[ale] Technology Association of GA

[Fulton Green]

I've never joined, so I consider myself immensely qualified. :)

My *personal* impression from exploring their website back when I was
thinking about joining it was that it seemed to be more about the business
of technology rather than the technology itself. Look at www.TAGOnline.org
for those who want to see for yourself.

I guess it all depends on what you hope to accomplish in spending the one or
two hours a week at TAG-related events. If you're hoping for ALE-style down-
and-dirty tech sessions, you'll probably need to go elsewhere. Most of the
societies and SIGs seemed to be geared towards cozying up to VCs, sharing
technological directions, strategic alliances, staying afloat, and anything
else that might fall under general business (and maybe even social)
networking. In my case, since I have one or two possible start-up ideas
floating about in my head, TAG might prove to be a decent asset, though I'd
think that the "LIGHT" program at GCATT ( www.GCATT.GATech.edu/light/ )
would be better if the sole goal is to pitch an idea to angel investors.

The Technology SIG is the only one (besides the VB one you mentioned) that
might be even remotely worthwhile from a skills take-away perspective
(though I personally expect that it'd be more of a PHB-type gloss-over). Now
you'd think that for $180/yr., they could at *least* remove the obviously
arcane contact address for Intelligent Digital, which later became Idapta,
which went belly-up back in June.

If you're doing back-end Web stuff, the TAG society The Interactive Media
Alliance ( www.TIMA.org ) has a Technology SIG as well, though there doesn't
ppear to have been a recently publicised meeting for it.

My advice (and this is to myself as well as you all): instead of diving in
head-first with the steep annual fee, simply fork over the $10 non-member
per-meeting charge for the different types of SIGs that interest you and and
see if the $180 "all-you-can-eat" will be worth it.

That's my $0.02 (which buys you one hours' worth of TAG membership :)

On Tue, Dec 18, 2001 at 11:16:25AM -0500, Mike Millson wrote:
> I joined TAG (Technology Association of GA) 6 months ago hoping to learn
> about technology, meet people w/ the same interests, make business contacts,
> etc.
> 
> I have not gone to a single event because nothing has been very interesting.
> Visual Basic garbage. Venture Capital bs. Froo froo awards banquests and
> seminars that cost hundreds of dollars to attend, job postings that never
> get updated, etc.
> 
> I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to join again. At least next year they
> will stop charging for coming to special interest group events.
> 
> I have never seen anything Linux related in connection w/ TAG, and the talks
> I see advertised don't seem very technical. Maybe their big Fall Tech
> Sympsium was good, but I didn't have the $500 to attend and cannot imagine
> who would shell out that kind of money to hear about things you can read
> about online. But maybe it's worth it for networking. It just boggles my
> mind.
> 
> My question is, has anyone out there ever gotten any value from TAG? Anyone
> have anything good to say about TAG? Anyone a TAG member? Does ALE ever do
> anything with TAG?

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