The OpenEdge Hive

Participating Consultants

55 Progress Consultants have been interviewed as of this post. Click on the image to load a popup chart with a breakdown by country of Consultants. Consultants are also reinterviewed as the questions currently being asked are different or more extensive than previously; this increases the percentage of respondents who have answered questions on a subject. Please send me additional interesting questions. For people who are no longer running a consulting business, the data submitted represents the last state of the Consultant’s business.

I’m still collecting data for the Progress Consultant survey, so if you’ve thought about participating, email me right away! See about participating in the survey and other survey updates. Because of the project is ongoing, some posts may get updated from time to time.

Use of Forums and Email Groups

Between 56% and 64% of Consultants interviewed answered (some) detailed questions about his/her participation on various forums. From one snapshot of the respondents:
29% of respondents come from the continent of Europe;
68% from North America (18% from Canada, 50% from US);
3% of respondents come from the continent of Africa.
So far the detailed African sample is very low, so they are not itemized in the analyses below. Consultants from continent of Asia have not provided detailed data about forum interactions.

Here are the forums included in this analysis:
How do Consultants report using PSDN?
How do Consultants report using PEG?
How do Consultants report using ProgressTalk?

PEG’s main OpenEdge forum is by far the most used site amongst PSDN, PEG and ProgressTalk forums. This may not be too surprising since I unearthed many of my early survey respondents from posters to forums. On PEG I posted a general invitation to respond, but few did; I also invited people directly which was more successful. On PSDN I posted an invitation for people to respond to the survey, but, as I could not email people directly, I didn’t get many responses from this venue. On ProgressTalk I could not get anyone to figure out why I was unable to post. On LinkedIn, I posted a group invitation and asked people directly, some of which was successful. As I interviewed people I asked for recommendations to other Progress Consultants, and as such, I have started to communicate with Consultants who never visit forums at all.

Although some respondents were consistent throughout each individual forum, many were not. Many respondents had 2-3 forums in which they lurked or participated. Amongst Consultants, which particular forums each participated in differed.

If a message is posted once in a forum, how likely are you to see it?

See Consultants' Frequency of Forum (or emaillist) Interaction.

When you get to a forum, how do you read?

Forum Reading Patterns

Are forums a reliable educational resource?

How educational are forums?

How do your customers and prospects use forums?

Forum participation for customers and prospects

Look for more information on Progress Consultants and forums in the coming weeks.

Back to Consultants Survey Main Page.