COMMON Update

Just a few quick items from the Spring 05 COMMON conference in Chicago …

• Scott Klement received an iSeries Innovation award from IBM & COMMON
• Ask the Experts night at Sundays CUDS was quite a success … a lot of list members stopped by the MIDRANGE-L table to chat. A number of list members who were at COMMON had tables of their own to man, so not EVERYONE was necessarily able to meet everyone else.
• A good number of midrange.com buttons were given out. The majority of the remaining buttons were dropped off at the LUG booth, so they will make their way to the next conference. If I don’t make it to the next conference (jury is still out on that), you can always pick up a button at the LUG booth.
• Attendance seemed to be pretty good, although I haven’t heard official numbers.
• Some of the support services seemed to be a bit off. A number of the sessions I attended didn’t have enough handouts. I even attended one where they ran out of handouts almost immediately … and when the TLC crew went to get more, the copy office said they didn’t have the master… even though they had printed out the first batch earlier that morning. This was commented on at Meeting of the Members (MOM)
• The facilities were quite nice … and I’m very glad that everything was in one hotel and nobody had to go outside to get to other sessions. My only complaint would be this: There is a bridge you have to cross to get from the east tower to the west tower of the Hyatt … and it was quite easy to get turned around at the escalators on the other side … they should have had a sign saying “COMMON is the other way”. (I’m not sure that came out right … I’ll review it later)
• Wednesday night I signed up for a BOF to discuss anti-spam techniques … although only one person actually signed up for it, it was scheduled … and 3 people showed up. It was enjoyable discussing how various types of organizations are tackling the spam problem. I wonder if it would be worthwhile to have a session on SPAM?