Dear PIUG Members:
On March 1, Paterra withdrew its participation
in PIUG 2002 and, on March 8, its sponsorship
of PIUG 2002. On March 4, I requested that
my abstract be removed from the PIUG web site
as soon as possible.
The text of my email to the Program Committee
withdrawing from PIUG 2002 and the emails
leading up to this are attached below.
This action was prompted by two events:
1) On November 3, the program chair published
a "FINAL CALL - PIUG 2002 - JP ONLY" with a
deadline of Dec 15. We complied with this
deadline; Derwent's speaker did not.
Nonetheless, Derwent's speaker is on the
program. The program chair has justified
this (see below) by the large amount of
money that Derwent is putting into PIUG 2002.
2) On November 4, the program chair sent an
email to Derwent in which my presentation
was a topic. This occurred without my
prior consent, without my participation, and
indeed occurred without me knowing any
of the content that dealt with my presentation.
As both of the above are unacceptable, we
have withdrawn from the program.
Respectfully yours,
Alan Engel
Alan wrote:
> Lucy,
>
> Thank you for your emails.
>
> However, we have made a final decision to
> withdraw from the PIUG 2002 meeting.
>
> After reading and rereading your longer
> explanation below, I have come to the
> inescapable conclusion that there is no
> room for a small, innovative company
> at PIUG 2002. Setting your explanation
> alongside the meeting schedule only
> reinforces this conclusion.
>
> This conclusion is also reinforced by your
> "HAT[sic] speaker PIUG 2002" correspondence
> with Derwent on Nov 4, 2001 in which my
> speaking slot and time was a topic and of which
> I was to be informed by cc - no direct contact
> and no follow up. I did not receive that cc
> and, until this week, continued to work under
> the understanding that participation in
> Tuesday's sessions was to be by abstract
> submission and approval, and with special
> invitations to include JPO and PATOLIS
> participation (and that Derwent had not
> submitted an abstract).
>
> Although Paterra is not and never will be
> a 'heavy', it is also not a beggar's
> organization.
>
> I am withdrawing with extreme regret. I
> had viewed PIUG 2002 as a "must" for Paterra
> and had canceled our participation in
> ACS Orlando so that we could be better
> prepared. Also, PIUG obviously represents
> a core cross section of our market and
> Paterra is still underrepresented among
> West Coast companies. Furthermore, I had
> been waiting for the last three years for
> PIUG to cover a subject in which I feel
> I can make a worthwhile contribution.
>
> I am looking forward to the day when
> PIUG's _user_ members realize that
> small, innovative companies can make
> meaningful contributions.
>
> Sincerely,
> Alan Engel
>
>
>
>
>
> Lucy Akers wrote:
>
>> Hi Alan,
>> Sorry about this. I thought you knew from previous emails dating
back to
>> December that your talk would be 10-15 minutes, the same length as
>> Derwent's
>> MT talk. We have one more speaker scheduled for Tuesday morning on JP
>> law
>> who does not yet appear on the agenda. Our earlier speaker, Gary
>> Hamilton
>> cancelled a couple of weeks ago and we only yesterday received final
>> approval for his replacement.
>>
>> I hope you can try to understand this from an organizer's
>> perspective. We
>> have a huge financial commitment with the hotel in the form of a
>> contract,
>> so we especially have to ensure the overall meeting content can be
>> justified
>> by our attendees with their respective employers. Many of the
corporate
>> attendees have to get approval from their management to attend, so it
>> really helps them if we have a very diverse program. The more topics,
>> then
>> the higher the chance someone will see something that applies to their
>> work
>> and the more likely they are to attend.
>>
>> Our meeting budget is in excess of $75,000 and the room night
>> guarantee is
>> nearly $84,000. There are also high costs associated with the actual
>> conference rooms if we do not meet this minimum room night guarantee.
>> Therefore, we also have to be sure to recognize our sponsors,
>> especially the
>> heavies... Derwent, CAS, etc. Everyone is interested in air time.
>> This was
>> especially true at the outset of our independent 3+ day meeting.
>> Gradually
>> PIUG is becoming more able to deal with the liability but this is a
very
>> slow process. For these reasons, we must keep a lot of flexibility
>> with the
>> meeting program.
>>
>> Anyway, I hope this helps you to understand better why the process
>> can't yet
>> be transparent, like an ACS meeting. PIUG simply does not have the
>> financial base to leave things on the program "open" and reliant upon
>> abstract submissions. I will try to do better by you next time and do
>> apologize for this oversight.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Lucy
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Alan Engel" <aengel@paterra.com>
>> To: <ltakers@btopenworld.com>
>> Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 4:53 PM
>> Subject: [Fwd: Re: FW: PIUG 2002 Annual Conference Update #3]
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> -------- Original Message --------
>>> From: - Thu Feb 28 11:41:20 2002
>>> X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
>>> X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
>>> Message-ID: <3C7E5DAE.7010006@paterra.com>
>>> Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 11:41:18 -0500
>>> From: Alan <aengel@paterra.com>
>>> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; ja-JP; rv:0.9.4)
>>> Gecko/20011128 Netscape6/6.2.1
>>> X-Accept-Language: ja
>>> MIME-Version: 1.0
>>> To: "Turner, Elyse" <elyse_turner@merck.com>
>>> CC: "Akers, Lucy (E-mail)" <ltakers@btopenworld.net>,
>>>
>> sandra.s.unger@exxonmobil.com
>>
>>> Subject: Re: FW: PIUG 2002 Annual Conference Update #3
>>> References:
>>> <7C4F091F6140D411A29300508B5C73B90707460A@usrymx04.merck.com>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>>> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>>>
>>> Elyse and Lucy,
>>>
>>> Lucy responded to my question yesterday.
>>>
>>> However, I hope that you understand my beef.
>>>
>>> Prior to this year, presentations
>>> as PIUG have been decided by
>>>
>>> A) Time slots awarded to major, established vendors
>>>
>>> B) Relatively informal invitations, solications
>>> and discussions with other presenters
>>>
>>> For PIUG 2002, Monday's and Wednesday's
>>> presentations are being decided as before.
>>> Tuesday's presentations were changed to a
>>> more formal abstract submission-approval
>>> procedure. While all of the slots have been
>>> awarded, there are still abstracts and even
>>> titles missing from your program.
>>>
>>> Now I find that I may be the only presenter to
>>> have complied with Lucy's FINAL CALL for
>>> abstracts and that the rest of the day
>>> has been alloted as before. I also find
>>> that I have been cut to the shortest time
>>> slot in the meeting.
>>>
>>> Alan
>>>
>>> Turner, Elyse wrote:
>>>
>>> > Lucy,
>>> > Alan Engle asks about Rose Eldred's abstract, see below.
>>> > Thanks,
>>> > Elyse
>>> >
>>> > Elyse D. Robinson Turner - Sr. Information Scientist
>>> > Patent Department, Merck & Co., Inc. RY 60-35
>>> > 732-594-6418 [home office 215-757-2555 Wed+Thurs]
>>> > elyse_turner@merck.com
>>> >
>>> > -----Original Message-----
>>> > From: aengel@paterra.com [mailto:aengel@paterra.com]
>>> > Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 7:53 AM
>>> > To: Turner, Elyse
>>> > Subject: Re: PIUG 2002 Annual Conference Update #3
>>> >
>>> > Excuse me. But was Rose Eldred's abstract
>>> > submitted before the deadline?
>>> >
>>> > Alan
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Paterra, Inc.
>>> www.paterra.com
>>>
>>> The Paterra(r) Internet Service is
>>> operational 24x7 with occasional downtime
>>> on Saturdays.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
-- Paterra, Inc. www.paterra.comThe Paterra(r) Internet Service is operational 24x7 with occasional downtime on Saturdays.
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