April 9, 2013
This year’s COMMON
Annual Meeting is in Austin, TX. Many things are similar to past meetings – a
great technical agenda with a lot of sessions, IBM i experts giving the
presentations, the Expo where you can learn more about products and solutions
that are available, conversations with colleagues that I’ve meet over the
years, and the opportunity to meet more people, all of who have one thing in common – their passion for i.
One thing that is a bit different this year is the use of
social networking at the conference. Social networking was used in the past,
but even more so this year. There is the COMMON User Group Facebook page, you
can follow the @COMMONug Twitter ID as well as the conversation tagged with
#commonug or #IBMi. People at the conference used social media to share their
experiences, and if you weren’t at the conference, you can still read what
people were saying.
It’s a busy week for me with seven presentations. While I
enjoy giving the presentations, I really like the questions and discussions
that come up after the session. I always learn something new and there are
always challenging questions. It’s also very rewarding to help others or to assist
with solving a problem.
If you haven’t already heard, this year is the 25th
birthday of IBM i. The birthday celebration was unveiled at the COMMON opening
session. There’s an IBMi25 Facebook
page and there will be 25 “chapters” posted that celebrate the past, present and future of i, and its unique combination of technology, community and
business. You’ll want to take a look and add your comments. You can also follow
@IBMi25 on Twitter or with the #IBMi25 hashtag.
After COMMON, I have a week to catch up, then I’m off to
present at two local user group conferences. I’m attending the New England User Group Conference and the Toronto User group Conference (TEC) and am
looking forward to those events as well!
Posted April 9, 2013| Permalink
