The Future of COMMON

We've just returned home after the annual COMMON meeting in Reno. By now we were expecting the changes proposed at the Meeting of the Members (MOM) on Wednesday night to be the subject of much discussion on all the internet news groups, but so far all is quiet. Weird.  Is everyone in total shock, or does nobody except Scott Klement and a few other speakers understand the potential ramifications of these changes? If you haven't heard about the situation and the changes announced at COMMON's Meeting of the Members last week, we've included some information at the end of this post. See the sidebar, "What Changes Are Afoot at COMMON?" (below).

COMMON is a critically important part of the IBM i community--nobody else is in a position to offer such a breadth of education in one place. For that reason alone, anything that threatens its existence is worthy of discussion. Those of you who know us personally will understand that this comes from the heart and represents a genuine desire to see COMMON continue into the future. We cannot control what those who don't know us will read into it, but that is no reason not to write it.

We singled out Klement in our opening paragraph because he commented on the personal impact of the proposed changes in his video blog on the Wednesday MOM meeting. We find ourselves in a very similar situation to Scott. Jon has been speaking and volunteering at COMMON for 21 years and Susan even longer but we're not sure yet whether we'll be in a position to continue that tradition in 2010 based on the changes announced last week.

We certainly understand the financial situation COMMON finds itself in. We probably understand it better than most, because we are also in the education and conference business, but without the significant cash reserves that COMMON has. Our business revenues are down as well because, unfortunately, many businesses in times of economic hardship choose to cut education, travel budgets or both. A recent poll conducted by the Young i Professionals, while small in scope, tells a disturbing story in that 40 percent of the respondents have halted all education spending and a further 25 percent are decreasing education spending. COMMON isn’t the only education-oriented company that is suffering in this environment. 

Our concern is that some of the austerity measures that have been put into place to address COMMON's financial woes could have a serious impact on the content and quality of the next annual conference. For example, we don't know how many regular COMMON speakers are like us and due to their own self-employed business revenue decline may not be in a position to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to speak. Even volunteers who aren't self-employed and/or arenn't in the education business may find that their companies can't afford to send them to COMMON when it involves paying significant amounts for registration (even at discounted rates) in addition to travel and hotel costs.

This isn't only about speakers. The volunteers on the education team and the subject matter experts that put together COMMON's technical agenda are significantly affected by the changes. Volunteers who do a multitude of other jobs within the organization to help make COMMON a vibrant community are affected as well.

We understand COMMON's need to reduce spending. Clearly business as usual cannot continue in the current economic climate. We don't like to simply complain about a situation without offering constructive alternative suggestions. We're working on some ideas that might help. We're hopeful that a lot of intelligent folks who truly care about the future of the i community might be able to come up with many more creative ways of dealing with the financial crisis than a drastic policy that may threaten the quantity and quality of the very educational sessions that are the heart and soul of the conference. We have a number of ideas on what COMMON could do and hope to be able to formulate them and send them to the board and other volunteers for their consideration.

Unfortunately, from what we understand, the Board of Directors (BOD) have already put the changes they outlined at the MOM gathering into place--they are not simply proposals. So if different/better suggestions do come along, we hope that the BOD will be willing to be flexible enough to change that current plan.

If that doesn't happen and if we find that we can't justify the cost of participating in the COMMON annual conference in 2010, rest assured that we won't simply "take back" the time each year we have been donating to COMMON. Instead we would work to find a more efficient/effective use for our time and money.

For example, rather than giving sessions at COMMON perhaps we could spend a week delivering a series of free Webcasts on a variety of topics. Or perhaps donate the time we saved by not attending COMMON to subsidize our appearances at smaller local user group meetings so more of them could afford to bring us in to speak to their members. How about using the time and money to develop "Redbooks" type pieces to be delivered free of charge to the IBM i community? We're sure that there are many other ways in which we could use that time benefit the community and we welcome your suggestions.

Whatever happens, we believe the i community will continue and will emerge even stronger as a result of new, innovative thinking. Hopefully some flavor of COMMON will continue to be a part of that community because it has had such a legacy of bringing us together. It may need to change, maybe even reinvent itself into something very different from what it is today. Maybe it will return to a simpler, more purely volunteer-driven user group gathering similar to what it was decades ago. Or maybe evolve into something completely new and different. But it would be a shame to lose the heritage of almost 50 years of a community organized around what Malcolm Haines succinctly described as "the best computer a business can buy."

What Changes Are Afoot at COMMON?

At the Meeting of the Members, many changes that the Board of Directors have already put into place were announced. This should not be taken as a complete, accurate nor unbiased picture of the situation. This is a blog, not a news item. For those who weren't at the conference, it's our own, admittedly biased, recollection of the highlights of the announcement. Scott Klement's video blog includes some footage of the actual announcement, so if you want to get a more complete picture follow the link to Scott's blog above and specifically watch the post titled, "Common S09 Special MOM Report."

Most of the announcements were centered around cost-cutting--not surprisingly. As with many businesses affected by the economic downturn, some cost reductions related to COMMON's paid headquarters staff are planned. Most of the other cost-cutting areas that we recall were related to the next annual conference. Some of those include:

• Reduce the length of the conference by one day
• Reduce the number of session rooms (i.e., concurrent sessions) from around 25 to around 15
• Reduce the number of days--not necessarily the number of total hours--of the Expo
• Eliminate one of the evening social events (with one less evening, this would seem inevitable, maybe it means 2 less social events)
• Eliminate availability of hard liquor at the remaining social events (beer and wine would continue to be available, presumably at the currently significantly subsidized price of $2/drink)
• Eliminate almost all financially oriented volunteer benefits. Many volunteers would be eligible for a somewhat reduced registration rate. Beyond that, exceptions are few, but do include complimentary conference registration for speakers delivering at least five sessions.

It's the impact of the last bullet that we're most concerned about. Many who aren't close to the COMMON organization may not realize that many, many volunteers contribute to COMMON's success, including, but certainly not limited to, speakers. We find that many people we talk to are unaware that COMMON--unlike many local user group conferences--does not pay speakers. Depending on the number of sessions presented, many speakers pay a registration fee to attend the conference. This includes IBMers who speak and/or otherwise volunteer for COMMON.

Volunteers have in the past, however, received "volunteer benefits" (i.e., expense reimbursement) for many jobs, including, but not limited to, speaking. The most prevalent volunteer benefit is a reduced or complimentary conference registration. A few volunteer positions that involve significant workload throughout the year as well as on site also included coverage of hotel nights and (very rarely) airfare. For speakers, the amount of expense reimbursement received was based on the number of sessions presented - e.g., a free registration to the conference required four sessions. A total of 13 sessions would be required (a number nearly impossible to achieve) to get your registration, five nights' hotel and airfare--up to $500-reimbursed.

If a speaker also served in another volunteer position which included, for example, complimentary registration, the speaker could apply their speaking "credits" to hotel and/or airfare expenses within limits. Of course, since the volunteer positions that provide such reimbursement often require so much time on site that speakers who both speak at enough sessions and volunteer in other capacities to get the maximum reimbursement COMMON allows rarely have time to attend many, if any, sessions at the conference. At this conference Jon managed to attend one session, but that was to mentor a new speaker (admittedly he enjoyed the session and learned quite a lot). Susan didn't attend a single session--and that has been the pattern for both of us for some years now. We do it to give back to the community that has given us so much over the years. With only meals and miscellaneous transportation costs plus COMMON membership fees to cover on our own, we've been able to afford to donate our time, with our out-of-pocket cost at around $1,000 or so each conference in the past.

Comments

[Aaron Bartell]

I have been a speaker at COMMON for two years now I am also in the same boat of now not getting compensated for anything. I also have some opinions on the subject (anyone surprised?) [grin]

I don't think COMMON realizes how much they are milking the speakers to date. Not only do we get little compensation, but it is lost wages that I am just as concerned about. For example, for the five sessions I gave at COMMON I probably spent a total of 5 to 6hrs per session (prep, presenting, follow-up changes, answering attendee questions, etc). Note these are presentations that are already fully developed and just need small updates to keep them current. For a new presentation it is usually a minimum of 15hrs (I just timed myself for one that I created this week titled Linux Desktop for RPG Programmers). I also don't have much use for the "COMMON Credits" that cover my registration costs because I don't have a lot of time to attend other sessions.

Note I am in a little bit different place than some because I am also a vendor and the company I work for pays all of my travel/hotel/meals. But this is one more nail in the coffin of making it harder to justify having me be a presenter.

I am wondering if COMMON just needs to get into a right sized hotel and eliminate some of the fat (including staff, free beer, etc).

This year COMMON had a defining moment for me where I realized how much networking plays into attending COMMON. After having been at probably a total of seven COMMON conferences I have made some very solid technical contacts that I can call on both for career and technical advice.

I have one more comment... I was the recipient of a no-cost-to-me attendance at the first COMMON Leadership Summit. This was an initiative that COMMON put into place as an effort to keep the queue full of potential leaders (hopefully I pan out [grin]). While I thought the mini-conference was quite excellent (I would recommend Jim Chambers as a leadership consultant to anyone that asks) I am guessing that this sort of thing also needs to go by the wayside to keep COMMON afloat.

[Scott Klement]

Thank you for saying this. I was beginning to feel completely alone in my objections! I fully support COMMON and this community -- and I hope there's a resolution to this, because I do want to continue volunteering.

But, do people realize that I spent 300 or so hours over the past year "working" for COMMON? Between preparing/creating sessions and my duties as a SME, that is. I'm not counting the actual time of the conference itself, though that is significant as well. Not only am I unpaid, but under the old rules, I'm paying some expenses (while COMMON covers most expenses, they don't cover all) not to mention the sacrifice of my vacation time (or in many other speaker's cases -- billable hours.)

Under the new rules, not only would I do all that work and sacrifice that much time, but I'd also have to pay (at current rates) around $2000 to come and speak for you. Is that fair?

I come from a family who makes sausage, a very competitive and conservative business. My family taught me to cut costs anywhere you can... we cut packaging costs, we cut delivery costs, etc, etc.. we cut costs everywhere except one area! And even as a young boy, I was told this: never cut costs in the meat, spice, etc used to make the sausage. That is the primary value customers get from our products, never ever cut that.

In my opinion, that is what COMMON is trying to do. By cutting speaker reimbursement, many of the most dedicated speakers will not be able to attend. Only those who have something to sell will be able to afford to come to the conference!

It's okay to cut the number of sessions, and the number of speakers. This is simple supply demand. If you don't have enough attendees to fill the sessions, offer fewer of them. Simple! But not providing reimbursement for the ones that are kept?

At this conference, there were approx 130 speakers, and (this is a guess, I don't have any real numbers) perhaps 600 attendees. That's just speakers, not counting the myriad of other volunteers. Consider that ratio! COMMON definitely needs to trim the fat -- they need to reduce spending on volunteers. But they need to do that by reducing the number of sessions, and by limiting the number of volunteer positions.

Cut quantity, but do not sacrifice quality.

[Aaron Bartell]

>Only those who have something to sell will be able to afford to come to the conference!

This one is quite true because now you have speakers with an agenda. Not to say the agenda is necessarily bad because they might have a great product, but it will be slanted more than likely depending on what they are speaking about. I always try to be mindful of this when presenting on XML web services because the company I work for sells a product in that space. I try to keep the "advertising" to just the first and last slide where I declare who I work for and what I do.

>never cut costs in the meat, spice, etc used to make the sausage. That is the primary value customers get from our products, never ever cut that.

Truer words were never spoken. Gradually over time the sessions will become less and less fruitful because speakers won't have incentive to keep them top notch and pump a lot of time into them because they aren't really being compensated.

With all this being said I am wondering if we can offer COMMON some ideas on how to proceed? Obviously without being on the BOD and without knowing the inner workings we are at a little bit of a loss.

[Michael Ryan]

I believe COMMON should have future conferences in Chicago. Chicago is easy to get to and is also the site of the COMMON HQ. COMMON could enter into a long term agreement with a hotel for meeting space and rooms, and use that agreement to drive down costs. COMMON should provide webinars at the conference to enable speakers to make presentations without having to travel.

[Jeff Crosby]

I have attended over a half dozen COMMON conferences, don't know the exact number. I can say without a doubt that losing Jon, Susan, and Scott as speakers would, in and of itself, cause me to rethink my attendance, even if every other speaker returned. (Sorry, Aaron, you're too young a whippersnapper to fall into that category .) I can't believe there aren't other speakers who feel the same way.

I'm considering COMMON Focus later this year - but need to wait to see what is going to be offered. I like the idea of a full day on 1 topic.

[Bill Hansen]

Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful and honest comments.

Because of Susan, Jon, and a few others, I "got volunteered" to the COMMON Strategic Education Team and now have the honor/misfortune to be the team leader. I appreciate you pointing out that the behind-the-scenes volunteers are the ones who will be hit the hardest. Many SET members and SMEs do not speak, but donate hundreds of hours each year to planning the next conference as well as other COMMON events.

A large percentage of these volunteers are individuals and sole propriators who have volunteered solely for the opportunity to attend the conference. This year, we will be asking them to continue this work, whether or not they will be able to come to the next conference in Orlando. Wish us luck.

If you have any ideas as to how COMMON should proceed, pass them to me at whansen@mantatech.com and I will make sure they get to the right people.

[Jim Hawkins]

I was at the MOM's on Wed. and I did notice the reaction from some of the speakers. I know that folks like Jon, Susan and Larry are primarily at the conference as speakers. I wondered how how much such speakers got out of the conference (thank you for answering that question). I agree, if an individual is doing more speaking than attending sessions, they shouldn't have to pay for the privilige of speaking.

Here are a few thoughts that I have had on things for Common to consider:
--Instead of a hotel, hold the conf in mid-May at a college campus. They have dorms for housing and capacity for food. Many host various events throughout the year and can easily accomodate things like the expo meals, etc. that we have. They have the venues for the breakout sessions and some have all the ammenities of most hotels (except room service)
--Combine Common with another specialized conf. Help Systems, some of the ERP products, etc. have had annual conferences over the years. Either hold a an overlapping conf, or back to back (Common is Sun-Thur and xxx is Fri-Sun) Advantage to employers-less travel cost, and could boost both conf attendance.
--Make the opening session at 8:00 opening morning instead of a stand alone session in the afternoon. By 11:00 be into the regular breakout sessions.
--Having the conf in May would permit college students/faculty to attend easier. Provide them w/ discounted attendance. (Currently, few attend because they cannot take time to be away from school).
--All handouts are to be availble on line by date x. Mass handouts are printed at speaker expense. Have a block of printers availble. As a atendee, I can plug my laptop into one of the the printers and print at cost x / page. On line handouts should be availble in a dense and less dense format (i.e 6 slides and 2 slides/page).
--Make a break around noon of 45 minutes instead of 15.
--Have a vendor set up in common areas to sell lunch unless there is already ample convienent food available.
--This was my first conf since 2001. At that time, CUDS (as it was known) was for the most part very low key. There was ask the experts night, but otherwise it was just a time to get together informally, no game night, recognition night, etc.

Anticipating the changes in upcoming conferences, I will be checking over session grid BEFORE committing to attending the conf next year, comparing it to other options I have with the limits I have for training.

[Dennis Fletcher]

Vendors helped get the Olympic Games in Los Angeles into the black for the first time in years. Now vendor sponsors help keep the Olympics in the black. Maybe they could be part of the solution to COMMON's economic woes. They certainly would hate to see it fail.

[Jon Paris]

Thanks to all for the thoughtful comments. We will certainly be referencing them in any submission we make to COMMON.

I am interested though by how little public discussion has gone on on the topic of the future of COMMON. Other than the comments here and a few on Midrange.com there's been very little discussion and not a lot of press reporting. At a time when the very existence of COMMON is under threat, it seems strange to me that there is so little involvement - even from the volunteer forces.

If so few people care enough to participate in the process perhaps COMMON has outlived its usefulness??

We'll probably have more to say in next week's blog.

[Ron Newman]

Jon & Susan,

I am not what you would call a regular speaker at the COMMON conferences but once in a while I will give a session. I mostly do volunteer work all year long. However I own my own business and lose income every time I go to a COMMON conference because I am not billing hours. That is fine and I am fully prepared to do this for COMMON and the i community. However if I need to come up an additional $1,500.00 or more, that I can not afford.

I was at the MOM Wednesday night and I was under the impression that these cuts were in proposal form. I also heard at the meeting that the Board members were going to ask for suggestions of cost cutting measures from the membership by way of an E-mail. From your post it sounded like these cuts are already in place, if this is the case I for one am very disappointed in the current board. I think that the Board should send an email to all speakers and volunteers outlining the cuts and who they affect.

[Brian Pick]

>Vendors helped get the Olympic Games in Los Angeles into the black for the first time in years. Now vendor sponsors help keep the Olympics in the black. Maybe they could be part of the solution to COMMON's economic woes. They certainly would hate to see it fail.<

As a vendor, asking us to foot an even larger part of the bill would not make sense. We already spend over 10k for a 10 x 20 booth, sponsorships, travel, shipping, hotel, etc. With attendance numbers decreasing, it's hard to justify spending that much money the way it is and asking vendors to pay even more doesn't seem logical.

[Hans Boldt]

Hi Jon and Susan! I attended my first COMMON conference in 1984, almost 25 years ago. At that time, attendance was about 3000, and rising. So I was shocked to read Scott's estimate of around 600 attendees at the most recent conference.

Let me tell you what I've been up to lately. For the past year, I've been getting myself up to speed on my employer's server product, as well as Zope, Plone, OpenBSD, and a host of other tools. Training was strictly OTJ. One coworker was on parental leave. But he came back for only 2 months before putting in his notice. The other telecommutes. Add to that the fact that all the easy bugs had already been removed, leaving me with those annoying intermittent bugs that take weeks to get a good handle on.

Anyways, after a year, I'm now an expert in this code base. (I think!) Now, it's time to move on to the next release of the product, which is a complete rewrite using different technologies. So, it's back to the bottom of the learning curve yet again!

Can my employer afford to send me to off-site education? No. Is this situation typical for others? Quite possibly. What does this mean for big conferences like COMMON? I'm not sure. But clearly, COMMON has to rethink how it does business.

Perhaps COMMON has to just forget about the conference and deliver material on-line in a "Web 2.0" style manner. Heck, we're already a decade into the 21st Century! The i community needs to understand that things are moving way too fast, and that old ways of thinking about IT are no longer useful.

I suspect that as long as COMMON has this conference albatross, there won't be the necessary focus on moving forward enough.

Cheers! Hans