<<  As a supplier to the circuit manufacturing industry, I'm getting very
 concerned about some of the new TechNet subscribers that are using the
 service as a marketing tool, to generate customer leads from the posted
 questions, instead of its intended techical support use.  Back a year ago or
 so, I got "flamed" (and correctly so) for sending out an answer to a
question
 "Yes, this can be done.  Call me at.....".  Yet today this seems to
happening
 more and more often.
 
 For my self, and others such as Rudy w/ RD Chemical, or Larry w/ Dexter, we
 try to be informative over TechNet by answering the question instead of
 diverting the TechNet'er away from the forum to a one-on one.  For those of
 us who are suppliers to the industry it is important that we have enough
 integrity and restraint to keep ourselves from using the TechNet as a source
 of customer gathering and instead use as it way intended, as a place for
 technical exchange.
 
 For those of you who are manufactures/designers, I would invite you to
 continue "flaming" us suppliers if we get out of line in the future.
 
 Scott Griggs >>

Scott,
I think most of us on TechNet feel the same way about marketing and
advertising.  Using it as a mass marketing tool "Hey, I've got a great new
product......" or doing market surveys is verboten, and those who engage in
such practices are fair game for all the abuse we can send their way.  But I
would not have thought there would be flames from "yes it can be done,
contact me off line".  Often times, the technical crowd has specific
questions about specific (name brand) products.  In such cases, the contact
me off line response would be considered as a courteous, non-marketing,
reply.  It is in response to a technical question, and does not take up any
more bandwidth.  And, since a number of people may have the same question,
sending out a broadband "yes I can help" is proper.  In so doing, we can all
build up a list of technical contacts on various materials and topics, for
future reference.

Doug Pauls
CSL
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