I'm delighted to report that since my last posting HP has taken the action to create a focus group to help understand and improve on its customer support. We do have a voice...and now we've been 'Hurd!' Thank you, HP and thank you for allowing our voice to be heard on your website as we will be blogging now from hp.com too.
Encompass has recently experienced an unprecedented vote to consolidate with ITUG so that along with HP-Interex EMEA, we will become the largest global HP user community in the world. And now that you have spoken, we're delighted to report that we did it! We're now Connect. Together, we have created a worldwide organization dedicated to our success as HP technologists. We will continue to listen to our members and explore innovative ways to connect to our members, help connect our members with one another, and connect our members to HP and its valued partners.
And as our user communities have come together as one so has our world. Our global community has become one on a plethora of levels on issues including global warming, energy, and nuclear proliferation. But one that carries both good and bad implications on the IT industry is globalization. The ideology behind globalizing technology is to foster worldwide growth in IT human capital and help global companies access talent locally around the world. The reality is that companies, primarily in the US, seek ways to cut costs and tap pockets of low cost 'trainable' talent. The ripple effect that this movement has caused in the US is, well let's say more than a ripple, perhaps a tidal wave. Are US companies throwing the baby out with the bath water?
As a result of this movement, fewer people are entering the field of technology, universities have seen a decline in computer science majors, consumers are increasingly frustrated and US innovation seems to have fallen flat. Globalization is here to stay. Again, on an ideological level, it's a good thing. So now what? Since this is an election year in the United States and the ramifications of this election will without doubt be felt globally, I thought I would see how the candidates weighed in on this topic.
I read about tax incentives, tax punishment, and a 9 point plan that lost me at 'hello.' No one need ask for my opinion as my $.02 is always ready for spend! Yes, a carrot/stick approach might work and appear successful on a scorecard, but what the United States needs is a 'new attitude.' Americans have been deeply scared over the past eight years and we need to be inspired, to learn, to create, to innovate, and to overcome the negative value of globalization. This new attitude will filter to our children and inspire yet a new generation of thinkers and doers. And while globalization is here to stay, innovation will have a new fertile ground in which to grow and thrive.
And who will be the next great inspiration? Stay tuned, I'll let you know on November 5th. : ) For now, I hope to inspire you, members of Connect, with new ways to get the most out of your HP business technologies and foster leadership and professional development through active volunteerism.
Ciao!
Nina
Connect President
PS...And now for those who are in trivial pursuit: There were 16,067 slots in Nevada in 1960. In 1999 Nevada had 205,726 slot machines, one for every 10 residents. So in 2008, I imagine it's one for every 3 residents?
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The results of the vote are now in, and I am sure there will be a lot more traffic on this topic in the days ahead. However, I am very pleased to see that so many from the ITUG community voted and that the results did favor the “Endeavour project”. From the time I became involved with this project, starting in Houston back in February, 2008, I could see only a positive outcome. As user groups, it was really our fete to decide, and the decision rested solely with us, and so I am so pleased that it generated a positive response!
But for the HP NonStop community, the work is only beginning. The need to retain strong volunteer leadership on a number of committees is extremely important. In numbers alone, the ITUG community could easily be swallowed up and left as nothing more than a Special Interest Group (SIG). Elements could easily find a new home in one of the Software groups and it wouldn’t be hard to imagine the entire community being broken up and scattered across many different, and potentially competing communities. Ensuring our most respected leaders remain engaged in this new organization will be so very important.
I am often reminded that perhaps the ISV community plays a big a part, or holds many of the important cards when it comes to negotiating with HP (on event content, make-up of panels, etc.) but the reality is that within the community, there is a direct correlation between the strength of the ISV community and the popularity of the platform. No company wants to invest in a product line when the ecosystem around it has been dismantled and the partners moved on to other pursuits. Retaining the focus of these stakeholders will be just as important.
Finally, the management of BCS really does need to understand what they have here and to work with the new community as equals. The positive results are not suggesting that HP should play anything more than its traditional role as one of the three contributing stakeholders. It would be so easy for HP to simply view the incoming user group board as a de-facto, somewhat passive, variation of a Customer Advisory Board – what differentiates a user group event is that content is driven by the community itself. I am not suggesting that HP has any plans to pursue this and to date, I have been very pleased with the interaction between the boards and HP. And I hope that in today’s commercial world where financing can be so difficult, traditional user events remain well-supported by the executives of HP.
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Have you checked out the Site Enhancement Group discussion group (http://hpusercommunity.org/group_view.aspx?GroupID=89e5f3590dd5496381c9c803baacb0e3)? This is where community members share ideas about how the community could be even more valuable.
So far the group has 19 posts, the most of any discussion group. Among the great ideas that are emerging: more ties between the community and Encompass chapters.
Have a look at the group and share your thoughts!
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HPTF&E 2008 is just a few weeks away, and Quinn Meyer (qmeyer) has posted links to a couple of archived ENCOMPASS Sneak Peek Webcasts that highlight upcoming precons. The webcasts cover Using OpenVMS Clusters for Disaster Tolerance and EVA Management Utilities, Techniques, Tips and Tricks.
Have a look in the "HP Technology Forum & Expo 2008" discussion group (http://hpusercommunity.org/group_view.aspx?GroupID=b632d2c5847145d298be6853f1b52e36). Members are frequently posting valuable content in the community groups. Check back often and subscribe to your favorite groups to get automatic updates.
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You may have noticed, we released some exciting new features into the community earlier this week. Here are the highlights:
- We've improved the Rate This ("Thumbs Up") feature. Check it out and start rating your favorite elements in the community
- Group meetings can now be saved to Outlook
- Better group sorting options--easier to find what you're looking for. Now you can sort groups by number of members, number of discussions, total number of posts, number of files posted, number of meetings arranged, alphabetically, by rating, or by privacy setting
We hope you enjoy these enhancements to the HP User Group Community!
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Hi, folks, I'm Virginia and I've joined the community as a facilitator to answer questions, receive your feedback and suggestions, and maintain this blog with news and announcements about the HP User Group Community.
By its nature a community belongs to its members, so the more you put into the community in terms of creating content (blogs, discussion groups), asking questions, and networking with your peers, the more you'll get out of it. If you need help getting started, just give me a shout.
As the community grows we'll be having live online "chat" events where you can interact directly with the speakers from the HP Technology Forum and other special guests. We're already working on details of the first chat; more on that soon. The aim is make this community a valuable, proprietary resource for the HP User Group.
You'll be hearing more from me shortly, but in the meantime, feel free to reach out: virginia@leveragesoftware.com.
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The blog posting I did over night played around the thought that there will be value from attending the big tent events we are all familiar with, and the upcoming HPTF&E planned for June will be no exception. However, the value that comes from maintaining ties with local community meetings remains just as important. And this will not change with the efforts under way to create a new organization – what we have been calling “Endeavour”!
In the blog posting “Cadillacs! Corvette Coupes! And Custom Cycles!” of April 10, ’08 I compare my enthusiasm for attending car and bike shows globally, and locally, with the value I get from attending the big events as well RUG events. I include the observation:
“I have much the same love affair with user group events as I have with car shows. The Las Vegas HP Technical Forum and Expo (HPTF&E) will open its doors shortly, with the big European event scheduled for later in the year. These are spectacular events attracting most of HP’s executives. Last year, we heard from Mark Hurd, Ann Livermore, Randy Mott, Martin Fink, and many others - unfiltered, live, and very topical - talking about issues we were all facing at that time. I really look forward to participating in these events as it does give me the opportunity to talk with the developers about their newest products – not unlike the way I check out the latest cars and bikes!
“When regional groups get together, the topics are focused on the real issues these users face daily, and while they don’t ignore the broader industry perspective, they want to drill down into the details specific to their issues. Ask any of these participants what they think of a deployment or of a new feature-set, and you will instantly tap into a wealth of real-world experience. And solutions that are just too bloated or costly, those that offer blinding performance but with many critical features missing or only available as part of a service offering, as well as those that require a lot of “assembling” with serious ongoing maintenance issues, are quickly discarded.”
For the complete story check out the posting at:
www.itug-connection.blogspot.com
RUGs, and their commitment to meetings and events throughout the year, provide a very important networking and social outlet for the community that is often overlooked when we get together for the big events. However, I see their importance only increasing over time as the local leadership look to step up the level of user engagement as they embrace broader platform involvement, and I see no lessening in the support by HP and local ISVs of these groups. Without RUG gatherings we would be a lot poorer as a community and so my enthusiasm for them and for all who participate and support remains as high as it always has been.
See you in Las Vegas!
And for those interested in the car pictured here - you can just make out the ITUG Vice Chair in the passenger seat!
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And to continue with the theme of talking about where we are - greetings from Simi Valley, my second home. This weekend I wrote a blog posting for the ITUG community on the referendum currently under way, and while I don't want to repeat everything in that posting, there's one paragraph that I would like to highlight. It get's to the heart of my observations on the NonStop technology as well as to the sentiment among the user community.
"The influence of NonStop is pushing deep into HP BCS and future products will include more and more technology we are all familiar with on the NonStop platform. The downside is that we may not see a separate NonStop product line apart from perhaps a very few specialized bespoke models assembled for a couple of major users, but the upside could be NonStop everywhere! And isn’t this a huge breakthrough for all of us, following the dark days of the last year at Tandem and then again in the years under Compaq? There are still a lot of community members who tell me of how they miss the good old days of Tandem but honestly, in the words of the current popular song by the group Fall Out Boys 'thanks for the memories, even though they weren’t so great!'"
For the full posting, check out:
http://itug-connection.blogspot.com/2008/04/thanks-for-memories.html
We can continue to look back at the good old days, for sure. But that really doesn't get us anywhere, as there's absolutely nothing we can do to bring them back. It's just not an option that has any chance of becoming a reality – the past is firmly in the past!
But as you read some of the comments that have now been submitted for this posting, you will see references to HP perhaps not dong the best marketing job for NonStop. And I just don't see that as necessarily being the case – for me it’s not possible to compare the marketing that HP is doing with older marketing campaigns we may be more familiar with. The industry has simply moved on. The main messages of today reflect the mood of the broader global IT industry where industry standards, openness, and getting the best value for money grab the bulk of media headlines. Putting a new face to NonStop without addressing any of these issues would be pointless.
And so it is that I return to the topic of creating a new user community from the stakeholders of the groups that are active today – this is just something that needs to happen. I have no interest in us falling back to nothing more than an aging, closed, “private club” organization. I see a future where the interests of all of us converge on the new basic building bloc we will all leverage – the bladed architecture now beginning to see the light of day. With blades comes a level of commoditization that will benefit all interested parties – whether OpenVMS, Linux, or NonStop. To try and retain independent voices and lobby for anything other than what is coming with blades, makes no sense whatsoever.
There’s still time left for more votes to be cast – and I am sure everyone will continue to make their voice heard. I may look a little laid back, as in the picture here, but I am looking forward to moving past this process. I am particularly looking forward to the HPTF&E event in Las Vegas as the first gathering of an entirely new and unified community, with the clarity of purpose that ensures that we enjoy a strong and sustainable partnership with HP. As Scott Healy admitted to a number of us – it sure beats the alternative where one of us would be left to switch off the lights!
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