Proud to be a Champion

I may be late to the party, but I'll still take a moment to toot my own horn. As Doug Rock and Steve Will note, I was recently recognized, along with 13 others, as an IBM Champion, and as an IBM Power Champion in particular.

"The IBM Champion program recognizes innovative thought leaders in the technical community—and rewards these contributors by amplifying their voice and increasing their sphere of influence. An IBM Champion is an IT professional, business leader, developer, or educator who influences and mentors others to help them make best use of IBM solutions and services. IBM Champions are not employees of IBM."

I believe that this blog was a big part of the reason I was nominated, so I want to thank all of the readers for helping to make this possible. Between this blog and Twitter (@robmcnelly), hopefully I've been providing information that you've been able to use over the years.

I've been an IBM customer since 1988, when I started working as an AS/400 computer operator. Things were much simpler back then, but the systems that I managed were built to last and they seldom had
problems. In that regard, nothing much has changed.

I was always impressed with our local customer engineer (CE). He'd come onsite, check how things were going, and proactively run diagnostics and check error logs on the machines. I can remember
asking the CE about how he got started with IBM. Even then I admired the company.

Any time we called IBM Support, our problems were handled quickly. Even with the recent switch to call-back mode, I still believe I'm getting the timely support I've come to expect over the years.

I worked for a few different companies during my time on the AS/400. Later when I went back to school while continuing to work full-time, IBM recruiters came to campus. When they looked at my resume and saw that I had years of experience working with IBM products, they led me to the appropriate hiring manager who helped bring me on board with IBM.

I was an IBMer for six years in Boulder, Colo. I've been with my current employer for four years. They're an IBM Premier Business Partner. So for my entire career, I've been either an IBM customer, an IBM employee or an IBM business partner.

"Apple fanboy" is a moniker that's sometimes given to those who love Apple products. Along those lines, I guess I'm a "Power fanboy." I love the platform and the operating systems that run on it. I love the virtualization capabilities, the performance and the reliability. And, as readers of this blog surely know by now, I love telling others about Power Systems servers. I've been reading the articles and following the tweets of other Power Champions for some time, which makes me all the more proud to be included in this group and recognized for my efforts.

If you know of someone worthy of recognition as an IBM Champion, please respond in Comments. I'd be happy to be involved with nominating others for this distinction.

Note: On another personal note, the end of Daylight Savings Time here in the U.S. this past weekend stirred up some old feelings. Check out my previous AIXchange blog entry on the topic.