Kind of charging for each forum post...wait...there's a thought.

Seriously, this is something of community pushback as the concept of pay for privelage is somthing exclusive in nature rather than inclusive.

Larry Rubin practiced the latter. He brought the idea that everyone was welcome, from the most experienced former FCP deckhand to the student looking to import their first DV tape.

I wonder what he would have to say about all this?

Perhaps all forum members who request, should receive a one year honorary membership.

The real "Avid Customer Association" already exists, and has existed for quite a long time.  It is these forums.  The very nature of the composition of members on this forum should give Avid quite a broad spectrum of opinion from its broadest user base.

Just my 2 cents worth, and I'm sticking to it.

Denny

dmfreeman:

The real "Avid Customer Association" already exists, and has existed for quite a long time.  It is these forums.  The very nature of the composition of members on this forum should give Avid quite a broad spectrum of opinion from its broadest user base.

Just my 2 cents worth, and I'm sticking to it.

Denny

Maybe that's not such a good thing. I've been concerned to see some very strange and unhelpful feature requests from users who have no historic connection with MC and if Avid went that route it would potentially undermine many of the strengths of the product.

I do wonder/suspect if any weight is given to the posters of feature requests based on their experience and knowledge of MC but having no feedback from Avid on how (or if) those feature requests are processed it's impossible to say.

So yes there is a very broad spectrum of users on these very forums and a very small proportion of them contribute to the feature requests forum. But experience has shown that forums aren't always the best place for progressing ideas.

They don't represent the whole user base and they don't even represent the online community.

I've no idea if the ACA will produce anything better but I do know MC isn't my product or even this communities product. We just pay our money and enjoy what it brings (and bemoan the issues it raises).

I know there are a lot of loyal users but at the end of the day they are loyal until they leave (as many have done before) Avid still has to carry on and has to make the right calls on development and features.

I have a choice I can make. I can pay up and join the ACA (I won't be making the trio from the UK of course) or I can wait and see how that develops.

I can continue to use MC or look to jump ship (nothing about the ACA announcement has changed what MC brings to my business so I'm sticking with it for now)

I can with hold my help from these forums but really that would be a petty and shortsighted response. So I'll continue to contribute here on the forum and await to see what the ACA brings to the party.

Ultimately it comes down to trusting Avid to find the route to the next version of MC and if they feall the ACA is part of that then I'm interested to see what that produces. Hopefully it will be many of the things some of those on these forums have had the foresight to be asking for in the past.

Pat Horridge:

So yes there is a very broad spectrum of users on these very forums and a very small proportion of them contribute to the feature requests forum. But experience has shown that forums aren't always the best place for progressing ideas.

They don't represent the whole user base and they don't even represent the online community.

I've no idea if the ACA will produce anything better

Pat. While I share most of your views isn't the whole issue about: 

Pat Horridge:

I've no idea if the ACA will produce anything better

As the ACA is a new thing nobody knows... but to pay for joining without knowing 

Pat Horridge:

if the ACA will produce anything better

dmfreeman:

The real "Avid Customer Association" already exists, and has existed for quite a long time.  It is these forums. 

From Keli's post "The ACA is taking shape with lots of representation from our entire customer base from the Pro Video, Pro Audio, Film and Broadcast segments to include all our solutions from post production to news, to audio engineering to music notation, live sound, etc." I take that the ACA concept is to attempt to look and listen to the diverse view points from ALL sectors of our industry. 

Having owned both Protools and Avid (only two parts of the industry) since long before they became DIVISIONs of one company I suffered incompatabilities for years as both went their own separate ways. The last few years has seen them playing reactionary catchup and has brought them much closer.

Years of participation in these forums has exponentially broadened my understanding of many different hows and whys of Avids NLE's. MAYBE the ACA offering a collaberative interaction between ALL sectors of the industry has a potential to turn reactionary into a much more proactive approach.

Very sensible Pat and Andrew (in order of appearance!), and I mean it, no sarcasm, but... to cut a long story short: Avid used to dominate the market, then the competition came, Avid did not react properly and made plenty of marketing mistakes, almost sinking; the major outcome of such mistakes has been that the company was perceived as arrogantly selling overpriced products not as good as those from the competition, and to be fully honest, the prices were indeed too high and the NLE was neglected by the company, which was making the real money in the shared storage market; it took Avid quite a few years to regain a virginity, and now with an initiative like the ACA they risk to steer again toward being badly perceived. Asking for money to customers who will actually work for the company helping up in developing new strategies is crazy. Splitting the customers in ACA and non ACA members, with the former having more privileges than the latter is crazy as well. Are these the first signals of the return of the arrogant Avid? It takes a lot of efforts to gain a good reputation, it takes a little to destroy it, Avid already survived once to its own mistakes, and not learning from past mistakes the company is now playing with fire again.

If you have any sense of Avid history you know there has never been anyone quite like the living legend of customer support we have today. We all know the name. If delivering forum members to ACA adds to that success story... then sign me up. The trust has been earned many times over and I see a good trend forming company-wide. 

IMHO, I don't believe that a gathering of users could equal the input that already exists on these forums. 

Why not just start another branch of the forums called ACA and provide the input to Avid there?

As I previously stated, it is just my 2 cents worth.  If I am mistaken then I stand corrected and will eat my share of crow!

Denny

Interesting to me that here Avid is trying to get us to pay for our input to figure out the future for them (isn't that what a Board of Directors is there for?) and Apple releases a major update for its software....for free.  Just saying...

I still say that if Avid put the time and resources to this community, there would be no need for the ACA.  It can be done right here and online.  I would have no problem with Avid choosing a committee of editors from this community (that represent a cross-section of users) and ask them to become an advisory group.  That seems like a more controllable and effective way of doing things.  IMO. 

While I've basically made my point and questions towards Keli, your latest post Scott:

switthaus:

I would have no problem with Avid choosing a committee of editors from this community

made me think the following.

Keli, 

There are several other forum users, like Randall L Rike,  Jeff Sengpiehl, Todd Smelser (now still works at Avid AFAIK), Larry Rubin (unfortunately long longer with us) and for sure others I forgot (apologies) who are respected long term Avid users in this community. To have people like them within the ACA council would reflect positively on the ACA in my case.

While I don't know who the current members of the council are and I don't know if the individuals I mentioned are in any way willing to participate in the ACA I do think these forums share common ground with the ACA initiative. Maybe Marianna can give some good advice to include somebody from these forums.

Just a thought.

http://www.content-technology.com/mediabusiness/?p=2100&utm_source=C%2BT-Mail+AsiaPacific-10-01-14&utm_campaign=C%2BTmail+10-01-14&utm_medium=email

Regards

Douglas

Thank You for the link Douglas, that press release has reached several websites, as already discussed on the Avid L-2 yesterday; the ACA press agent is working hard. And the communicate is just a confirmation of my point: the ACA is an "aristoclub" of privileged users, and I still do not understand why people have to pay to actually work for Avid as consultants.

The "PR-Speak" in these releases is almost comical.  Can anyone tell me what this board of "suits" will tell the user-base?  I bet it will be "speed, storage and distribution".  Again, I would love to see Avid take this money and use it in development and invest in the customer forums we have right here.  

I'm glad to see it's developing and the contributors so far look to be able to bring a specific broadcast view to the table.

I'm still hopeful this will bring some much needed broadcast input to the development discussions.

Avid is broadcast-centric as it is.  What they need to be doing is listening to the rest of the market and figuring out what they can do to expand away from the film and broaddcast niche.