Chicago, IL – COMMON user group president Randy Dufault has expressed concern at the increasingly low quality of people joining COMMON. He has decided to implement a new entrance exam required for all new applicants for membership into the group in hopes to weed out the undesirable. The exam questions are as follows:

1. What is twice the half of 1 3/7?
2. How many cubic feet of earth are there in a hole measuring 3’wide by 4’ long by 5’ deep?
3. Do you know how long cows should be milked?
4. Where was Queen Cleopatra’s temple?
5. In what month do Americans eat the least?
6. How many marbles can you put in an empty bag?
7. The produce manager at the local supermarket stands 6’ tall, has a 46” chest and wears size 13 shoes. What do you think he weighs?
8. If a duck came paddling down the Nile, where would it have come from?
9. How long will a seven-day grandfather clock run without winding?

Answers:

1. 1 3/7
2. There is no earth in a hole.
3. The same way that short cows are milked.
4. On the side of her forehead.
5. February; it has fewer days
6. One; after that it is not empty.
7. Apples, pears, potatoes, bananas, etc.
8. An egg.
9. Without winding it will run for no time at all.

Nashville, TN – The 2008 Annual Meeting and Exposition of the COMMON user group took place in Nashville, Tennessee. The opening session began at 3:30 pm on Sunday and what a session that was! First the audience was welcomed by COMMON president Randy Dufault where he outlined the highlights of the coming week. Then he dropped the bombshell when he announced the keynote speaker would be none other than Bill Gates of Microsoft Corporation. This was a shock and surprise to most attendees.

Dufault explained that Mr. Gates was invited to speak to help bring the IBM Midrange world closer to the mainstream software industry by following the Microsoft software development model. His speech was entitled: Software Quality through Perception, Not Reality. His company of course produces a number of software products and is very experienced in the above topic. Some of the concepts covered were:

• Marketing your software before it’s completed (or ever started for that matter).
• Convincing users a software bug is a feature.
• Crushing the competition and still being able to sleep at night.
• Putting a pretty face on old, out-dated code and reselling it as a new product. (see Windows Vista)
• How to sell a software fix as an upgrade.

The speech was very enlightening. Of course the concepts presented will require a very different mindset among IBM i developers but at least they will all be perceived as better information systems developers because of it.