Regardless of the actual numbers, the appearance, and therefore the “branding” of CSI is negatively impacted. I spoke with numerous non-Jews who were shocked by the inappropriateness of scheduling over the most sacred of Jewish holidays. When we schedule our regional conference in April, the first thing we do is look up Good Friday/Easter to avoid conflict. Even as a Jew, I know to do that. If Informa indeed took the attitude of, “it’s ok, it’s only 24 Jews that would be affected”, it doesn’t pass the smell test. Regardless, it’s a done deal and reflects complete incompetence on Informa’s behalf. CSI, IMO, should be considering alternate options based on this.
Our region is stepping up and taking steps to provide excellent regional conferences to help provide our members with a chance for networking and education outside of Construct
Many faiths in addition to Jews observe Yom Kippur (listed in my previous post). So perhaps 48 members affected. In any case, it is sad if either it is a done deal that cannot be changed, or if our attendence does not matter. I got the same canned response as what Dave posted.
There is an amazing new invention called the “interweb” or “world wide net” (or something like that). It has an amazing amount of material (most are useless but some are very useful). One of the more useful sites is a calendar of holidays and observances.
The purpose of my previous sarcastic and snarky response was to indicate that nowadays it is really easy to find information on holidays. It’s not like the old days where you had to call up Rabbi Moishe to find out the dates of the Jewish high holidays.
I agree completely with the previous posts that agree with me, that Informa has demonstrated a complete lack of sensitivity to the real world.
I also know that the dates for Construct will not change, as venues are probably booked well over a year in advance.
For me, although not personal in a religious sense, the issue here is of very high importance, and totally unacceptable. Back in my youth, my generation would simply boycott Construct in hopes that it would bring about future change, and in this particular case, an apology from Informa, rather than some canned meaningless response.
I do not believe CSI will ever have their own convention again. The money CSI received for selling the convention to Hanley Woods, some years ago, was primarily spent to buy BSD. Even with CSI recently selling most of their ownership of BSD, I cant believe those new found funds are earmarked for bringing back a true CSI convention.
At the SCIP meeting this year, it was stated that SCIP may disassociate their annual meetings from Construct. In my view, if this happens, the potential for improved and enlarged convention experience for all those associated with SCIP, both members and manufactures, could look very promising.
To that end, I encourage each of you who are not involved with SCIP, as is my history, to join SCIP either as an Active Member (independent specification consultant) or as an Affiliated Member (not an independent specification consultant) and get involved immediately in planning the future of the specifying community.