Re: Corruption in Ada9x office - suppression of Ada survey results

[mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)]

In article <1994Nov7.134022.12961@sei.cmu.edu>,
Robert Firth <firth@sei.cmu.edu> wrote:

>If I volunteered to take part in a survey, and then found that my
>name and telephone number were being peddled to every salescritter
>who wanted to make my life a misery with unsolicited junk telemarketing
>calls, I'd be very, very angry.  Congratulations to the Ada people for
>their resolute defence of individual privacy and of the honesty of
>their survey.

When I spoke to some folks about this, they said that a _trade association_
would normally commission such a marketing survey. Also, they said that
from their experience with trade associations, a _marketing_ survey
produces trends, opinions, perceptions, etc., NOT sales leads, and that
the raw data would, in general, NOT be released, even to members of
the association, for exactly the reasons Robert outlined above. The
idea in a survey like this is to get decision makers in companies to
give their perceptions and feelings and thoughts in confidence, with
assurance that only aggregated data will be released.

The irony of the Ada business is that the _business_ part of the community
should not be depending on Uncle Sam to do its marketing.

The Ada Resource Association was launched at TRI-Ada as a trade association
intended to encompass more than just the compiler vendors. Robert Mathis
was announced as the Executive Director. Let's all hope that ARA gets
lots of dues-paying members - even individuals can sign up for a few
bucks - and enough money to start doing the kind of industry-wide
marketing a good trade association should do.

IMHO, Uncle Sam should get out of the marketing business. DoD's job is to
provide for the common defense, not play the role of a trade association
or venture capitalist.

Mike Feldman
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Michael B. Feldman -  chair, SIGAda Education Working Group
Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University -  Washington, DC 20052 USA
202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)
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