Uh oh!!!!!

What was her role there, and do we know where she's going?

She was the User Group liason.  Basically if you were in charge of a User Group in your area, Brenda was your contact person to Avid.  She helped get you raffle items, book guest speakers occasionally etc.  

What will this mean for User Groups?  

Uh oh is exactly right. This all seems totally contrary to the message that was being delivered by Avid just about a year ago on the con calls & e-mails. Avid was going to reach out to the community, establish a line of communication and not only wanted to have User input, but needed it. If Avid fails to support these groups of frontline user and more importantly, perspective users, it seems to me that Avid is falling far short of this promise, to the detriment of the users, perspective uses and most importantly, Avid itself.

I firmly believe that Avid users are some of the strongest and stanchest supporters, and fieriest critics, of any product that I've seen in my 25 years in the post production industry. And for Avid to stop providing support to these groups that evangelize Avid is a waste of a valuable resource. In times like these, Avid should be embracing just these types of users, to establish two way communications, to learn what the current customer base is wanting, and to take advantage of their "fanaticism" to help spread the word that Avid is listening and is really starting to have "new thinking".

I guess there isn't any new thinking going on and they're really not listening. That's really too bad. 

Jamie Beedy

Yeah, this sucks.  Brenda did a lot of work to get us to the point where we might finally have a London UK User Group, and I hate that she won't be around when we finally get one going.  I've reached out to whoever is monitoring the ugdiva@avid.com email account, and I'll report back if I get any news.

Carl

JamieB:

Uh oh is exactly right. This all seems totally contrary to the message that was being delivered by Avid just about a year ago on the con calls & e-mails. Avid was going to reach out to the community, establish a line of communication and not only wanted to have User input, but needed it.

Agreed.  And I wonder where the "new thinking" management team is on this?  So what is the plan going forward?  Is there a plan?  Again, I find it odd that this can happen without some communication from Kirk or Gary about a "plan" going forward (did I miss something here?).  Are these guys in over their collective heads?  This flies in the face of what we heard at NAB last year....an about face to the "get out and be with the customer" promises.   Just what the hell is going on in Tewksbury these days?

My guess is that since Brenda couldn't be assigned an income stream on the books she was deemed unnecessary. This is the kind of shortsightedness that the old Avid management excelled at.

if thats the case a bunch of the New Team need to be looked at too...cause it ain't working.

As a member of the executive of the Avid Toronto User Group I'm saddened to see Brenda leave and wish her the best of luck where ever she ends up.

I have been in touch with my contacts at Avid and there will still be complete support for the User Groups.  Avid knows how important these groups are and is committed to them.  Just have a little patience as they work out the new user group support structure.

We are trying to get our user group in LA up and running. Brenda was a big help to this point. I just sent a email to UGDIVA@avid.com and here is the result. Could someone get back to me concerning our group? 

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.

      Subject:    FW: Avid User Group Support - Update
      Sent:    2/28/2009 12:15 PM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

      'UGDIVA@avid.com.' on 2/28/2009 12:15 PM
            The requested operation failed.

m2multimedia:

I just sent a email to UGDIVA@avid.com and here is the result.

 

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.

      Subject:    FW: Avid User Group Support - Update
      Sent:    2/28/2009 12:15 PM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

      'UGDIVA@avid.com.' on 2/28/2009 12:15 PM
            The requested operation failed.

lol

The post from Adam Kranitz at the top of this forum states

if you need to communicate directly with Avid about UG issues via email, please only use:

ugdiva@avid.com

It is monitored by a team here at Avid. Depending on the type of request it will be responded to by one of our team members.

If there's a problem with the email you should contact Marianna directly.

I had the same problem and went to Marianna.  Unfortunately this is just more work for her and takes her from other areas where she can be more productive. Once again, a very shortsighted move to remove the User group Liaison.