RE: But seriously now folks ... (was HUMOR: STC Conference Time - )

[jgarison -at- ide -dot- com]

Keith et. al.,

Personally, I couldn't agree more. 

I have been fighting this rule for over 10 years now, and they just won't
change. The core of their argument is that the cost of STC conferences is
very low compared to the for-profit ones (and at about $400, they are 1/3 of
the price of WinWriters). If they were to subsidize the speakers, they would
be forced to raise the rates for the attendees. [Yes, I have argued that if
they increase the cost they would also be likely to increase the quality,
but they argue that it would not proportionally increase the number of
paying guests.] They want to keep the cost as low as possible for the
attendees.  They also feel that if someone comes and speaks for 75 minutes,
they get a lot more out of the other three days, and the net is that the
speaker gets just as much out of the conference - the networking, the other
sessions - as do the attendees, and that they should pay something for that.


STC does offer a slight discount to speakers. In our regional conference, we
even let them in totally free if they do their session and don't participate
in the rest of the show. 

Anyway, I'm not defending their position, I'm just stating the arguments
that they keep making to maintain the status quo.

The more people that say that they would consider speaking if they didn't
have to pay, the more fuel to the fire.

Thanks for all your support - on and off list - and of we all do
communicate, it will at least be discussed, and if discussed, perhaps
changed. But if we don't do anything, nothing will change.

John






-----Original Message-----
From: kcronin -at- daleen -dot- com [mailto:kcronin -at- daleen -dot- com]
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 12:47 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: But seriously now folks ... (was HUMOR: STC Conference Time
- )



This sounds like a great idea, John.

I am pro-STC and have been since I joined in 1997. But I *do* think it's
ridiculous to force presenters to pay admission to a conference. This
narrows down the field to individuals/companies with bigger budgets, who
can then dominate these presentation categories. It also is a big
deterrent to potential presenters - what's in it for them? They're one of
the REASONS other people are attending, so why should they pay nearly the
same price as "civilians?"

You said you don't make the rules. "Neither do I," was my first thought.
Then I thought, why not? I'm a member; it's my organization, too. So I'm
going to write to the STC about this policy, for what it's worth. Maybe
you should too.

And while I agree that for heavy-duty technical seminars, the STC is
probably not the most appropriate/logical venue, I have to admit that this
year's curriculum *does* seem a bit "fluffy." Thus, I applaud your efforts
to change that.


Keith Cronin
_______________________________

Less is more. Except when beer is concerned.


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