Dan raise some interesting questions and I thought I would put down some answer below to the points he raised. However the issue here is not the effectiveness of the board, but we as a community. After a number of years as second fiddle through Informix and IBM, we have all developed a siege mentality, just trying to justify why U2 should continue. We see the emails of the CEO wanting to replace the U2 application with SAP and Oracle and there is this morbid acceptance that U2 will lose out.
To me the siege is over, the gates are open and U2 is on the attack with RDBMs on the run. I have developed a new application in U2 and I am selling and beating the big names as many other ISVs are. In tough times, U2 enables me to succeed when my competitors are going out of business. Rocket is an exciting new opportunity, we already have DataVu as a result of that marriage. I have even been talking to the guys at Rocket about selling U2 with CorVu. I am excited with the opportunity that is out there to be grabbed, but that excitement is not in the community. I can be the greatest evangelist for U2, but I am not going to win the world over by myself. If people are thinking that a director of the U2UG is going to be the panacea for change, it is not likely to happen, we are volunteers with limited time and resources. However in Egypt the masses changed a government and that is what is needed here, enthusiasm and excitement of the group. These are my thoughts to some of the issues raised. *What do you see as the most important role of the U2UG? The U2UG plays a number of important roles to empower users to develop their skills, improve their career opportunities, spread the message and enhance the U2 products. Some of the issues that I have worked on within the user group has included working to open the U2 knowledge base that had been previously been restricted to licensed users, in lobbying management in IBM and Informix to recognise the U2 technology and issues such as connection pooling and better documentation. These were made possible by showing solidarity of a passionate group of users. *How do you see the "International User Group" supporting existing local user groups and helping establish new local user groups? I have run user groups in the past and the changing nature of the industry has caused many traditional user groups to decline. Due to the wide geographic spread of users, those outside of major centres were disadvantaged. This is why I was involved in founding the international U2UG to try and provide all U2 users benefits through the internet rather than just person to person in major centres. However I believe U2UG should support and encourage those who want to run regional user groups and provide advertising through the web site to those meeting. *What do you think can be done to attract new developers & ISVs to U2 and where do you see the role of the U2UG in this? New technologies such as DataVu will enhance the attractiveness of the product to new users and I like other Directors have been working with Rocket to enhance these products. As an ISV myself and having developed a new product with U2 technology I believe I have some understanding how we can attract new developers and I as other directors have worked towards attracting new developers with actions such as the incubator project. *What do you hope to achieve by the end of this term if you are elected and how do you see it benefiting the community? How will you measure your success in this? This is actually a good question. The success of the user group is not in the activities of its directors, but in the activities of its community. Something like the Microsoft MSDN community it has a life of its own, there are really no key people driving it. What I believe is more the role of directors is to enable and facilitate the user community to have a life of its own. We are more capable as a group than as individuals. Success is not in what the directors do, it is in what the community does. I think success is when directors are no longer needed to ensure an active group. *What specifically do you think will increase the active member-base of the U2UG and how do you intend to monitor this? Again this is a question that needs to be turned around. An increased active member base, new ISVs, getting the message out, these are not the role of directors, this is the role of all of those involved in the U2 community. If you earn a living from U2, then you need to assist in making U2 prosperous for your own benefit. If the only thing driving the U2UG are the directors, then we have lost. The directors role needs to be encouragement, coordination and enablement, not about being a one man band to solve all problems. As a USA President said, 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country'. So the answer is not what I can do to do to improve membership, but what I can do to help others to prosper new members and spread the message. I hope that I inspire others through passion and belief in the technology we use. Whether it is working on the beta program for DataVu, or sitting down with Microsoft to see how to port UniVerse applications onto Microsoft Azure, or to talk to new developers about the benefits of U2 or seeing how we can get U2 to be included in University courses, all of these play a small role in making U2 stronger. If there are 3,000 people all doing the same thing, think of what we could achieve. Regards David Jordan _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list [email protected] http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
