[LUAU] Am I going to TPOSSCON - If not why?

[Maddog]

With Hawaii being in the top 5 most expensive resort destinations and the 
cost to get people and equipment and supplies here it becomes cost 
prohibitive.

You can get a business rate room in Vegas for $40 a night. No income tax 
also is a plus.

Orlando Hotels also have package rates that make it attractive and most of 
the attendees come from the midwest or east coast so airfare is not 
extremely expensive.

Hawaii has several problems as a destination and most are political. We are 
in the top three in the U.S. for taxation and if the metrics truly measured 
the effect of the pyramided tax system here we would be number one. Hence 
the reason for paying $0.50+ more a gallon for gas (which is still a bargain 
compared to bottled water) that our mainland counterparts and that is just 
the cities used to calculate the gas cap. (note: there are many problems 
here and this is just one example)

Jim made several interesting points but I disagree with his enthusiatic 
claims about AD and Exchange going away any time soon and VoIP becoming so 
prevelent for the simple fact that  organizations have committed lots of 
dollars to those existing infrastructures. You would be hard pressed to 
replace them for that alone. While the cost of FOSS may be zero dollars the 
cost of hiring qualified personnel (to replace your existing Windows IT 
staff or in addition too since there will be a transition period) and the 
support dollars that it will cost also need to be added into the bottom 
line. The transition period alone will double the cost of your IT 
infrastructure spending for the time it takes to complete the transition. 
( this is really a complicated subject with many more reasons why it doesn't 
compute but this is the major reason). VoIP is gaining ground but for ten 
years it has been the next killer app and still to date has not been widely 
deployed. It is gaining ground, however.

The biggest problem seems to be the fragmentation within the local OSS/FOSS 
community. That can be witnessed by this very flame fest and all of the 
"bcc's" Jim referred to, not to mention the emails and phone calls in the 
background.

In short a local focus as Matt and Clifton suggested with ties to the local 
business community seems to have the best chance.

Flame retardant suit donned.
Don


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stan Baptista" <sbaptista at yahoo.com>
To: "LUAU" <luau at lists.hosef.org>
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 8:39 PM
Subject: Re: [LUAU] Am I going to TPOSSCON - If not why?


> >this means they reflexively shy away from
>>associating it with doing serious business.
>
> This definitely seems to be the case in Hawaii but
> there's probably a bit more to it.  Vegas has a major
> marketing campaign going on these days about "what
> happens in Vegas stays in Vegas".  Exactly which part
> of that is about "serious" business?  And yet major
> business conventions, tech and otherwise, are held in
> Vegas on a regular basis year after year (Comdex
> anyone?).
>
> Same is true about the theme parks in Orlando (Disney,
> Epcot, Universal...).  Lot's of fun in the sun there
> but it really doesn't stop "serious business" in the
> form of conventions from ocurring regularly.
>
> The dirty little secret about conventions is that
> there is _always_ a junket aspect to them and it
> doesn't matter whether you're in Minnesota in January
> or the Bahamas (or Hawaii).
>
> It's serious business but not business as usual or
> ordinary, just different (it's about networking and
> taking a break from the rat race that you usually deal
> with in Oshkosh or wherever, and refreshing yourself
> with new ideas).
>
> In the case of Hawaii, I wonder if it's also about
> cost and perception as much as anything else (i.e.,
> it's expensive to fly those extra 3K miles from the
> left coast and Hawaii simply isn't regared as a
> significant tech area).
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --- Jim Thompson <jim at netgate.com> wrote:
>
>> Clifton Royston wrote:
>>
>> >On Sun, Jan 29, 2006 at 11:17:37PM -1000, Jim
>> Thompson wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >>On Jan 29, 2006, at 10:23 PM, Matt Darnell wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>>>I really don't follow this.  For the most part,
>> people did not attend
>> >>>>because of the time of year, time of week, and
>> time of day.  Next
>> >>>>year
>> >>>>we will do this on Friday and Saturday.
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>I hope changing the day makes a big difference.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>We've had some feedback.  (I saw Scott ask people
>> for it.)   Here is
>> >>what I remember of it:
>> >>
>> >>1)  Don't count on people from off-island
>> attending.   I believe that
>> >>TPOSSCON has been 'marketed' as "come to Hawaii,
>> enjoy the beach,
>> >>learn some great stuff, hang out with cool
>> people".   Based on what
>> >>I've seen over the last two years, and an earlier
>> experience when the
>> >>IETF held a meeting in
>> >>Honolulu (1989), I don't believe that folks can
>> "sell" their own
>> >>management on attending a technical conference in
>> Hawaii.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >  Yes.  Pat Sullivan of Oceanit and Hoana Medical
>> has made some very
>> >astute and enlightening comments on this, and I
>> have seen it over and
>> >over again in my technical career here.
>> >
>> >  Our tourism industry has spent many millions of
>> dollars a year over
>> >many decades to inculcate the image of Hawaii as a
>> place that is
>> >carefree, where no serious work gets done.  If most
>> national executives
>> >and managers have any experience of Hawaii, they
>> think of it as a place
>> >where they had a wonderful time on a honeymoon, or
>> golfing on a
>> >luxurious vacation - this means they reflexively
>> shy away from
>> >associating it with doing serious business.
>> >
>> >  A story of my own: When I was with VeriFone and
>> involved in setting
>> >up training for customers' application programmers
>> (major
>> >national/international banks) 8 times out of 10,
>> our customers'
>> >corporate management would not approve sending
>> their programmers to
>> >Hawaii for training as it was automatically viewed
>> as a junket.
>> >Sometimes when they did send someone, they'd send a
>> non-progamming
>> >manager as a "reward", even though that was useless
>> in helping them get
>> >their applications off the ground.  We ultimately
>> had to move the
>> >application training centers to the mainland.
>> Eventually the company
>> >headquarters went too, for essentially the same
>> reason.
>> >
>> >  This is something we'd better just live with and
>> plan around, because
>> >it will take decades to reverse it.  If you want to
>> work around it, it
>> >will have to be done on a case-by-case basis, using
>> an extensive media
>> >campaign in national tech-oriented media to make
>> the case that this is
>> >different.  If you don't have a budget for that,
>> then focus efforts on
>> >boosting local attendance.
>> >
>> >
>> Thus, its best to avoid attempting to generate the
>> audience from
>> anywhere but Hawaii (and Oahu, in particular).
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>
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