MPE people.

  4.  Track Three would be an extension of Tracks One and Two in that whatever
      is taught in those tracks could be modelled in a lab environment.  For
      example, if someone did a Track Two presentation on Apache, that same
      person could then show exactly how to do it in a Track Three timeslot.

The material to be presented would be determined by a selection committee
of some type (perhaps drawn significantly from SIG issues) and deeply
technically oriented.  Presenters would not just be from HP but from
leading technlogists in our community.

There would be no vendor show although consideration could be given to
working with vendors to have separate presentation rooms depending on the
desires of the attendees.  Also, all material to be presented would be
carefully screened to avoid obvious vendor pitches.

We'd like to ask several questions (see the end of this message) in order
to help us create a framework that the user community as a whole would find
more meaningful.  If you don't wish to post your answers to the IPROF-2000
list, please feel free to send them directly to mailto:iprof-c@interex and
they will go directly to the IPROF task force.

Finally, we realize that many people hold strong opinions about IPROF.  We
would challenge you to put these opinions aside for the moment and consider
the long-term.  It is our opinion that IPROF, as it stands today, is in
danger of becoming irrelevant to the 3000 community as a whole and that,
for IPROF to succeed in the future, it has to become something very
different from what it is.

Thanks for your patience in reading a very long message.  We look forward
to hearing from you

Bill Lancaster
Duane Percox
Debbie Lawson
Leah Robertson
MPE Forum Executive Committee
IPROF 2000 Task Force Chair

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Questions:

1.  If you've never attended IPROF what prevented you?


2.  If you've attended IPROF in the past but are not planning on attending
again, why?


3.  If you've attended IPROF in the past, what has been the most valuable
and the least valuable portion of the conference for you?


4.  What would IPROF have to look like for you to more easily justify it to
your management?


5.  What type of technical content would you like IPROF to have?


6.  Is a hands-on lab desirable?


7.  What specific technologies would you like to be educated in at IPROF?


8.  Are you actively programming on an HP 3000?


9.  Who from your organization is most likely to attend an HP World
conference?


10. What specific technical issues would you like to see addressed at IPROF
2000?


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