[Pdx-pm] An interesting idea this way comes

[Raphael Almeria]

Yeah, this sounds like a cool idea.  --R

On Aug 4, 2004, at 3:45 PM, Josh Heumann wrote:

> The Seattle Perl Users Group has been batting about this idea proposed 
> by
> one of their members.  Here is the email.  What do people think about 
> this
> sort of think?  We have a lot of Perl People in Portland...
>
> <quote who="Jonathan Gardner">
>
> From: Jonathan Gardner jgardner at jonathangardner.net
> Date: Tue Aug 3 12:44:58 CDT 2004
>
> 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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