Another user group struts its content
September 26, 2006
Just as HP's Technology Forum was wrapping up, the leaders of ERP user group CAMUS dropped a newsletter in our mailbox about its late-August conference. CAMUS is heading for another year with a user conference, thanks to prudent management of resources and active interest from the customer community.
The CAMUS board has taken on more vendor members, just as the Encompass user group's board has done. Several of the CAMUS directors hail from HP 3000 backgrounds or companies. A trio of them included a summary of their key experiences from their San Francisco show.
There's still a way to capture this year's user experience and vendor training from the CAMUS meeting. Join the group for access to presentation slides, especially if you're on the lookout for ways to extend your use of MANMAN, or sizing up replacement applications.
Articles by Terry Floyd of the Support Group, Terry Simpkins, Director of ISIT at MANMAN user Measurement Specialties (both board members) and Ed Stein of Magic Aire — all 3000 shops — gave the impression that a few days at a CAMUS show delivers a lot.
Excepts from the CAMUS newsletter:
BY TERRY FLOYD
The highlight of the conference for me was the ASK Reunion and Keynote speech by Marty Browne at the Opening Exhibitor Reception Wednesday Night. Although I learned a lot at the free Training Day all day Wednesday and the attendees were all pleased with the presentations by Alice West, Chris Jones, David Cervelli, and Terri Glendon Lanza, seeing thirty or forty of those people who created and sold MANMAN software (most of whom I had worked with at ASK) was an emotional experience for me.
Although all of the presentations I attended were excellent, I thought the best one was Ed Stein’s “Responding to an Internal Audit for MANMAN.” I always enjoy presentations by users because although they are not always the most polished, the content is meaningful and there is usually no hidden agenda or sales pitch going on. Ed’s presentation was polished, his style was relaxed, and the content was exceptional. Mr. Stein’s slides were varied, with actual examples of MagicAire’s internal documents as well as listings from various tools they use to manage and secure their hp3000 MANMAN site. Although you can learn a lot just by reviewing the slides (which are posted at the CAMUS web site), the many things Ed told the audience were invaluable.
A couple of examples of the things Stein said that made it a better presentation were: “Our controller was nervous about this internal audit, so there was a pre-audit in November 2005” and “a basic, common-sense rule is: don’t volunteer any additional information to the auditors – only answer their questions.”
Other presentations I enjoyed were: “Using MANMAN/HP Into the Future” by Terry Simpkins, “e3000 Homesteading” by Jerry Mills and Steve Cooper, and “HP e3000 Transition Program” by Alvina Nishimoto. Although I thought they were very much sales pitches (and my bias includes the fact that I compete with both of them and we do all of that), the two presentations “MANMAN to ERP LN Migration” by David Cervelli and “QAD MFGPRO MultiSite Implementation” were well prepared, well presented, and very well received by the audiences. All of the slides for all of these presentations are on the CAMUS web site. I recommend that you review each one.
What can I say about the Event Night party sponsored by IFS? Tickets for Teatro Zinzanni on the Embarcadero at the wharves in San Francisco cost $130 each. It’s not often regular folks like MANMAN and MK users and small business owners like myself would be able to attend such a spectacle. Without IFS’ sponsorship, it would have been impossible to provide such entertainment to our group. It took 3 hours to serve the excellent 5-course meal amidst a play, an opera, vaudeville acts, a burlesque, a full-blown circus and some of the best singers, dancers, and musicians I have ever seen. Even the waiters were in on the performance. A once in a lifetime memory. How will we ever top this next year?
BY TERRY SIMPKINS
I missed last year’s CAMUS conference in Chicago. My plans were to hit the conference on my way back from our manufacturing facility in China. As we know, best laid plans are subject to the whims of the CFO, and he decided (the day before I was scheduled to leave China) that I needed to stay there (with him) for an extra week. So I did, and missed the conference. Better planning this year eliminated that possibility. The training day was a huge success and something the board is already planning to expand on next year. My company was able to get two members of the planning group to the training day, and both came away happy, excited and sporting new tips and tricks for planning as well as a better understanding of the financial workings of MANMAN, having attended Chris Jones’s presentation on “Finance for non-financial employees’. All of us should start planning now on who we can send to next year’s conference. This is the most cost effective way to improve your company’s use of MANMAN. The expert training and unlimited opportunities to speak with other MANMAN users make it a great way to get solutions to those nagging problems and questions.
Our company agreed to host a test database that was available to the training day classes. Several of the teachers made use of the database, and commented on how much more effective the class was because they could work through real examples of the commands and screens right there in class.
The high point of the conference for me was the chance to sit with a couple of the vendors, and work through questions that had been ‘nagging’ me for sometime, but that had never risen to the level of demanding attention. I was able to resolve several ‘little items’ that, when combined, will clearly make a difference in my everyday job.
BY ED STEIN
The highlight of the conference for me was having one of my key users (our Customer Service Manager) attend the training day and the presentations on Thursday and Friday. He spent most of Wednesday in Chris Jones' room. Being relatively new to the company and MANMAN, and coming from the OMAR / Sales side of the house, he picked up useful finance and planning knowledge in the training sessions geared towards the non-finance and non-planner folks.
The dual tracks of Homesteading and Migrating were both good, and I found myself attending both tracks. My company will someday migrate to a new ERP (to be chosen by our parent company), but we don't have a timeframe. I picked up useful information in the event of an ERP migration that is imminent or way out into the future (homestead in the mean time).
On the way to dinner (Kokkari Restaurant, very nice) Friday night with the CAMUS Board, I was introduced to a new concept. I believe there were 2-3 cars in our caravan, and I was in the car with Marcy, Terry F., and Terri (with Marcy driving). Now, having worked many years for manufacturing companies, we are familiar with the often boring concept of just-in-time manufacturing. However, zipping through San Francisco traffic and negotiating sharp turns and traffic lights, Marcy introduced me and my fellow car occupants to the heart-racing concept of ... just-in-time braking!