In COMMON's 49-year history, the midrange user group has weathered many changes, not the least of which has been the rocky identity shifts of IBM's black box (formerly known as System i, iSeries, AS/400), which is now known as IBM i, which runs on a Power System, which in turn may be something that barely resembles the boxes of old—a POWER-based blade.

There have been recessions before—tech industry upheavals—even I remember the dot com dust up, but this latest global economy has hit COMMON particularly hard. By the time COMMON's annual conference in Reno, Nevada rolled around this spring, the user group was burning through cash like a drunken blackjack player. If the user group continued to make the same sorts of bets, its board of directors expected to spend roughly half of its $1.6 million cash reserve by the end of 2009.

And while the Reno conference went off surprisingly well in a down economy, the show only nabbed half the attendees as the previous year's Nashville event. Was it location, location, location? Were the low numbers due to dwindling interest and a shrinking customer base? Or simply the economy? And what about IBM, which offers an awesome Power System total package solution that also manages to fracture the identity of the i system? Might IBM's latest changes have had an effect?

Either way, it doesn't take a card-counting math whiz to realize that COMMON's next annual event, slated for Orlando in 2010, is shaking up to be an all-in event—win the hand or lose it all.

A Big Issue

Come on, now, isn't that a bit of hyperbole? How can a volunteer organization run out of cash and die? Well, it certainly can. Ever heard of a star that collapses in on itself to create a black hole? How about a housing crisis? Bad things happen under the best of intentions.

So revenue generation is a key issue, as well as expenses. At the Reno conference, then- president Randy Dufault outlined some of the cost-cutting moves COMMON is implementing to become more efficient. And while most of those measures seem pretty reasonable—like booking smaller hotels with fewer room blocks—others that cut back on volunteer speaker reimbursements seem to cut too close to the bone.

Meanwhile, COMMON added new blood to its board of directors and voted in a new president, who happens to be Wayne Madden, a group publisher for Penton Media, which publishes System iNetwork. Madden, of course, has a lot of experience with the IBM-focused midrange world, and even more specifically with the publishing of System iNEWS magazine and related educational events. He previously was a COMMON board member as well.

In the interest of full disclosure, it might seem that my previous personal and work relationships with Madden might make me privy to some behind-the-scenes COMMON action. Well, that's not the case. I don't know what kind of special oath of office new COMMON presidents must take, but the result is that Madden has been careful to work through COMMON's official PR channels.

Madden responded via email to several of my questions, and rather than hack up his answers into a bunch of snippets, the topic warrants the big-picture responses:

System iNEWS: Like most companies and trade shows, COMMON's Reno conference attendance was down significantly over previous years. Economy or no, COMMON's current financial situation presents itself as an immediate challenge . . . what are some of the key areas COMMON will look to to ensure its immediate—and long-term—viability?

Madden: Yes, COMMON's annual conference in Reno certainly followed the current trends in the conference industry as a whole due to the economy. We experienced about a 48 percent drop in attendance from the 2008 Annual Conference while the average industry trend appears to be a 50-60 percent drop in attendance. This certainly is bringing some urgency to COMMON's financial position in terms of protecting our reserves and ensuring we have the right model moving forward.

The COMMON model changed in 2007, moving from two conferences per year to one annual meeting, adding new events like COMMON FOCUS in the fall, and enhancing COMMON's ability to deliver online free and paid education. These changes were a direct result of member and partner feedback and designed to add variety to the services we provide our community. Our financials as well as our member participation indicated that this new model was gaining traction. Our 2008 Annual Conference was extremely successful and this continued to demonstrate the success of the new model. As everyone now can see clearly, the economy started taking an ugly turn in Q3 and Q4 of 2008 and COMMON clearly experienced a direct result in lower participation across the board, specifically in our fall events (COMMON FOCUS and COMMON Directions). That started many conversations about the 2009 Annual Meeting relating to how we could reduce risk, manage the event wisely, and also what types of changes would be necessary for the future to ensure that COMMON will serve our members.

At the Wednesday evening Meeting of the Members (MOM) in Reno, the board of directors had an opportunity to give our members a clear picture of the current situation, to discuss some immediate changes put in place to keep COMMON healthy, and to openly ask members for input at the meeting and ongoing input as we continue to evolve. COMMON is a user group and COMMON's members will ultimately define COMMON's future. So, what is the plan? The plan presented at MOM was primarily the immediate tactical decisions that are necessary to improve results in 2009 and protect our reserves, including some modifications to the annual conference model based on trends, eliminating some expenses relating to programs, and to redefine our volunteer benefits. To prevent long-term impacts on COMMON's education programs, certification initiatives, and ongoing programs, the Board will eliminate certain subsidies related to the Annual Meeting and volunteer benefits. We were able to come to consensus on budget items that were not essential to the quality of COMMON's programs.

Our annual conference model evolved over many years in terms of the number of sessions, the types of social activities, and the overall footprint required by COMMON in a venue. This series of events gives us an opportunity to make sure that what we offer matches the demand in the market. A key value at any conference is the quality and certainly the choices one has in terms of sessions. Ten years ago, the number of attendees at COMMON certainly required that COMMON have 500+ sessions during a conference with something in the neighborhood of 25-26 different sessions concurrently. That is not the case for today's COMMON. Our new annual conference model will be one day shorter, feature at least 15 concurrent sessions and offer 250-300+ sessions (final count of sessions for 2010 will not be determined until the education committee has finished planning for the conference), and return to our roots in terms of social events. What will this look like? At any one time an attendee can choose between at least 15 choices and during the week attend something around 25 hours of education, not to mention the informal interactions with speakers at Ask the Experts night or in the hallways or exhibit hall. Our social events will perhaps be a little less glitzy, but will focus on what members have always value—interacting with each other, sharing experiences, and enjoying a little fun with colleagues.

The real significance to COMMON as an organization is that our conference footprint (both in terms of length of conference and required exhibit/session space) will be much more appealing to host sites. Requiring 25 session rooms is a big demand for a venue and most venues expect many more attendees when reserving that many meeting rooms. This actually means that COMMON's required footprint was out of balance with the hotel/convention industry and this resulted in many additional costs for COMMON. Our new footprint will give us more competitive choices in terms of destinations and provide better economy in terms of required minimum food and beverage spends, rental fees, and fairer hotel room rates. All of these things really hinge on the ratio of attendees to space required and we can now fall within the expected standards for conferences with our attendance history.

Another change I mentioned above relates to program funding. We are not eliminating any of our current core programs in networking, advocacy, or education. However, we are asking our volunteers to find more efficient ways to get the job done and in some cases we are eliminating funds for specific items. For instance, the guest program is one area where COMMON will not supply a subsidy. In the past, we have charged for the guest program ($75) but still had to subsidize that program. We still want to offer a guest program as long as our volunteers can find a way to lead this program without additional funding. They can charge more, change the program structure and activities, or if they choose, eliminate the program. It's up to the volunteers that lead that program really. Another example would be our annual IT Executive Conference. This program will need to stand on its own in terms of funding. It's a fantastic program and brings benefit to those attendees. We're simply asking our volunteers and our staff to structure this program in a way that does not require additional funding from COMMON. In other words, we're looking at programs and using common sense. We'll do these programs as long as they fund themselves while providing the benefits. We're also just ensuring we remain wise in reducing the number of in person meetings for program committees, using efficient resources online for phone and presentations, and any other common sense expense management you'll find in many businesses today.

Perhaps the most difficult change communicated to our members at MOM was the changes we made to the volunteer benefits structure. COMMON will soon be 50 years old as an organization. For many years, volunteers gave of their time and skills with no compensation available. In other words, they paid their own (or their company paid) travel and registration to an event or a meeting and participated as a volunteer (e.g., speaker, TLC, session manager, project leader). As COMMON grew over the years, COMMON began adding specific benefits for volunteers in the form of Common Credits (CCs). Volunteers, including speakers, of course, could earn CCs and apply them towards conference registration first and then towards housing and travel. Also, certain volunteer positions in the organization automatically came with free registration and sometimes travel/hotel credits as well. That practice has continued until now. At Reno, the board announced that we are ending the practice of awarding CCs to volunteers. We are establishing a discounted volunteer registration rate for the annual conference and every volunteer will pay this registration rate, including Board of Director members like me. There are only two exceptions. Speakers are volunteers of course and for their first session they earn the volunteer registration rate and for their second through fourth speaker presentation, they can earn an additional 25 percent off this volunteer registration rate. So, speakers who are contributing five sessions will earn 100 percent of their registration and not pay this registration. Our tech team (the team that volunteers onsite to enable all of our IT infrastructure will also get a free registration. Housing is only provided to this tech team and the Executive Committee (officers of the Board, because our bylaws require these members to be present at the annual meeting).

Every member of COMMON certainly recognizes the value of volunteers to our organization. Before making this decision, the Board examined practices across the entire association industry. COMMON was in a small minority of groups that offered registration and travel benefits to volunteers. For example, SHARE, the long established user group in the IBM Z Server market, has never offered benefits to volunteers. With this decision, COMMON is not only aligning ourselves with the majority of the industry and in volunteer practices, but we are also doing something absolutely necessary in terms of creating a business model that works for our user group. We are celebrating fifty years in 2010, and we believe with all of the changes outlined above, we are taking the first steps to ensure our members can move into the next fifty years.

What are the next steps? With the tactical decisions behind us, the next step is to continue to evolve our strategic plan, inviting our program leaders and members to collaborate on ideas, and to continue to refine the future model of products and services we provide to our members. That is the challenge for our new board, our volunteer program leaders, and our members going forward.

System iNEWS: It's hard not to look to Orlando next year and be optimistic. There's hope the economy will be on the mend by then, plus COMMON will be coming off of a lackluster attendance year (Reno), and isn't there a big anniversary to help market the event? Plus, hasn't the East Coast traditionally seen a larger attendance than shows in the West? Is COMMON already looking ahead to Orlando in a big way? Or is it just business as usual?

Madden: Chris, you are right in saying there are reasons to be optimistic about the 2010 Annual Meeting in Orlando and 2010 in general. The first reason to be optimistic is that we have taken the immediate steps tactically to make sure we manage the downside generated in this truly dismal economy. We have been decisive and responsible, have modest expectations for the remainder of the year with our remaining live events and online efforts, and we are reasonable even in our expectations for the start of 2010. 2010 does represent COMMON's 50th Anniversary as an organization. We do believe that will build some momentum and we certainly plan to create some special incentives around our anniversary for those who attend the annual meeting. We also know that some companies were unable to send anyone this year and will likely find a way to send someone in 2010. Finally, we hope the economy will continue to recover and offer a little breathing room in travel and education budgets.

Even with all of those momentum builders, the plan we laid out to our members in Reno is very conservative and only requires a slight recovery in attendance to achieve our goals. Do I think we can get one half of the 48 percent we lost ... yes, I do believe we can get one half and that is more than enough to put COMMON back on good footing. Do I believe that we can return to the numbers we had in Nashville in 2008 for our next annual meeting? That would be absolutely fantastic and I certainly hope that we can with all of the momentum we will have, but we're not even counting on that to make things work.

So, are we looking forward to Orlando in a "big way"? No, we are looking at a solid plan that allows for a moderate recovery and we have the reserves and the strategy to endure and continue to build on our overall strategy.

System iNEWS: Aside from what we've covered, what's COMMON's biggest challenge in the near future? How about two years out? How about opportunities?

Madden: One of COMMON's biggest ongoing challenges is one that many user groups and associations share—recruiting and keeping members who are fully engaged in the organization. So many that attend our events see us as another conference provider and not as a user group. COMMON was founded by users, for users, and all of the products and services created are there to serve our members and community. Maintaining the quality and usefulness of these products and services requires a membership that truly wants to join in and have a voice. We want members to be engaged in education, in advocacy, and in networking opportunities. The truth in most associations and user groups is that a very small number of members end up driving more and more of what happens. What's needed is more involvement from our existing members and more members. To accomplish that COMMON must make membership more compelling and we have a task force already at work on the value of membership.

Another challenge and very large opportunity for COMMON is to continue to broaden our products and services, as well as membership, into the entire Power Systems family. While IBM i is a deeply rooted heritage for this user group, the breadth of the Power Systems family in terms of technical education, potential partners, and potential corporate and individual members is our future. This certainly includes IBM i but offers many opportunities for expansion. In Reno, there were more AIX sessions as well as additional sessions relating to key Power Systems technologies such as Power VM and Systems Director. You will continue to see more growth in the number of education offerings in those areas and more relating to Power Systems. We are also working closely with the existing AIX user group community to introduce them to COMMON and our offerings. We believe that we can compliment that existing community and bring them value in areas like advocacy, additional live and virtual education opportunities, and in our ability to make resources available to them as a community. So, yes . . . yes . . . yes . . . we are embracing Power Systems and will continue to build that expansion into our strategic planning. And, no . . . no . . . no . . . we are NOT abandoning our rich heritage. "Coexistence" is not even accurate to describe what we are trying to accomplish. We do not want to stop short of full integration.

Along with that challenge is the overall challenge and opportunity to stay relevant to our members. We need to stay open to feedback, suggestions, and continue to work hard to understand all of the various interests our members have in terms of products and services whether they relate specifically to IBM Power Systems or any products outside of IBM that are critical to their infrastructure. We can't be all things in IT without bumping up against many other providers, but we can make sure we serve our core members and the challenges they face in building solutions in and around IBM Power Systems and other related and integrated products. COMMON needs to find more concrete ways to address these needs.

System iNEWS: Any big points that I'm not thinking of but are important for our readers and COMMON members to understand?

Madden: One significant point I'd like to make is that our existing exhibitor/sponsor community truly showed their commitment to COMMON in Reno. We not only had a great turnout in terms of our exhibition, but we found our partners very supportive and committed to the future of COMMON. I want to express my thanks, and the thanks of our members, for this support. This group of supporters is key to the future of COMMON, and their ongoing support shows the veracity of this market.

So Much Going On

So yes, definitely a lot going on at COMMON these days. Obviously, COMMON is looking to cut costs and "right size" the conference. This, of course, makes sense to anyone who's dealing with reduced revenue these days, and is there anyone in the midrange world who hasn't had some adverse budget activity lately?

Still, there are at least two wild cards in the COMMON deck: speakers and questions.

As Madden mentioned, one of COMMON's most potentially troublesome cost-cutting choices comes at the expense of volunteer speakers. Sure, many speakers are IBMers or work for vendors who have a vested interest in the speakers being in front of customers or potential customers. I'm sure COMMON has done the math, and reducing benefits of some of these speakers would accomplish three goals: 1) reduce costs, obviously; 2) possibly increase registration fees for some speakers with few sessions; and 3) reduce the number of speakers attending, which could in turn reduce the number of sessions, which could in turn help tighten up the conference and let COMMON offer fewer sessions in one less day. And if fewer sessions come to Orlando, COMMON might not have to bruise egos by rejecting a bunch of speaker sessions.

So where's the fallout here? COMMON's speakers often put in a lot of unpaid hours to develop helpful sessions, and speakers tend to be the experts—who are less likely to benefit by coming to COMMON to learn. After all, if you were a manager and you knew you had a super-smart expert employee, wouldn't you think twice about shelling out educational budget money for something with a very unclear return on investment?

Such is the case for System iNEWS magazine's tech editor Scott Klement—small world, right? Scott, of course, has a day job, which is one reason why he's such a great tech editor. He's got real-world, day-in-day-out experience. But with COMMON's speaker changes, Scott is essentially going from an event that only cost him some hundreds of dollars in out-of-pocket costs to a cost that might creep well into four digits. So for some speakers, COMMON turns into a situation where they'll have to pay a significant amount of money in order to travel to teach others. Can some speakers turn this into business expenses for consulting work? You bet. But an expense is still an expense. It's not breaking even, not breaking close to even, and it's not revenue.

"Over the past year or so, I've spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 hours preparing for the COMMON annual conference. That includes preparing sessions, updating sessions, practicing sessions, and also the duties of a Subject Matter Expert (SME) with COMMON. I did all of this as an unpaid volunteer, and I was very happy to do them. I am proud of the result. I think I did well, I think COMMON did well, and I think Reno was a fantastic conference," Klement says.

"COMMON is hurting for money, and it's a difficult situation for everyone. They don't just want to reduce their costs, they have to. As there is less demand right now for COMMON's offering, they must reduce the supply. A smaller conference with fewer session rooms. And I respect that they are doing this," he adds.

"Prior to 2010, if you earned 13 COMMON Credits—at a rate of one credit per speaking session—COMMON would effectively cover your major expenses. Registration, hotel, and airfare would be covered. There'd still be some expense to the speaker, including meals, ground transportation, but the vast majority was covered. So even if we didn't break even, we at least got close, and it was worth it to me," he explains.

"With the current plan for 2010 . . . they will only reimburse registration. So hotel and airfare are now out of my pocket. That would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,000, based on what it cost for Reno, that would be out of my pocket, purely for the honor—and it is an honor—to come and speak for COMMON's attendees. I don't go there to learn things myself—I usually don't have time, I'm too busy volunteering—so my employer does not cover these costs. It's out of my pocket," he says.

And the bottom line?

"I just can't afford to do that much work and still pay that kind of money out of pocket. It's a simple question of finances. Either I have to spend time working for money—as opposed to volunteering for COMMON—in order to save enough money to go to Orlando, or I need to find some way that my expenses will be lower. Or maybe find some sort of sponsorship? I don't know, but I really hope that there's some way to make this work. I desperately want to be there. But, if nothing can be found, I won't be able to attend next year," he explains.

And What Were the Questions, Again?

It's a small world, right? Well, COMMON is both a user group, or at the very least a professional organization, and it's something so much bigger—it has got a life of its own. It's like an artificial intelligence (AI) that has become self-aware and therefore operates with self-interest in mind—to survive. Seems pretty natural for any life form. So what's the question? The most important question to COMMON's vibrant future may, ironically, have little to do with its budget.

"The question is, 'What is it that people need?' It's not, 'How do we keep COMMON afloat?'" says Susan Gantner, a former IBMer, a COMMON volunteer, speaker, and well-regarded i-focused educator in the industry. Gantner is half of the Partner400 team, which includes her husband, Jon Paris, who boasts a similar resume. In addition, the two operate their own education consulting business that includes the small-yet-highly-regarded RPG & DB2 Summit conference.

So in some ways, Paris and Gantner compete with COMMON to educate i-focused professionals, and so does System iNEWS, for that matter. But COMMON remains something bigger and more important to the midrange industry, so many people want to see it thrive.

More to the point, Paris says, the biggest issue with the i-focused world isn't competition among education providers; no, the competition is overall awareness of the modern and cool things customers can do with their i-based systems. More forward movement means a healthier future for everyone.

One of Paris' primary concerns now isn't about the cost cutting but something else entirely. He says, "No one has stood back and thought about reinventing it."

So what does the community need? Incremental evolution? Or bigger, faster reinvention?

Paris says, "What they need to do is sit down and ask, 'What parts of our community need serving?'"

And that, of course, is an even bigger issue than COMMON itself. And while COMMON may be able to get out of the red and into the black with a tighter, smarter 50th anniversary event, I can't help but believe its future rests squarely in figuring out the things i-focused companies, professionals, IBM, and IBM's Business Partners need to thrive in the very near future.

Chris Maxcer is news editor for System iNetwork. "The bottom line is, there are a lot of things at stake for the i-focused world, and COMMON is one of the most important catalysts around these days," Chris says. "If COMMON can figure out the tough questions for its future, it very well might provide a road map for many i pros in the midrange world."