Personally, I never mind when anybody comments :)
I lived most of my early life with advertising, my mother was a production
chief for a furniture ad agency, my step-father was a copywriter (with a
different agency). That said, I don't like the way advertising is creeping
into everything we see, hear, and do; but I understand that it becomes
necessary for a number of reasons (including greed, and sometimes it's not
the execs.)
I don't think this situation is the same as product placement in a movie or
TV program. Nobody forces you to watch a program or movie. Although some
may buy a product because they are devoted to the actors or stories, they
are not doing it because their favorite actor says "I want you to use this
product." The IPC isn't just a trade organization. It's an organization
that is a source of standards that, although not mandatory, are used widely
and have become _required_ by many companies. This means some of us are
being forced to "watch" the IPC "program."
Although I understand that the IPC wants to find other income streams, I
find it disturbing when ANY quasi-regulatory organization begins to stifle
competition by supporting a particular third-party tool that utilizes data
from their standards, to the point of including a product of that company
with their standard. I have no problem with them pointing to a product and
saying "this product supports our standard," I DO have a problem with
including the product IN the standard, in effect endorsing that product over
any other existing _or future_ products. To continue the theme, the IPC
"actor" is telling us to use the product.
I find it particularly disturbing when a person or company has the
appearance of steering a standard in a particular direction to possibly
further stifle competition or enhance their position. No, Nick, I don't
know if that is the case with PCBL, and I don't expect you to see that it
appears possible since you are the paid employee of the company that was
involved and your loyalty understandably is with them. I don't blame PCBL
for taking advantage of the situation: they are in business to make money,
and getting a leg-up on the competition (if it exists) is part of any
company's operating plan. And I have no problem with further advertising
your product :) But I see a not-for-profit organization allowing these
situations to arise because of questionable support of a single commercial
enterprise. This is the age of the Internet, they need to link to all the
available products they know of on their website, or just be a standards
body and let people use Google, Downloads.com, CNET, or something else to
find products that support their standards since they may not know of _all_
products, and because they are a _standards_ organization, not a _marketing_
organization.
I don't think it's "conspiritorial" (Outlook doesn't like it, but Pete used
it, and he's a writer after all), it's just allowing some companies to take
advantage of a situation. Since I am not a member of the IPC (just of their
Designers Council, which has no voice in ANYTHING), I have no way to
influence the direction they take other than make my opinions known this
forum.
<;^)
--
George Patrick
Tektronix, Inc.
Central Engineering, PCB Design Group
P.O. Box 500, M/S 39-512
Beaverton, OR 97077-0001
Phone: 503-627-5272 Fax: 503-627-5587
http://www.tektronix.com http://www.pcb-designer.com
It's my opinion, not Tektronix'
-----Original Message-----
From: DesignerCouncil [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Pete
Waddell
Sent: Friday, May 27, 2005 10:01
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [DC] Propaganda Rant
Hope you don't mind if I comment - I am a bit biased when it comes to
talking about advertising and freely admit it. Recently I watched a
"Frontline " program called "The Persuaders" that talked about advertising
similar to the NPR program. Very interesting what the big ad agencies are
working on these days. Not sinister or conspiratorial (maybe that's a word),
but for instance an episode of Sex in the City that featured a new cocktail
(invented by a brand of liquor) as a plot line. The liquor company sponsored
that entire episode because it was getting more than product placement, it
was getting sole branding in the episode.
I'd like to think that in most instances we are not paying for advertising,
we are paying for content - after all I don't pay for the ads in Natl
Geographic, I pay for the content and the advertisers help make that content
more affordable. Being in the business I'm in it might sound strange, but I
do prefer commercial free TV (welll even Public stations do have commercials
- just not during the program.) Think about this - how many of you would pay
for our magazines if it was the only way you could get them? Some would see
the value of the content and pay a reasonable subscription price. Others
would say "I got it for free before, it should be free now" . So we should
all thank the advertisers - me because they help me pay my mortgage, you
because it means you can get meaningful content for free*.
p.
Pete Waddell
President
UP Media Group
678-589-8813
[log in to unmask]
>>> [log in to unmask] 05/11/05 10:27AM >>>
OK, I'll bite; for what it's worth, this is what I think:
All standards organizations sell their specifications; IPC at least makes
the test methods manual free for download. You can't even get the
test/sample requirements from UL without paying .. and you need those to
submit for mandatory flame testing.
You can get a lot of free but somewhat lame calculators and tools that
will provide a rough view to whatever it is you are trying to do ... but
if you really want to be accurate enough to design a high speed board,
then you need to *buy* a field solver... Same with other SI tools and
other thermal tools.
There isn't enough money floating around in the "industry" anymore; fewer
memberships; less conferences being attended; fewer books and abstracts
being bought - there isn't enough money to provide for some slush-bucket
of funds to do neat things and provide the membership with the outputs ...
If someone puts time into developing a tool with real useful
functionality, it is because the tool was needed and there weren't enough
people with the right skill sets to do something about it willing to
donate their time to developing it; so an individual picked up the torch
and ran with it; and if the tool falls under the marketing auspices of the
IPC and they agree to link to it, then the tool should (one assumes)
embody the standards and guidelines of the entity setting the
specifications...
I don't know enough about the workings of the IPC to know if they could be
more accommodating; but I suspect that like most organizations they are in
a fight for their existence and they don't have any extra money to design
test vehicles, run test vehicles, get the data and correlate it back to
the development model; hire programmers to write the code etc and so forth
(whatever effort needs to be undertaken to develop the tool and validate
the algorithms). If they were to do that, they would probably have to
charge for the tool too; then the cost is borne by those who use it, not
by the general membership who will not pay more dues to enable something
they don't use. The membership of the IPC is board fabricators;
assemblers; designers; equipment manufacturers; raw material suppliers;
vendors of assorted accessories and consumables ... so it's hard to
develop a particular tool for one segment and have the cost spread amongst
all ...
those are my thoughts; everything today costs something ... back to the
kids with their cell phones: they pay real money to download ring tones
and screen shots with a 90 day or so license then pouf! I choose to pay to
drink good water ... it's just the way it is. You can settle for free and
second best, or pay someone something to acquire advanced intellectual
capital.
Valerie
Chris Ball <[log in to unmask]>
Sent by: DesignerCouncil <[log in to unmask]>
05/11/2005 09:43 AM
Please respond to "(Designers Council Forum)"; Please respond to
chris.ball
To: [log in to unmask]
cc:
Subject: Re: [DC] Propaganda Rant
Nick- I've learned whole new ECAD systems quicker than the time it took to
type that original rant. It's been my spare time-filler for a while (and I
still used some bad grammar). My intention was not to imply that PCB
Libraries is selling a poor-quality tool disguised as an IPC standard.
Sorry if that's how you took it.
I've only used the portion of the PCBLibraries tool purchased with
IPC-7351. Regarding the pending IPC-2152 spec. and Thermalman software,
I've got their freeware calculator. But for now, the calculator results
don't match any formally released specification or standard.
So far no one has supplied an example of another standards org. doing what
IPC is doing with these companies. I really don't know one way the other
and would like to hear if it's happening elsewhere. Is this a general
trend
or an IPC thing?
-Chris
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV
1.8d
To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil.
To temporarily stop/(restart) delivery of DesignerCouncil send: SET
DesignerCouncil NOMAIL/(MAIL)
Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases >
E-mail Archives
Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16
for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or
847-615-7100 ext.2815
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV
1.8d
To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil.
To temporarily stop/(restart) delivery of DesignerCouncil send: SET
DesignerCouncil NOMAIL/(MAIL)
Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases >
E-mail Archives
Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16
for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or
847-615-7100 ext.2815
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d
To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil.
To temporarily stop/(restart) delivery of DesignerCouncil send: SET DesignerCouncil NOMAIL/(MAIL)
Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives
Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
