Whose On: Paul Willis
The man, his presidency, sense of humour, views and opinions. At MWM we were curious to find out a bit more about Paul Willis, president of MTA-Europe?
Who is Paul Willis?
Paul Willis is a 40 something with a wife, two children (girl[8], boy[7]) and a mortgage. For a living I work for CDS - Computer Design Systems of Manchester, England and glory in the title of 'Product Research and Development Director'. In reality this means I spend more time talking to the market and defining products than writing in M - but that's how it should be. I'm too old to write code. Like almost everyone else at CDS, I started straight from college and I've never worked anywhere else. For my sins I am currently the President of the MTA Europe.
What are the issues that the MTA-Europe have had to deal with recently?
Really the problems that we have had are the same as any other user group; lack of confidence, money, members - and probably in that order. The solution to the confidence problem was to concentrate on those things that it is possible for us to do - and not to compete with, or seek to control, the efforts of the vendors. The money problem was easy to fix - just stop spending the stuff. The members problem is not really a problem at all. We are not selling anything here. So long as we have a bank balance we can organise an annual meeting and so long as we have people that want to meet we will renew our balance. Its very neat really.
The Web is a whole new concept. Is it a friend or enemy of user groups?
How can anything that allows people to communicate more effectively be an enemy of user groups? We just have to keep remembering where the goal posts are. If the traditional job of the MTA is done better by the web then it is done better - we should all be glad. In Europe we are setting up a web site. It may fail, because "Who needs another Web site?", or it might succeed because there is enough special local interest to keep it fresh - time will tell. From a purely personal point of view I hope that it succeeds of course, as it is our intention to provide all membership services via the web, M Computing and the annual meeting to one side. Somehow I think that this is the way forward and that folks in Europe will feel an empathy towards each other and want a local site. But if this is not the case then so long as its because we have found a better way, great!
Unlike the Americas, Europe is a multi-ethnic, multi-language society. What problems (if any) does this pose on MTA-Europe?
What! Are you kidding? I've been to Seattle via New York, (and every other point of the US compass) you can't fool me. In any case, we solve the multi-cultural problem the same way you do. We impose Yankee rules.
Seriously speaking - our attempts to solve the language and currency problems by choosing the Queen's [American] English and Belgian Francs as standards have not been entirely successful and to some extent must alienate national groups. But you have to pick a currency and our attempts to publish in local languages did not work for a number of reasons; the costs and the difficulty in finding translators were too great - and why bother anyway; our membership are English speakers, they have to be.
Again this is where I expect the web to help. It will turn the tables nicely if in a years time 80% of our web space is Serbo Croat and totally meaningless to me.
What do you think about M today? Do you think that the language has kept up to date with the times? What areas do you think need addressing?
Following on from what I said below (can I do that in cyber space?), I have a lot more concerns about the abilities of M's VARs and users than I do about the technology. CDS's applications are not limited by M but by my ability to assimilate the possibilities and deploy them. My message to the community is, "Get off your butts", but for many its going to be too late. My original reason for getting into the MTA was to help move M forward. Now I realise that the best way that I can do this is by trying to write a killer app. and selling it a lot. Today I've got the tools, but have I still got the time?
In the GUI market vendors seem to have gone quite separate ways. What are your comments?
I think that its good. In the end there may be a clear winner and then, hopefully, we will get a standard that works in the market. In the meantime the diversity offered does at least provide a real choice. On the subject of standards I sometimes wonder what killed off more vendors, competition or the MDC. In any case, what we do not need is another late standard that diverts the energies of the remaining implementers.
As it happens I do have my favourite GUI, its called Delphi, next year it may be something else. Whatever the case, my business logic will be in M not the presentation layer, so changing the GUI is just a lick of paint really. Its more important to me that the language standard moves to facilitate "Objects" than to control my access to them. In the end I am never(?) going to create my customised controls in M.
How and where is M used in Europe?
Just about everywhere, but not nearly enough. I should imagine that there is less difference between the US and Europe than is generally thought.
CDS is in the Construction Industry, Occupational Health and Oil Distribution, but we might choose to diversify in the future.
What is a user group and to whom would they apply?
User groups are like any other type of club. They do what their members want or they blow away. Finding out what the members want is the hard part since usually they will not tell you - its not that they don't know, its that they are too embarrassed to say.
The problem with any user group is that it is very dependant on two things - free time and money and generally those that are prepared to give these want something in return, usually control of the agenda. If you are not careful you find yourself doing things for all the wrong reasons.
The money comes from the vendors?
In the old days it was easy, lots of vendors, competition within the community etc. Today the vendors find it less easy to see their vested interest tied up in the MTA. The MTA-E, at least, they saw as out of date and "needing to re-invent itself", smaller and less dependant on them for cash. Against this backdrop of dissatisfaction, and with the natural urge to protect the status quo, user groups have become ever more compliant in their pursuit of the vendor's cash. This has not been healthy - and all to protect services that I am not sure the users want.
The 'users' do the work?
When I was asked to stand for President of the MTA-E I saw a chance to do something. I had had a chance to see the M world in some detail whilst selling DataTree M (Hi folks!) and did not like what I saw. Too many M shops were run by people with their heads in the sand hoping that if they told themselves often enough that Windows and Client server was irrelevant to their application then the boggie man would go way. This is a bit like saying that the only practical colour for a car is black, true but who cares. And it is probably not even true any more, Mr Pentium has changed the rules.
I thought that the MTA-E would allow me to evangelise for modern M applications in a way that as a salesman I could not, and it just so happened that the rest of the then board of the MTA-E felt that we could make a difference too. So off we marched, to change the world. Well no, we were not quite that stupid, but you get the idea. The MTA was going to be a trade association and provide services to its members that would help then get ahead of their (non M) competition. A reason d'être! Or so we thought.
Since nobody has died, leaving us 10 million dollars that is, any large sums of money had to come from commercial organisations and since we had common cause with them we found the vendors to be initially very generous. The problem is that the largest of these now have other fish to fry and when push comes to shove think that they can spend their marketing dollars better than we can. What a nerve? To cut a long and very painful story short, sooner or later the well was going to dry up - and with it the MTA-E, or at least that is what very nearly what happened.
That it did not is entirely due to a last minute realisation that the original reason to form the MUGs still exists, that is to facilitate association and communication amongst M people.
Today we provide to our members three things; a members only annual meeting, a web site to keep us all in touch and we distribute M Computing, (many thanks to the MTA-NA). Our members are happy, our books are balanced and our membership is stable - to date. This is what we think that the MTA-Europe should do. Any more than this and the tail starts to wag the dog.
Can user groups influence vendors?
I don't think that it is the place of the MTA to seek to influence the vendors. Maybe this was not always true, but it is hard to see it any other way today. Largely speaking the vendors are involved in a life or death struggle to establish themselves in the mainstream. Perhaps not competing directly with Oracle on all fronts, but certainly in the areas where M technology is strong. To have the MTA, trying to set their agenda would be extremely irritating. If I try to influence a vendor I make very sure that I have my VAR hat on. How much they listen depends very much on what my statements propose for our business together, and that is the way that it should be. To do anything else would be extremely pretentious. Who gave me the right?
Are user groups for companies?
Yep! And consultants and government agencies and anybody else. For me the most important reason to belong to the MTA is to stop feeling lonely. Embarrassing isn't it?
