[TheForge] ABANA Poll

[Terry]

I finally got fed up enough with the apparent attitude of the ABANA 
board to weigh in on this discussion. I met Philipa in Seattle, and 
don't think she's getting a fair shake here.

I attended the Seattle conference, and had many of the same 
complaints / observations of others on this list so I'm not going to 
list all of them here.

1.  There was no poll in my packet for Seattle.

2.  I almost didn't go to the Seattle conference because of the cost 
- and I live 30 minutes away.  I'm a hobbyist, not a professional. 
The cost of the conference needs to get a lot lower - and this means 
the basic cost.  I  didn't sign up for the food or lodging, and would 
not at a conference that was farther  away.

3.  Don't bother with the poll until the ABANA Board agrees that they 
will do something with it.  IF you can't use the ABANA name whatever 
conference is run will be a "regional" conference.  Not that it is a 
bad thing, but one of the purposes of this discussion is to revive ABANA.

4.  As far as number of responses to whatever poll is used: my 
company has a "usability group".  They regularly do studies with 12 
to 15 people and assign "confidence levels" of 80% or so to the 
results - even though the final population is in the hundreds of 
thousands. Something about statistics which I never understood.

Yes, if the poll is done electronically, you will have a bias towards 
non-luddite blacksmiths. But if you don't want to wait 6 months for 
the results, it's something you will have to live with.  (My 
understanding is that 6 months is too long to get moving on a 2008 
conference.)

Terry


At 07:26 AM 3/2/2007, you wrote:
>Thanks for all the negatives ;-) Actually, I'm serious- you've just
>given me a list of things I need to figure out how to overcome. Maybe
>that statistical analysis course I suffered through will finally come
>in handy ;-)
>
>
>Saint Phlip
>
>Heat it up
>Hit it hard
>Repent as necessary.
>
>Priorities:
>
>It's the smith who makes the tools, not the tools which make the smith.