[advocacy-discuss] Connecting w/ local Sun office and universities (Was: OpenSolaris User Group Growth)

[Jim Grisanzio]

Scott Dickson - Systems Engineer wrote:
> I have to echo Eric's assessment.  We have a hard time engaging the 
> sales folks to help invite people and get the word out.  We have a hard 
> time getting some of the local engineers involved.  We have traditional 
> internal barriers of divisions within the company that somehow get in 
> the way.


Interesting. I'm going to see if I can help here as well. It will be a 
good opportunity for me to get to know some of our field guys and the 
executives running those operations. This could be a good opportunity 
for a lot of people.


> But the biggest hindrance for us here in Atlanta has been location, 
> location, location.    The office is highly inconvenient for at least 
> half of the customers and all of the university folks.  No place that is 
> less inconvenient appears to be available without a fee.  We have no 
> budget.  If you are an hour's drive away, you won't get the university 
> folks.  If you have the meeting on campus (at least here), you won't get 
> the commercial folks - university parking is a nightmare.  Add to this 
> big traffic issues.
> 
> We have considered different times of day, different days, even having 
> bridge calls and webex for folks who can't get here.

Are you using your list for conversations? In other words, perhaps 
face-to-face meetings more infrequently but more on-list interactions.


> The end of it is this: if it's a huge hassle to attend the meeting, 
> people won't.  And I don't know how we can really address that in our 
> present state.
> 
> --SCott


Jim
-- 
Jim Grisanzio http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris