On Sep 20, 2005, at 7:30 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
No, I don't think so. Someone said once that they read the list
sometime. But
if one goes by what is said here and what Pentax does, I don't
think Pentax
pays much attention. :-)
...
In one of my former positions, I was to participate in external
folks' conversation about the products I was supporting and return
strategic information from that to the product development team. So I
dutifully subscribed to all the newsgroups, mailing lists, forums,
etc that constituted where the user base conversed and read every
message, took extensive notes.
It's long, ranting, stupid threads by an obsessively single-minded
loudmouth like this that convinced me over and over again that the
amount of actual signal in the noise from these venues is mostly
worthless. It would be no surprise to me if Pentax does not listen
here, or if they do, that they disregard it.
I then took a different strategy and started to filter information
based upon subscription to forums that required some level of
credentialing ... either a support/service plan purchase, a bona-fide
relationship to a development team activity, etc. The noise in the
signal dropped to near nothing and the information returned to the
company from these sources was useful and helped the team make good
decisions on what was worth including or removing from the product.
The more this kind of nonsense goes on, the less valuable it is to
the company you are trying to influence, and the lower the
credibility of this venue overall. JCO's passionate desire for the
"$5 part" (which, btw, I don't disagree would be a nice thing to
have...) may well have been completely compromised forever by his own
obsessive, irrational behavior in demanding it.
Godfrey
