We've tried to expand the symposium to the US for years.  Great idea.
The problem is cost: too much competition for the dollars in other
conferences.  And Oxford is unique: they have a very reasonable place
for attendees to stay.  What we need on this side of the pond is a
similar University setting.  We've thought Cornell would be the logical
spot, but even that doesn't work well due to the cost.  Paul Zarnowksi
is an avid attendee of Oxford and we discuss their hosting the US event
each time.

How many US based folks would attend a TSM Symposium somewhere on our
continent if it cost $1500 for three days, plus travel?

The answer is surprisingly few: not enough to make it economically
viable for a private company to host.  

STORServer would love to host such an event if we didn't have to lose
our a**es to do it!

On another note: there isn't any place in the US that's as much fun as
Oxford in September.  If you haven't gone, make an effort to go.
Though, alas, this may well be the last one.  We've heard that before,
but Sheelagh is threatening retirement (well deserved I might add) and
without a sponsor of her talent, these sorts of things never happen.
The amount of effort required in unspeakable.  Most of us would blanch.


Kelly J. Lipp
VP Manufacturing & CTO
STORServer, Inc.
485-B Elkton Drive
Colorado Springs, CO 80907
719-266-8777
lipp AT storserver DOT com

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Allen S. Rout
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2007 11:53 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] TSM Oxford Symposium

>> On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:05:27 -0400, Mahesh Tailor
<MTailor AT CARILION DOT COM> said:


> Check out http://www.share.org.  This conference usually has the same 
> type of topics.

SHARE is an entirely adequate second place.  Beware: it's aggressively,
even angrily, mainframe-centric.  They've chewed up and spat out several
attempts to generate a unix-centric "project".  TSM as an application
gets a pass because (IMO)

1) It started out on the mainframe
2) We don't talk all that much about the underlying OS
3) It's a very popular product.

Those are in order of importance. :)

If you go to it with this in mind, and an appropriately humble
second-class-citizen sort of attitude, you can get a lot of good out of
the conference.  Just think of yourself as a registered Christian in the
Ottoman empire.


Of course, we could put on a symposium on this side of the pond in the
even years, if Sheelagh doesn't plan to expand...



- Allen S. Rout