COMMON Missions: Education, Networking and Advocacy
Floyd Del Muro, president of COMMON North America, and Juan Manuel Alcudia, president of COMMON Europe, join Charlie Guarino to discuss their user groups' missions, initiatives and place in the IBM i community
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The following transcript has been edited for clarity:
CHARLIE GUARINO: Hi everybody. This is Charlie Guarino. Welcome to yet another edition of TechTalk SMB. As you can see from the screen here today, I have not only one but two wonderful guests here today and they’re-they have both agreed to be open with their communities. I am sitting here very happily with Floyd Del Muro who is the president of COMMON North America and also Juan Manuel Alcudia, president of COMMON Europe. Guys, I’m so thrilled that you’re here. Thank you so, so much for joining me here today. This is such a great treat to have you both here today.
FLOYD DEL MURO: Thank you, Charlie. Glad to be here.
JUAN MANUEL ALCUDIa: Thank you.
CHARLIE: Thank you. You know -I’ve-I’ve been working with you guys for several years now and I’m proud to say I’m also a member of the COMMON North America team, not the team but as a volunteer and a speaker; I’ve been speaking there for over 20 years. We’ll talk about that too but I wanted to get you both together and get some of your insights about the COMMON organizations, the world-how it’s affecting the worldwide community and things like that so let’s get star-let’s just jump in right there but before we even jump into the worldwide initiatives, let’s just-I want to talk to each of you individually. Floyd Del Muro who is recently retired, 40-year career holy cow in the IBM i community. I think that’s absolutely amazing.
FLOYD: Thank you, Charlie.
CHARLIE: Now you’re retired-you’re retired and you-retired but not-but not gone. You’re keeping your hand in the community and you know still serving and volunteering and I think that’s a wonderful thing.
FLOYD: Yes, that’s exactly right. So, it’s kind of my swan song. I joined the board five years ago. As you know it’s two three-year terms but newly elected president which buys me another couple of years so now, they’ve got three more years of me roughly.
CHARLIE: Wow. That’s really great and of course the other guest we have Juan Manuel Manel Alcudia and Juan certainly the president of COMMON Europe. I know you work with CD Invest-CD Invest based in Madrid Spain. I know you’re the manager of the Spanish-
JUAN: Yes.
CHARLIE: The Spanish branch as it were. You’ve been president now for several years as well.
JUAN: Yeah, well this will be my third term I’ll say well second term but third year as president and they will have me for two more years until 2026. I hope that people like what I’m doing. I’m trying to make COMMON more-COMMON Europe more open, more fresh, and I think we are doing it but you don’t know how people-what the people thinks. I think they are happy.
CHARLIE: I can tell you I’ve been-as I mentioned I’ve been speaking at COMMON for many-over two decades and I’ve had also the very good fortune to speak for many years already in COMMON Europe and each event while they’re different do have some similarities and let’s start with that so I think the first thing I want to talk about is just-just-just for those who still if you can imagine may not be as familiar with what COMMON does or its mission. Can you tell me a little bit about that? You know we can-I think they’re-I think that’s the same in some-in many respects so what-what is the COMMON mission and-and how it-how it affects or how it should be effects or how the community can draw upon that mission. Floyd, you want to go first? Okay.
FLOYD: Sure, I’ll be glad-I’ll be glad to go first. So really three pillars of what we do at COMMON. #1 is education. That is our main focus is to provide the great education around IBM i Power. Second is networking, provide avenues where our membership, our community, our ecosystem that would include partners and speakers as well as our members, even students, have chances to interact with each other and gain knowledge and understanding of each other and their needs and wants. Last would-be advocacy, things like the CAAC as we provide insight for IBM and some other organizations and truly promote the ecosystem at a-on a-on a business level as well as a global scale.
CHARLIE: For those who may not be familiar with CAAC, I know it’s C-A-A-C. What-what actually does that mean? I know it’s-it’s an acronym.
FLOYD: Yes, it’s an advisory board that is built up of COMMON members that provide IBM with insights about the community so it’s almost like a-a client panel. You have to have a certain amount of years. There are certain eligibility requirements to be on the CAAC and Juan can address-they have a similar entity there in COMMON Europe as well.
JUAN: Yeah, we have CEAC that is the same but for COMMON Europe.
CHARLIE: COMMON Europe, COMMON America. CA CE.
JUAN: Yeah, yeah it is. COMMON Europe Advisory Council yeah.
CHARLIE: Right and CEAC like-like the CAAC, they work directly with IBM and that’s how-my understanding is that that’s how they get-they get good information about what the community needs to put in the operating system for example-
JUAN: Yeah, yeah.
CHARLIE: Things like that, direct-direction.
JUAN: Like do you know that there is this thing called IDS at IBM where people can send you the-the ideas to-to improve the operating system Power or any product of IBM. In these councils they discuss mainly these ideas with IBM to see what will be important for the community or what will be not. I think that is good because this give target feedback from the customers to IBM so they know which-which way to go. Of course, COMMON North America and COMMON Europe are not the only councils but I think we are so important on-on this-this level.
CHARLIE: You know I know that there are some basic similarities between the two organizations as far as its network and things like that but yet there are some differences so for example I know in the case of COMMON Europe for example, you can go. You can attend the COMMON Europe event but you mentioned earlier Juan that it’s more like-like a-a consortium maybe. It’s-it’s-
JUAN: Yeah.
CHARLIE: It’s an organization that-
JUAN: We are-we are-we are the umbrella for all the local organizations because in COMMON North America they have one advantage that more or less the culture is the same even-the states are different but they-they have like a-a-they speak mainly English but we have more than ten languages here in COMMON Europe. In each country, we have Spanish; we have French; we have German; we have Swed-Swedish; we have Danish. We have many, many, many languages so in each country they also like to have a local organization in their language. That is the-the-I think it’s good because we have like more different things to-to serve but also, it’s a challenge because we-we also need to try to find a common thing between all the different countries and the different cultures and the different languages. That is sometimes difficult.
CHARLIE: And of course, if you attend an actual COMMON Europe event, everything is in English.
JUAN: Yeah, yeah.
CHARLIE: So that makes it very easy.
JUAN: Sometime-yeah, yeah. Sometimes in some countries during the CEAC, they are some local speakers to-to speak in their language sometime to attract local attendees but mainly the-the sessions are in English because at the end it is the common language for-for everybody.
CHARLIE: Right, which it actually is good because that also lets you attract many speakers from the US.
JUAN: yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s also a good point because we can-we can bring in speakers from the United States and it is also good but in fact we have really, really good speakers in Europe and-and we have great people some of them also belong to CEAC and they are-so-so like Niels Liisberg, Koen Decorte, and others that-Steve Bradshaw so they are really, really nice speakers based in Europe.
CHARLIE: I absolutely agree with you. Let’s talk about some of the challenges that both groups have-have faced. I know any group, any industry as we had to deal with Covid and that obviously changed maybe forever how conferences are run going forward. You know before 2020, there was a very different template I think maybe for conferences. I think that has somewhat changed especially during Covid with-with video conferences but how has-how has that changed and have there been any changes that have now become permanent maybe for the better as a result of going through-having gone through Covid and now that we’re on the other end of that as far as maybe membership or what people expect to get from the organization, things like that. So, what are your thoughts on some of those points?
FLOYD: Well, I’ll be glad to go first. So COMMON organization is predominantly known for the events that it puts on so it’s almost like our Christmas season. We had-it used to be fall and spring. Since Covid, we’ve rebranded those to POWERUp and NAViGATE so that we can move the dates around because that forced-that was one of the things that had to happen when Covid hit is that we had to move dates around a little bit as well so POWERUp and NAViGATE. Like if you’re going to rely on the Christmas season you know as Christmas goes, your organization goes so our monetization, our revenue stream was predominantly event driven. Out of Covid what happened is we had to transition and provide more virtual online event-events and there we were able to capture a lot more in terms of sessions, recordings and our content library started to become our greatest asset during Covid. It’s even a great asset in that we share our content library and Juan will speak to that with like COMMON Iberia and COMMON France so we have provided a model where they can steer without pain a premium for the content library. There-there is a cost but as you know we’re both not for profits but we still need some operating revenue because we have full time staff here at COMMON North America. So, what we’re trying to do is balance our revenue streams over memberships and sponsorships for virtual events all around our content library. We’re starting in a lot of other countries just doing virtual events just like if Covid was still there with the goal that we would do a combination of online and-and in person events probably moving forward so. I know we’re going to talk about our globalization efforts so we can talk about that at that time so-
JUAN: Yeah, yeah and I think as you mentioned content library, one of the first things I tried as president was to make a deal so people from COMMON Europe will have access also to the COMMON library with-with discount, just been-because we have to deal with COMMON North America so some countries have released it as companies so their members can-can access to the content library because I think as Floyd said, it’s a great-it’s a great thing to have because at the end the membership is cheap and many-many people are not allowed to travel with their companies especially if they need to go out of their country so I think that COMMON library is like a really good place for these people that cannot travel, cannot go to conferences but on the term, I think that after Covid people still wanted or wanted even more the-the in person-in person events because they-they miss it a lot. I think after-after the first one we have in Denmark that was the first after the Covid and still many people was reluctant to travel. We had it in Spain and people enjoyed a lot to be back on an open space surrounded their old friends, surrounded by colleagues doing networking again because the problem is that for the pillars that Floyd said, the networking is more difficult to do it online because you lose a lot of things. You can do the education but probably not the networking so that is I think the thing we miss with-with the Covid.
CHARLIE: Right because it’s not just education. You say networking and of course a lot of the networking happens not during the day but it happens-or not in the-not during session time. It happens even in the hallways and at lunch time, things like that.
JUAN: Yeah.
FLOYD: Yeah.
CHARLIE: In fact, some-some people will tell or have told me some of their most valuable tips they’ve gotten while sitting at lunch with other people across from a table.
JUAN: Yeah, yeah or coffee breaks yeah-
CHARLIE: Coffee breaks, yeah.
JUAN: Or even out at night, going out to see the city with people that normally you are not with so I think it’s-it’s really good because sometimes the things you learn and the things that they-to-to-to take home from-from the events are the things that do speak in the hallways or even after the speech has ended to approach the speaker. You also have the opportunity to-to talk with people from the lab. You can-you know you can talk with many of them and they are open to talk to you. They are cuts not like you cannot talk to them. You can approach Tim Rowe or Steve Will or Douglas Gibbs and they will talk to you in the-in the hallways or after the sessions. It will be nice.
CHARLIE: That’s one of the new things-unique things about our community is that-is-is the access that it gives us. You know it gives us access to people who you wouldn’t normally be able to-to as you just said go directly up to and ask them direct questions. I mean that’s unheard of in many other-
JUAN: Yeah.
CHARLIE: Communities. It’s-it’s-it’s really-it’s an amazing-an amazing part and not insignificant, not insignificant at all. It’s a big deal to me.
JUAN: Yeah.
FLOYD: Yeah, and part-part of the reason why I’m here is to pay that back because as a young guy in the industry when I started, you know I had access to a Frank Soltis. I was able to talk to Frank Soltis you know who is pretty much the-the Godfather of our platform and you know that-that kind of welcome leadership that I saw then is really kind of what I think Juan and I are trying to do at both our organizations now.
CHARLIE: So, let’s talk about some expansion because I know that’s a big-big topic right now and it’s-it’s-it’s an important one. I know both-both groups are-are looking to grow obviously, grow their membership and I can tell you as somebody who has been to both of the events just this year but in many years prior, there-there seems to have been a shift lately and in a positive way. There’s a real buzz and I-I can feel it. People are telling me that they are sensing it as well. There’s a real buzz and an excitement almost. There seems to be more people coming to the conferences and people are really thoroughly engaged and I-I love it. I think that’s giving an opportunity to-for COMMON, COMMON US/ COMMON Europe to look to expand. I want to talk about that. I know there’s a-there’s a common goal here of-I don’t want to steal the thunder but I’m just going to say it and I’ll let you talk about it. I know COMMON Latin America so I’ll start with that. You want to just talk about how-how that’s starting to you know get-get on the ground or get-get out there.
FLOYD: I will yield to my other Latin friend here Juan.
JUAN: Yeah, yeah. Okay so there is a huge community of IBM i lovers in-in Latin America; most of them speak Spanish; most of them struggle with English so we were talking about expanding the knowledge of COMMON to these countries by collaborating now that we have two Spanish speaking presidents in COMMON. Even-even for Floyd, Spanish is his second language but at least he can say-he can say hi to-to-the South American friends. I think it’s an important point because there are probably a hundred of millions of people that speak Spanish in the world so it’s a huge market and there are a lot of customers in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, even in the little countries from Central America. They-they have a lot of little bands that work with IBM i. Even they have some big bands that works with IBM i even in-in small countries so I think this is a huge market and giving them the possibility of learning in their own language is-I think is great because it’s a huge opportunity for-for COMMON to-to expand their-their knowledge and their content library in a language that is speak even inside the United States for-for a lot of people so it’s also a way to bring new talent to the companies because you can like fish people from other countries because it’s-it’s not easy to find professionals. I’m talking on the IBM i world but in general in the IT world, the professionals are-are really needed and to be able to have more professionals from different countries that can help even remotely is also a good opportunity for the companies.
CHARLIE: I know they’ve already had an event or maybe a second on-a second one is the works. Floyd, you want to speak to that one, the one that has already happened, how that went?
FLOYD: Sure, so-so we had a virtual event already for-and it was entire Spanish speaking content. I did as Juan mentioned my introduction in some very bad Spanish and probably equal English behind it but we had 250,000-not 250,000, sorry. 250 registrations and we had as many as 160-65 participants in one particular session. It was all day and obviously it was a great success. These areas are somewhat deserts from an education standpoint especially in the native language so we’ve-we’ve made-and this started with even Juan earlier, we started to make strides in providing content in those native languages, in Spanish. Obviously in Iberia they have two because they also support Portuguese in his-in his group so with that thinking, we decided to start with a virtual event. Obviously, it’s a low hanging fruit, low cost and we’re hosting second virtual event. This one will be more of a half day from 9:00 to 1:00 pm also completely in Spanish and we’re scheduled to do that in December. Juan, do you know the date exactly because I’ve been on vacation so I haven’t seen-
JUAN: No, no, no, I don’t know the date but yeah.
CHARLIE: Well what month will it be? It will be in December?
FLOYD: I want to say it’s like the 6th or 7th but I can’t be sure.
CHARLIE: That’s fine. We’ll-we’ll get that published. That’s fine but-but you know one thing-one thing I’ve learned in my own travels throughout Europe and other parts of the world is that even though-like you mentioned Spanish is the native language for COMMON Latin America, I think a lot of these communities all have similar problems. You know they have still modernization challenges; they have problems perhaps with attracting new resources, things like that so what-what’s your view on that? I mean especially with COMMON Europe and that you have many different countries assembled there. What-how-how does COMMON help address some of the more pressing issues today like getting more volunteers with the organization or getting the word out or getting education out which is so vital to keeping this platform vital?
JUAN: Well, what-what we try to do is just give the resource our-our members need so we try to-to educate young people. What-what we do is we pay from COMMON Europe for people under 30 years old in Europe to get free access to the content library so young people can-can learn by themselves and we also-I think the good thing we have in Europe is we are pretty advanced on-on modernization. I think-when I-I travel to the States, I think and I’m proud of that that probably the companies in Europe are more willing to-to use the new features of IBM i more than the Americans. For me at least that is my impression from outside. They are like more cautious for the change so-so I think it’s really good to go to a conference and talk to other companies that are doing like really nice applications, hybrid applications, artificial intelligence applications and learn from-from real people that are implementing things because I think sometimes it’s more valuable-valuable even than listen to the IBM’s person because sometimes they just give the-the products but they don’t implement them on the real customer so you learn a lot from this-from these real companies that are willing to share the knowledge, willing to share their experience.
CHARLIE: I know you have for example you mentioned younger members. I know-I know COMMON US has the New to i, N2i group. Floyd you want to tell us a little about N2i and how that might be attracting more people or just getting the word on-on what it-what it provides to people who should be hearing more about it?
FLOYD: Right so N2i is really our-it’s like a category inside COMMON North America so what we do is provide a lot more introductory sessions. We also provide probably a little bit more of a comfort zone where they can meet subject matter experts and interact and network together. They have a common goal that they’re-they’re new in their careers or maybe they had a new direction in their careers. We see a lot of second career people coming through N2i as well so that’s really a group where we’re trying to make it more comfortable for new people to come in, get them to provide maybe a little pop up session, start the speaker community, start to get their name out there, provide them full access to-to all the subject matter experts and all the resources that COMMON makes available to them and just try to make it as easy for them to navigate their path moving forward with us.
CHARLIE: You know we-we-we touched up COMMON Latin America but I know there’s more. There’s more expansion even in the works as we are sitting here today. You want-you want to tell us about some of the other-other initiatives that are going on right now in the COMMON universe?
FLOYD: Sure, so as-as you know, COMMON Europe is our sister organization. We’ve always worked closely with them and we’re trying to now take that model and move forward so with COMMON Europe, we’ve agreed that Latin America is a great place to start collectively since we have Spanish speaking entities in-in both continents both South America as well as parts of North America if you consider Central America part of North America as well as in Spain and some of the adjacents there so what we’ve done is we’ve started with virtual events in Latin America as we mentioned but we’re hosting a live event in Japan November 6 which I think will be after this release but we’re going to be doing a live event. We’re expecting 400 people there for that COMMON Japan event and we’re also going to be doing an in person event in COMMON India in February of 2025, at the end of February so what we’re finding is that we have these deserts of education that COMMON is very well positioned especially with the use of our content library and we’re trying to capture as much content from these various events whether they be in English or the native tongue and make that available in our library for future generations to move forward. As you know IBM is always part of this but they also move the target sometimes and as their shift in education and marketing happens, COMMON-both our organizations have adjusted to kind of fill the voids that maybe were left or to augment what IBM is already doing.
CHARLIE: You know that’s not an insignificant statement by the way as far as these two new locations. You mentioned Japan and now India. Those are-those are hu-each one of those in their own right are huge markets.
FLOYD: Yes. If you think about 400 people for instance at India that we’re expecting, that’s-that’s-that’s equivalent to our NAViGATE event in terms of budgeted numbers typically.
CHARLIE: That’s a-that’s big and so while they’re both in the infancy, I think they both have great, amazing potential going forward too.
FLOYD: Yes, and obviously there are many corporations that have large presence, predominantly LUG members, you know those multinational companies. They will have resources that are located in these adjacent markets like India so we’re-we’re-we’re obviously meeting the need of the large but also the small to mid-companies in those-in those areas Asia Pact and hopefully you know I’m in discussions now. Hopefully we’re going to try to do something in Australia in 2025 as well.
CHARLIE: Wow. So, Juan from the COMMON Europe perspective, what have there been as far as new initiatives or ways to expand even the COMMON Europe model I suppose? What-what’s-what’s been going on?
JUAN: We are trying to add new-new countries. We are mainly focusing now on Greece because we had some advanced conversations over there and probably, I will be in December in Cyprus with Morten Rasmussen and Scott Forstie in an education event where we will try to promote the creation of COMMON Greek again so yeah, we-we try to-to cover most of the countries. We are also thinking which model will be because the main problem is that we have-we are a group of independent organization but some of these organizations in the countries just are led by people that are getting older. They don’t find replacement so we need also to think if COMMON Europe will need to have an office in some of these countries if they get out of board members to-to make a COMMON Europe or at least the local communities to-to keep having the education they need because-but for us it is really complicated because it is a lot of different languages, different pulse in each country, etc. so it’s a challenge but we are always willing to help any-any country in-in our area.
CHARLIE: You’ve made reference to at some point the boards and I know the boards play a significant role in both organizations. What can you tell me about-and I think the boards have different issues or different roles in the different organizations here so how vital is the board? It’s a volunteer board in both cases but how vital is the board to the organization? I mean what’s really the board’s purpose? I know a lot of people don’t really quite understand or maybe even appreciate the role of what the board does in either organization.
FLOYD: Yeah, I’ll take that first. So here in North America, it is a volunteer organization. We have term limits. That I think is different already than COMMON Europe so as president I can only be president for two years and then I have to roll off. As a board member, you can only have two three terms and then you have to roll off for at least two years so-and this being my fifth year probably the most I’ve noticed in the last 20 years and I’m really excited about this board. This board is open minded, progressive in their thinking. We’re trying to look at new avenues without wasting money. Obviously, we’re trying to do that effectively and we’re trying to meet people as trying to get the people to meet us so much and so I think the board is really predominantly involved in strategy. Unlike COMMON Europe, we have a full-time staff here. They are our tactical unit so they actually go and try to execute upon the strategy that the board implements at the beginning of the year. Then it can get reworked through the course of the year. For instance, we’re going to TechXchange. We’re going to have a board meeting. We’re also going to have a small kind of revamped strategic meeting and-and try to dial in where we’re being effective and try to maximize our efforts.
JUAN: Yeah, for our-our part, we have the board. That is the-the meeting of the representatives of each country but we are different to COMMON North America. We don’t have people that are staff so the executive people are volunteers inside-inside the board. That-that make it a bit complicated because we need to for example organize the COMMON Europe Congress in our free time you know so-so it’s like having two works and-and probably all of us in the COMMON board, we have our own job, day job so it’s a lot of hours that we steal from our families to-to give people what-what they need in terms of having great congresses, trying to reach out to great deals like we have with COMMON North America, trying to-to get new online education so it’s-it’s all part of the time that people steal from their family to-to give to the community so I think it’s-it’s not because I’m there. It’s because a lot of people have been doing that for many, many years and sometimes I don’t think the public, they understand what are the pains that you have like doing volunteer work outside hours. It’s-it’s really hard sometimes.
CHARLIE: But I want to add so-so I want to add to that because it’s-and I agree with you that it does take a lot of hours and it does take a lot of time away from home. I get-I understand that of course but I think people who aren’t doing any volunteering should still consider it because it’s-it’s very rewarding, I think.
JUAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
CHARLIE: I find it very rewarding.
JUAN: Of course, of course. The people to know in their journey is I think is the best thing you have. After that the things you learn because you need to talk with many people. I think it’s great to do that then. It’s good to have new people helping and new faces because what I’m trying to do is just doing this kind of renovation in all the things in COMMON Europe, the CEAC, the board so new people come volunteer. New people can contribute with new ideas. New people can come and also it is a hard job but it has-it’s rewarding so I-I invite everyone that wants to be part of the community to get involved in their local associations, get involved in the countries, to get involved in the boards of COMMON Europe or COMMON North America or in the advisory councils because you learn a lot. You know a lot of important and interesting people so I think it’s great to-to be part of community as-as volunteer.
FLOYD: Yeah, I agree with Juan. It’s been personally rewarding as he mentioned but you know from a professional standpoint it’s also been rewarding and so it allows-it gives you an opportunity to-to get a lot of different perspectives and understand the problems that are out there for various businesses whether they be small to mid or the larger ones. It’s a great challenge. It’s very as Juan mentioned very rewarding in all-in all areas. I’m constantly meeting first time attendees and trying to get them excited about getting more involved you know write an article. Do a little blog, whatever it might-might be. Start a session, small session. Help present if that makes you more comfortable and people like you Charlie, I know you’ve opened your doors a lot of times by letting people work with you and ease that pain of introduction a lot more so we appreciate that.
CHARLIE: Well, thank you but it’s just-I think what both of you are saying is that volunteering takes on many different forms. It’s not-you don’t have to be a board member; you don’t have to be a speaker. There are so many other avenues you can-even a fraction of your time and all hands are welcome.
FLOYD: That’s correct.
CHARLIE: I think that’s true for both-both-both of the communities. I just want to add-
FLOYD: It’s our-it’s our succession planning too if you think about it because we’re not going to be here forever. As I already mentioned, my time line is kind of-
JUAN: Yeah.
FLOYD: Already written in sand but you know we need to-we need to find the people that are going to come behind us to keep this organization running.
CHARLIE: I will just-just I will speak for myself. I think-I’m sure you’ll agree though. For me what the volunteering has done for me personally is that it has really made me just part of a larger family because that’s truly what it feels like. It’s literally a family to me and these are people who I have become friends with well outside of the boundaries of COMMON. You know we have-I’ve attended parties and been to people’s houses all over the world. It’s an amazing thing so it’s done some great things for me personally as well so I just want to get that out there as well.
FLOYD: Yeah, I agree.
CHARLIE: Yeah, anyway with that being the case, let’s kind of start wrapping this up. I know there’s always another conference to plan. There’s always something else coming up so I wanted you just both speak a little bit about what-what you have coming in the next six to 12 months. You know what’s coming up? Where can people really go to an in-person event? Where are they and how do they-how do they get there and things like that?
JUAN: Well in Europe we will have many-many events on this fall because you know each country has their own just say actual local representatives because probably they-they are expecting you there. For-for next year, we will have the COMMON Europe Congress in Sweden in Gothenburg and I hope we will-you will go there because this year we are adding a new track that is storage because people mistake you and we-we started adding Power content to the conference during this year and now we are also adding storage content. That makes our conference bigger and for some especially partners but also some customers for the IBM i needs to know what is new in storage. We will add also this kind of content so I think it will be of course a nice conference to-to go next year.
CHARLIE: And that Gothenburg event in Sweden will be in June.
JUAN: Yeah.
CHARLIE: Okay and Floyd, what’s-what’s coming down the pike for COMMON North America?
FLOYD: So, for the remainder of this year, we have NAViGATE, a second NAViGATE in Toronto Canada. As you know Covid again one of the impacts of Covid was international travel and our closet neighbor is Canada and that provided a bit a chasm so we’re doing an in-person event there this November. In conjunction we’re also doing the COMMON Japan live event in November so two-two in person events. Next year we take off with Focus which will be our virtual event. We also have our in person COMMON India event in February of 2025. That will be followed closely by POWERUp which will be at Disneyland in May of next year, obviously typically the largest of our attending events and we’re really excited about being back at the-at the Land of Mickey there in Anaheim California. On the regional levels much like COMMON Europe, we don’t have-we’re not an umbrella organization but here in the US we have local user groups so there’s plenty of local user group. Just like you attended COMMON Sweden, we’re working with Omni here in Chicago to do an in-person event. COMMON North America is providing some of the resources in making them available to that local users group so that we can try to give it a little bit of an injection, a shot in the arm of excitement and-and make it easier because as Juan mentioned, being a volunteer does sometimes take some effort and anything we can do to add value to the local users group here at COMMON, we’re trying to do that too as well so.
CHARLIE: Full plates for both of you. Full plates for both of you for sure. Wow. Listen, gentlemen this has been a real treat for me. I mean I-this has been great. I-I don’t know. What else could I say? I’m just so happy to see both of your-see both of your faces again and see you in person. I’ve been with you, you know I’ve been seeing you all during the year. It’s just-it’s just great to keep this thing going and it’s something I’m proud to be part of as well so thank you for all your efforts keeping this thing going because it’s really a wonderful thing. One last point I want to make is that in my mind there is absolutely no reason why somebody from Europe should not visit COMMON US and vice versa, US should visit the COMMON European events. Each one brings a different focus on IBM i I think or a different-different view perspective and it’s something you should think about if you have the resources and time.
FLOYD: Yeah, I agree. I’ve been going to COMMON Europe since probably the late 90’s I think I started going so and you know we-we always talk about the US speakers but at POWERUp we-we bring plenty of European speakers to come and speak at that event as well.
CHARLIE: Absolutely.
FLOYD: We’re sharing our resources, getting those different perspectives. I agree a little bit that they’re a little bit sometimes more progressive in Europe than they have been in the US but I’m hopefully seeing that balance out but we’re also trying to bring the world with us. That’s why the global effort now that’s going on as well.
CHARLIE: It’s really great. I’m going to each of you just maybe 60 seconds just to do one little final pitch if you’d like for the organizations that you’re-you’re representing and we’ll end it on that note. So, Juan, why don’t you go first just one last little pitch on COMMON Europe if you’d like? Just you know maybe why someone should really want to come and attend and be engaged?
JUAN: Well it’s-like I said this year we will expect to have a great-a great Congress with a lot of content on IBM i, on AI, on Power, on storage and I think that will be an important place to-to meet new people, to-to see what other companies are-are doing and I hope to see you in Gothenburg.
CHARLIE: It should be great. Floyd?
FLOYD: Yeah, I couldn’t have-I couldn’t have said it better. Just replace Gothenburg with Disneyland in May here in North America but if you are also in any of those other geographies, please feel free to-to look at our content library. Some of that content is made available at no cost. In other words, you could surf about a 5-10% of the content library that is out there for the general public to consume. We’d love to add content in the native languages so I invite all our two language speaking friends to come and provide sessions even if you don’t speak two languages. If you speak Spanish, speak German, whatever it might be, we would be glad to host it for you. As you know Charlie as a speaker, we never take ownership of that. It’s always the owner of the speaker. We’re really just a conduit, as I say a river to our people to provide that education which is one of our main focuses so and thank you Charlie for providing this platform for us to have an opportunity to let the public know a little bit about what we’re doing.
CHARLIE: Oh, this is my pleasure. This is a real-real treat for me so thank you again-thank you for your time both of you. All right we’ll-we’ll leave it there and thank you so much again to both of you Juan, Floyd, and thank you everybody for listening in on this podcast. Both organization COMMON North America, COMMON Europe, I’ve had the privilege to be a speaker at both of these events and I can tell you that they’re both wonderful and worth-worth your time if you can get to either one of them or both. It’s an experience you won’t forget and with that I’m going to wrap this little podcast up. Thank you to TechChannel for hosting this event, for hosting this podcast for us. Check out other podcasts at TechChannel and you’ll see there’s a lot of good content online as well. Take care everybody. B:ye now.
JUAN: Okay bye.
FLOYD: Bye. Adios Juan.
JUAN: Adios.