SPUG: Seattle Perl Consortium

Brian Ingerson ingy at ttul.org
Thu Aug 5 17:08:02 CDT 2004


This a very interesting thread. But email threads eventually die. We probably
need to meet in person (for some definition of we). In the meantime I've set
up:

    http://spc.kwiki.org/

Let's see where this goes.

Cheers, Brian

On 03/08/04 10:44 -0700, Jonathan Gardner wrote:
> Many of use are perl consultants. We spend a great deal of time finding 
> clients and we just don't have the resources to prepare spiels or case 
> studies or advertising in the proper media. So we end up mostly as 
> parasites because we can't generate new projects and clients and we only 
> clean up where others have gone before. (I am speaking generally, of 
> course.) We see this because the current perl market is contracting, not 
> expanding.
> 
> I have a proposal that many of you won't like and frankly, I don't think it 
> will work in its current working form. I'd like some input and ideas 
> positive or negative. If we could get it working, I think it will be a huge 
> benefit to all of us.
> 
> Some of the ideas I don't endorse, I am only putting them on the floor for 
> discussion because they have some merit.
> 
> Basically, we form a corporation called the Seattle Perl Consortium (SPC). 
> We have members who are perl consultants. They pay membership fees. We buy 
> advertising and we have a team of marketers and salespeople to convince the 
> PHBs that perl is the way to go with glossy handouts and snazzy powerpoint 
> presentations. The SPC acts like the marketing department for our small 
> consultancies. With enough members and a big enough budget, we should be 
> able to challenge anything Microsoft or Sun would do to market their stuff.
> 
> SPC could provide legal assistance, accounting assistance, business advice, 
> and misc. services. The idea is to move everything but perl work off of the 
> consultants into the SPC where people who specialize in that sort of thing 
> can do it properly and for far less than you would do it yourselves. (Going 
> rate for an accountant << going rate for experienced perl consultant).
> 
> SPC could provide on-call 24/7 service with a call center and on-call 
> consultants.
> 
> SPC may be able to fund its own projects. For instance, if there is a need 
> for a specific piece of software, but no company is willing to fund it, but 
> it would be useful to all of the members of SPC, SPC may hire some of the 
> consultants to implement the project.
> 
> To smooth the market cycles, SPC may collect a hoard of cash that it will 
> use to employ the consultants during difficult times. Rather than compete 
> with the clients, SPC would wait to do its projects until the slow cycles.
> 
> SPC may also be a standards body, codifying best practices and technology to 
> make the work its members do consistent and unified.
> 
> SPC could provide services you'd find in a guild or a union. We could set 
> prices, establish accreditation, and help apprentices pair off with gurus.
> 
> SPC will be basically non-profit. All the profit from the actual work goes 
> into the pockets of the consultants, with perhaps a small cut to go back to 
> the SPC to fund more of its activities.
> 
> In the future, if this is successful, we can expand this into the Seattle 
> Open Source / Free Software Consortium, or maybe even a world-wide 
> organization with chapters in every major city.
> 
> -- 
> Jonathan Gardner
> jgardner at jonathangardner.net
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