[SGVLUG] Outside Inquiries about SGVLUG

[serross]

Dear John,

Thank you for the thorough tongue-lashing.  I did not know that the 
SGVLUG was 'your' group.

Additionally, It seems that you didn't see the sentence I wrote about 
"sales presentations". And yes, in the last 27 years in the industry, 
I've been to a lot (maybe a couple of thousand) of dog and pony shows.
 
I know that I've only been coming to 'your' meetings for about a year, 
but in that time I've brought 2 vendors to make presentations (sure 
won't make that mistake again). I guess the group is for 'if you don't 
know it already, you don't have a need to know'.

 From your comments, I would have to presume that the group wants to 
know how to make movies, drive mars rovers, etc.

I guess since you don't know about VMWare, I should cancel the 
presentation, Na, I gave my word to the presenter and I NEVER break my word.

SR


John Riehl wrote:

> serross at ix.netcom.com wrote:
>
>> There seems to be some conflict. The VMWare presentation that I have 
>> set up for next week will be on their products and how they can 
>> benifet us. 
>
>
> VMWare sounds fine.  From what I understand, they give a good 
> presentation (technical) about how it works, etc.  This is an area 
> where there are keen design differences between themselves, microsoft, 
> qemu, and xen.
>
>> Venders should be incouraged to show us products that we might be 
>> able to use. 
>
>
> no.
>
> 1. This is not a venue for sales presentations from software vendors.  
> I dont want sgvlug to turn into that.
> 2. While there are many who use linux as part of their job, I dont 
> want this to become just a "business" oriented lug.  It is a lug, not 
> a lui.
>
> I dont mind vendors of products which have a common interest giving us 
> a technical presentation.   We have had vendors before, and we will in 
> the future, but I dont want to turn this into a stream of vendor 
> presentations, and I dont want to encourage them.
>
> Matti stated that presentations can be useful, if the vendors 
> understand that we want a technical presentation, and understand what 
> that means. This is not something said on a whim.  This is from 
> EXPERIENCE. You have to be clear with the potential presenter.  
> Companies have a gut reaction to fire off a sales presentation, 
> because that is what they are used to doing.
>
>>  No, I don't mean the sales presentation (and most vendors know that). 
>
>
> You obviously havent been to many presentations.   You will find that 
> vendors frequently take liberties with the concepts of "technical 
> presentations", and "products that you could use".  They often dont do 
> the slightest clue as to what is your core interest, and they dont 
> make the simplest effort to find out.
>
> Frequently, a "technical presentation" means that we walk you through 
> the gui that comes with our product.   It also means the esoteric 
> rhetoric of why their product is better than their competitors.  ("we 
> implement more of EF Codd's SQL rules than any other database 
> vendor").  I have suffered through many a presentation where any 
> technical information was limited to a slide or two.  If you ask a 
> technical question, the presenters pause in dignified horror, and 
> either politely defer it, or let their tech person in the back perk up 
> out of his ennui and answer it.
>
> "Products you could use" varies highly.  I think at one time someone 
> wanted to give a presentation to a mainframe tech group I was in, of 
> their (windows-only) product.
>
> (Insert your horror stories here).
>
> Do you doubt this?  Take a look at the request David Lawyer got from 
> grouplink:
>
> Technical presentation:  well, they show a video, and we cannot ask 
> any questions.  Doesnt sound technical to me.....
>
> Appropriate product:  IT Help desk. <sarcasm>  Yeah, my wife was just 
> telling me the other day about how she needs it help desk software to 
> run around the house.  If the IT help desk doesnt log it, she cannot 
> ask me to take out the trash.  ITIL. oh, yeah, I see we are highly 
> buzzword-compliant. TCO, Best practices, groupware... </sarcasm>
>
> Appropriate target:  Let see, are we a LUI group?  No.  Does the 
> vendor know what a LUG is?  apparently not.  Did they look at our 
> website? Apparently not.  They are doing a "pasta sales job", throw 
> cooked pasta at as many walls as you can, and some of it will stick.  
> They are trying to find leads.  They dont care what we want to see.
>
>>  I want to be exposed to hardware and software that I.m not using now. 
>
>
> There are better ways:
> 1. subscribe to many free technical magazines.  Infoworld, eweek, 
> network world, information security, storage, etc.  Not only do you 
> get a lot of free reading (including email news feeds), you can sign 
> up to get information from "our select partners" (i.e. anyone who 
> bought our list)  Some of them even critically reveiw products.
> 2. go to linuxworld, CES, other trade shows. Go to the exhibits, 
> making sure that everyone swipes your badge.
> 3. go to luinet.org.  sign up there.
> 4. go to novell, redhat, sun, etc.  most vendors have periodic 
> webinars, and other presentations.
> 5. google
>
>
>>  If I know whats out there then I can provide an educated evaluation 
>> as to what would best suit my clients and their business.
>
>
> Yes, if your knowledge of the area is zero, you will learn.  However, 
> if you believe that the presentations that you will receive are 
> accurate and impartial, then I have some enron stock to sell you.....  
> Sales people make politicians look honest.
>
>
> jr
> john riehl
>
>
>
>
>


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