Don, I know you are going to put the results of our meeting schedule out for
one LAST round of comments. I'm fairly pleased with the list as it stands
(as evident my my lack of comment at the meeting). I commend you for taking
the lead on this up front and trying to avoid some of the things we ran into
last year (conflict with other mandatory conferences, bumping labor day etc.).
I'm not particularly asking for a significant re-do (it may be difficult to
get things any better) but I might have a suggestion related to the PROCESS
we use to select the locations in the future. Today, we use a map of the US
and try to distribute the meetings around the map so that any one company
doesn't always have to bear the brunt of the travel. This is a fair approach.
We also, from time to time like to end up in pleasant locations - this is
only natural for a group that does so much travel.
A slightly different approach might be to map the concentration of "home"
locations of regular attendees and see if any particular pattern evolves.
Then, schedule more meetings around these geographic concentrations and
consciously schedule a couple meetings a year in someplace that isn't TOO
inconvenient but is just a nice place to go and meet. Given this method,
we may end up meeting in LA and Boston (for example) more than 1 per year
but would still be able to "take-a-break" periodically (w/r/t location -
not work!). I'm just thinking we have some very important work ahead of us
with standard printing protocols and print job monitoring and basing the
meetings near the geographic concentrations could foster greater attendance.
Again, I know you've put a lot of work into getting the current proposal in
place. I don't know if some minor adjustments could be made if others feel
my proposal for the future process has merit? If not, I would at least like
to see if others think this might be a better approach (not that we're all
hoping to be doing this in 1998!).
Harry