* Rounding out our reader discussion of the future of user groups
For the past three newsletters, we’ve been sharing comments from readers about the future of user groups. This time, we’d like to close out with a response that we feel did a great job of summarizing the user’s role today. Interestingly, this response came from someone within the industry – not an end-user per se.
For the past three newsletters, we’ve been sharing comments from readers about the future of user groups. This time, we’d like to close out with a response that we feel did a great job of summarizing the user’s role today. Interestingly, this response came from someone within the industry – not an end-user per se.
The reader wrote: “Industry forums were (and would be today as well) definitely important and valuable. So too were trade conferences such as N+I, for those of us who truly took the time and effort to attend the roundtables and seminars, as well as engage in meaningful discussions with exhibitors.
“It boils down to money and the two balancing laws of our industry. Everyone knows and lives the first one; ‘Faster, Better, Cheaper’, but I remain consistently amazed by how little attention gets paid to the second; ‘There Is No Free Lunch.’ As an example, we tend to laugh and marvel at the fact that a T-1 port only a few years ago was priced at thousands per month, while that same circuit today sells for five hundred or less. We all should also know that the underlying cost for that circuit has not been reduced by anywhere even approaching that same ratio. The funding for forums and the like comes directly from the gross profit derived by carriers and equipment manufacturers. What little margin is left in our business is scarcely enough to keep the lights on these days. My job description used to include mandates to participate in industry forums. That mandate and funding is now long gone, and it has been over three years since I have been able to attend a significant trade conference.
“You might think that we could do some of this in virtual format. Theoretically yes, but the problem here is that resources have also been cut to levels where there is little to no time for anything but keeping the machine running.
“I’m not sure where all of this is leading us, but the two laws are so out of balance currently that survival is the one and only agenda item that matters in our industry today. Sad as that is, it is nonetheless true and I can’t see this changing any time soon.”
