Fly and I have a meeting with Martin this afternoon at 3pm (conveniently arranged, with me being in JHB this week). I'd like to get some clarity in this meeting as to their expectations, but I doubt this will get us all of the way there. We did get some further questions from Martin via email yesterday, which shows that he has been looking into this. The email from him was as follows:
Hello Jarrod & Mike
Apologies not being able to reply last week, been rather hectic and still am.
Would it be possible for us to get together this week some time (latter part) just to sort out the site integration in the meantime?
I am currently formulating the various sponsorship packages for some potential sponsors and as soon as I receive feedback from the market I would better be able to provide you with feedback etc.
Also one quick question re: transport up to JHB, would the members be prepared to go on a bit of a road trip from say CT and pick up all the others whilst blogging and videoing? Your thoughts?
Regards
Martin Green
Sales Manager
DigitalLife
Now, as it turns out, one of Martin's guys had been in contact with Fly and Lee since about a week and a half ago, looking to make arrangements to migrate our site onto their servers. Personally, I'm not happy about this at things stand right now, as we have no agreement with DL, and I do not wish to allow any changes to happen until we are a lot further down the track. This is one of the things that I want to get sorted with Martin today.
Anyway, here is my response to Martin (copying Fly):
Good afternoon Martin,
No problem with the delay in response, I too have had a pretty hectic week!!
As it happens, I am going to be in Jo’burg this week, and would like to meet up if we can manage a convenient time. I will be flying up this evening and back on Thursday evening, so hopefully we’ll be able to make a suitable arrangement. In terms of my itinerary, I’m pretty much full on Thursday, and have a 5pm meeting on Wednesday. I have spoken with Mike regarding his schedule, and he is clear other than a meeting at 12pm tomorrow. So we would be available to meet earlier in the day on Wednesday (or after 7pm), or any time after 2pm tomorrow. Do any of these times suit you?
I do want to discuss the issue of site migration and integration, to be honest I only became aware of fact that something was already in progress earlier this morning – slight communication gap on our side, I apologise for that. I was however, under the impression that we would not be making and movements until we are in complete agreement as to the terms of our arrangement. As we are still in the process of exploring these options, I would think it’s a little premature to proceed with any changes to our website and forum hosting until these have been bedded down and agreed?
As for road trips from Cape Town, I guess that would come down to a question of frequency, logistics and timing. As you know, all members of the clan are employed full-time, and thus taking lots of time off work for travel to LANs may not be practical in a lot of instances. When you add to this that we have a number of members who have spouses and children, the pressure to keep travel time down becomes even more apparent. The advantage of flying anywhere is that it enables us to minimise the time spent on the road. Having said all of the above, for the last three years we have had a road travelling contingent for rAge each year. Being an annual event with plenty of time for planning, it’s been fairly easy to arrange this. As an initial steer, I think that we could possibly do this twice a year from Cape Town, but any more than that may prove to be challenging. Also, should we be collecting members as we went, we’d need to have a fairly large sized vehicle provided in order to fit everyone (and all of the gear) in.
Martin, I hope that this email doesn’t come across as negative, I am still very committed to making our collaboration work. However, I do want to get a good understanding of what the commitments will be (both from our side and of course from Digital Life and partners) before we leap into anything. All of the response that I’ve received from my clanmates has been similar in tone – we are optimistic and committed to making something work, but naturally cautious and wanting to ensure that we are not going to end up in an arrangement that will negatively affect the clan, or place restrictions and commitments upon us that we are unable (or unwilling) to adhere to.
I look forward to meeting with you in person, I’m sure that we can both get a better understanding of where we are coming from in a face to face discussion, rather than trying to convey expectations via email. To that end, I do hope that you will be available to meet at one of the proposed times. Failing that, I suggest that we at least have a telephonic discussion at some point soon.
Thanks again for your interest in clan grrr, I’m sure that we will be able to sort out an arrangement that is agreeable to everyone fairly quickly.
Regards,
Jarrod McElhinney
Martin did send a reply, acknowledging my cocerns and proposing a meeting at 3pm today to discuss further:
Hi Jarrod
Duly noted and perhaps us meeting would facilitate a common understanding and progression.
Could we meet at say 3pm tomorrow afternoon at our offices in Rivonia to discuss further that would be great, let me know.
Regards
Martin Green
Does anyone have any specific questions for Martin that you'd like me to raise today? Remember that this is not a negotiation session, but rather an opportunity for me to understand what their expectations will be from us, and for me to gain a better understanding of what the DL proposal is.
I'll do a write-up with some feedback for everyone after the meeting, hopefully this evening if I have the time (and inclination
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