IBM i Large User Group

Last October, I received a phone call from my manager. Guy Havelick was going to retire at the end of 2012 and someone was needed to take over Guy’s work with the Large User Group. She wanted to know if I was interested.

The answer was an immediate and enthusiastic “Yes!”

I’m sure many of you have heard about “The LUG”. The IBM i Large User Group is an organization – a user group - of IBM i clients that have a significant use of i in their production environment. The LUG consists of about 100 companies; I can’t tell you who they are as membership is confidential information, but if you saw the list of companies, you would recognize many (maybe all) of them.

The Large User Group is independent of IBM and IBM is not involved in the membership process. IBM does support the LUG by participation in the meetings, planning the meeting agenda, addressing the requirements opened by the LUG members, supporting a website that LUG members have access to, among other things.

The LUG meets three times each year, with all of the meetings in Rochester, Minn. The next LUG meeting is the week of February 4^th. Yes – a meeting in Rochester in WINTER! That itself is a strong statement of the commitment to the i by this organization – clients from all over the world want to come to Rochester in the middle of winter for a user group meeting!

Each LUG meeting has a theme – typically the meeting will focus on a technical topic – such as systems management, performance or virtualization. Sometimes the meeting focuses on application development topics. But these meetings are much more than educational presentations – they are a collaboration between IBM and the LUG. Throughout all the meetings, IBM works together with the LUG to share trends and directions and future plans and to address questions and requirements the LUG has regarding IBM i and the related products they use. The LUG also puts together their view of the future in terms of a strategy and what they need from IBM looking forward. Of course, all LUG member companies must have non-disclosure agreements in place as a condition of their membership.

One of the major benefits of the meetings in Rochester is access to the IBM i development team. During LUG meetings, IBM developers give formal presentations, hold breakout discussions, give demos on the latest products, and have side meetings with the LUG members to discuss whatever topics are important to them. It’s this access to the development team that many LUG members value.

The Large User Group is always looking for companies to join the organization; they have a public Internet site at http://www.the-lug.com/. That website explains the membership requirements and expectations of a LUG member.

I do want to mention that the LUG is not the only organization that the IBM i team has a collaborative relationship with. Similar types of interactions occur with the COMMON Advisory Council, the COMMON Europe Advisory Council, and the ISV Advisory Council. Steve Will has written about the Advisory Councils – Requirements and Strategy in his You and i blog.

It’s very exciting to work closely with the largest IBM i enterprises in the world and I’m quite honored to have been asked to take on this role.

 

 

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.