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File Pro Meeting Agenda Friday March 27
2009
(start and end times are approximate)
11:30
Lunch Greet & Meet
Lunch will be provided. Come earlier if
you wish.
12:30
Welcome Intro - Living Room – Susan Hoover
Ground rules and goals of this meeting
stated. Set meeting priorities, which of the listed topics are most
important to attendees to focus on.
In order to get the most out of our short
amount of time, we will suggest ground rules for the meeting and
re-iterate the goals. We want to make this meeting worth everyone’s
expense and time to attend. The number one rule is: Please leave your
negativity behind, think positive, and come willing to contribute to
solutions.
12:45 Introductions: Who we are and what
we have done using filePro
Three (3) minutes to each attendee to
introduce ourselves and to mention what special and notable things we
have done in filePro and what technologies we can share or sell to help
close the gap on what filePro is missing. This session is designed to
wet the appetite and create interest, not to go into detail. Use your
verbal skills and don’t bring a PowerPoint presentation. We will form
special interest breakout groups later to discuss details.
1:45 Problems
Defined
This session will be devoted to
congealing our common problems within our current development platform:
filePro. In order to solve our problems, we need to clearly define them
first. Some problems may already have a solution solved by another
attendee. Other problems will be rift throughout the whole membership,
and these are the problems we will be looking at solutions for.
Once we agree on our main problems, and
list them, we will attempt to address them with possible solutions in
the next session.
Sample suggestions sent in:
-What needs to be done in order for us to
survive with filePro over the next 5-10 years? (a special session for
this later).
-No GUI front end (special session for
this problem later)
-Hard to attract new customers and
developers
-Developers are not united, they operate
as single entities.
2:30
Solutions
We will continue the previous session
with discussions on possible solutions for our listed problems.
3:15
GUI Solutions
Since we are unhappy with FPGI, what is a
reasonable solution to the #1 concern of us all: a real GUI interface
for filePro? Since filePro was written decades before GUIs existed, it
is not easy to retro fit. However, what is a reasonable solution? Some
people have already worked around this issue to their satisfaction.
Most of us would like to see other solutions and we all have ideas of
how to achieve this end.
This session will be devoted to
discussing realistic GUI solutions for filePro.
4:00 Snack Break
4:15 Goals-
What we want & need from fPTech for the next release
Two or three scenarios are possible: 1)
filePro goes out of business, 2) filePro continues to operate and gets
stronger, or maybe 3) someone or some group buys filePro and re-invents
it.
Without going into small details and
unreasonable wish lists, what do we need in order of importance to
continue using filePro for the next 5 to 10 years even if the company
folds? And if they do, how can we continue to buy and license more
users and sites?
An even more pressing issue may be to get
a quick release out of filePro within a few months filled with some
‘must-have’ features, thus generating some quick revenue for fPTech.
What can we suggest for these features? With Ken there, we should be
able to make some progress on what is realistic.
We should keep this list short and
important, not mentioning programming niceties, but solid priorities in
development strategy. For example, do we need XML more than ODBC?
Let’s come up with a list of priorities
that are reasonable for fPTech to achieve and that will bring in revenue
for the company. And, let’s set a reasonable time table.
5:00 What we can
do to accomplish these goals?
Are we willing to pay for the changes we
suggest? How? We must realize that fPTech does not have deep pockets
and will not do these changes simply because we demand it. Can we come
up with a way to put our money where our mouths are and pre-buy
licenses? We will need some good ideas in this session.
-Recommend changes to pricing structure-
what would be realistic?
5:45
Forming Partnerships
By this time, we may be able to discern
if there is any interest in forming collaborations or partnerships to
develop products and/or to gain business as a cohesive body.
Suggestions:
- Medical notes that the Federal
government is pushing
-Other government projects.
-Put together an application pool in
which we can draw from.
-Develop a tool to link code together
(hooks) so different programs can interface together.
6:30 Path
forward- Should we continue these meetings?
We won’t know until we get to this point
in the meeting. Should we meet again, and if so, where and when? Was
this a waste of time or a real benefit? Who should be included in the
next meeting(s)? Let’s Come up with a consensus and a united voice with
appointed negotiators.
Do we want to continue on Saturday?
7:00 Dinner
Eat together or with your special
interest breakout group. Dinner will be provided. We have a built in
bar, and at this time the bar will open.
8:00 Breakout
sessions
Now is the time to separate and
discuss with those other few that have the same topic of interest. We
have six different locations to split off to, several with computers for
Internet access and demos.
Saturday–
Possible meeting. Open discussions
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