The temporary steering committee and Informix wanted to thank everyone for their interest and attendance to our first INO (Informix Northern Ohio) Users Group meeting.

There were 50 attendees for our October 21 meeting (especially good considering it was on a World Series night). There was a good cross section of programmers, DBA's and system administrators.

Jeff Blake, Informix, presented the Informix Universal Server, explaining how it can be used to address building applications. Following a pizza break, John Hagan, ALLTEL Information Services, gave an in depth overview of SMI tables of Informix 7.

Because there was a cross-section of people (both technical and non-technical) it does present some challenges to construct the group that will be beneficial to everyone. In scheduling speakers, we try to have one topic that is high level (e.g. Universal Server) and another more technical (SMI tables).

Due to the overwhelming response of the first meeting, we are considering a modified format. For our January 20 meeting, we might shorten the presentations somewhat to make more time for smaller group discussions. For example, we might separate into groups based on the version of OnLine your organization is using, or by hardware platform or by topic(backup and recovery or performance tuning).

The steering committee was commissioned to get the group started. Since that has been accomplished, we need your input into how we want to move forward. Informix will still provide support but it is the group itself that has the controlling interest.

Here are some things to consider:

• What are your thoughts on the new format?
• Is a 4:00 pm starting time good for you (is earlier or later better)
• There is some discussion on providing more Informix user profile information to everyone. How do we do that while still respecting privacy?

Please email or call us with your thoughts on these issues. As an ongoing issue, please update listing information with Jeff Lucas at jlucas@calibersys.com 330/384-9000 x3720.

Issues to be covered at the January meeting:

• Membership and Dues
• Officers for 1998

Finally, we need you help. Contact us if you would like to become more involved. We really do need your help on this.

• Do you have an interest in being part of the board of INO?
• Is there some function you would be interested in helping out on (i.e. web page, mailings)
• Would you be interested in being a presenter?
• Would your company be interested in hosting a user group meeting (convenient to Cleveland - Akron)?

Looking forward to seeing you January 20TH.

The INO steering committee: