Fall Conferences

 

I've been very busy this fall attending various conferences and local user groups. This began the week of September 17th when I spoke at three Local User Groups in the Northeastern US:

• Fairfield Application Systems Users Group (FASUG) in Connecticut where I spoke about IBM Systems Director for the IBM i Environment
• Long Island System Users Group (LISUG), where I did a pre-meeting presentation on IBM i performance tools and an after-dinner presentation on monitoring capabilities with i. There was a Q&A discussion during the dinner hour where attendees asked questions and discussed various topics and the interaction was excellent.
• North Eastern Systems Technology Users Group (NESTU). This meeting proved to test my flexibility. When I left home to drive to the meeting I simply packed up my computer as I always did. When I got there my laptop was mysteriously unresponsive and was never revived. Unfortunately I had not copied my presentation to a USB drive. Since I was unable to present, I spoke about my performance topics in a roundtable style of discussion.

Three days after NETSU, I attended Fall COMMON in Columbus, Ohio, without a working laptop. I had the challenge of how to do my presentations without a laptop. Thankfully, my hard drive had not failed and I was able to recover my presentations. My iPad and I got a crash course in presentations. With the purchase of the appropriate video adapter and a couple of apps, I successfully presented with my iPad and my iPod served as my remote. This set-up works quite well. Despite receiving a replacement laptop, I've continued to present with my personal iPad and iPod.

Back to the Fall COMMON conference – it is much smaller than the Annual conference, but it was well attended this year for the fall event. The meeting agenda was very good as well. If you prefer a smaller conference, the Fall COMMON conference is definitely something to consider.

The latter half of October I went back to Rochester, MN for the IBM i Large User Group (LUG). This trip was unexpected. I'd been involved with the LUG for years as part of the IBM i development team; however, after moving to the Lab Services organization, my involvement had diminished a bit. Guy Havlick, the IBM liaison to the LUG is retiring at the end of the year and I was asked if I would like to take over the role from Guy; I was honored to be asked and accepted without a second thought!

Following the LUG, I traveled directly to Las Vegas for the Power Systems Technical University. The weekend was busy with a two-day workshop on IBM Systems Director, followed by an equally busy week of presentations. It was a privilege to attend the evening dinner where Captain Chesley Sullenberger gave a presentation about leadership and responsibility.

Finally, this past week I went to the New Hampshire Midrange Users Group (NHMUG) for a day of presentations on IBM i performance tools and the latest in i systems management enhancements. I very much enjoy spending time with these user groups. However, getting home from this meeting proved to be a bit of a challenge due to the Nor'easter that came in that evening. Some areas of New York and Connecticut accumulated several feet of snow within just a few hours.

For my readers that may not know … I no longer live in Rochester, MN. My management is in Rochester and I maintain strong ties there. I now live in NYC and my travels kept me away from the city during the recent hurricane, Sandy. The area in which I live was inconvenienced with the lack of power for about 5 days. However, the NY and NJ areas that were hard-hit by the storm continue to struggle from the extensive coastal damage and face a long recovery.

 

 

Comments

[Nathan M. Andelin]

Thanks for sharing, Dawn. I don't envy your travel schedule, but grateful for your unflagging support of the IBM i platform. Best wishes for those affected by Hurricane Sandy.

[Paul Rogers]

Dawn:
Thanks for the mention of NHMUG and Thanks for coming up and sharing your enthusiasm for the platform and tools with our attendees in NH... it was a pleasure to have you and we look forward to bringing you back again.