Conferences, Community and More Ahead for IBM i in 2019
A look at conferences and user group events coming up in 2019, and why attending these events is beneficial.
Greetings from the Rochester, Minnesota development lab! I’ve been a bit quiet lately, as the team works diligently on the amazing things we have in store for the future. However, the “conference season” has gotten off to a good, leisurely start, and will soon hit its full stride. That means many of us IBM i experts (inside and outside IBM) will be on the road, and I’m hoping we will see you attending at least one event.
I just finished doing a roundtable and keynote at the Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professional Association (WMCPA) Annual conference. Within the next three months, I’ll be in
- Atlanta for the IBM Technical University event (April 28-May 3)
- Anaheim for COMMON’s POWERUp 2019 conference (May 19-22)
- Paris for the IBM i University event (May 22-23)
- Back in Rochester for the Spring/Summer Large Users Group meeting (June 3-7)
- Berlin for the COMMON Europe Congress (June 16-19)
- Detroit (well, Livonia!) for MITEC (June 24-25)
And I may have trips to conferences and user events in Las Vegas, Spain and England, too, if all the plans come together.
Then, of course, there are other great community education opportunities approaching. And though I cannot attend them, other members of the IBM i team will be there, and they are going to be great, too! Some of them I see on the calendar are:
- The RPG & DB2 Summit, March 26-March 28, Charlotte, North Carolina
- The Northeast User Groups (NEUGC) conference, April 8-10, Framingham, Massachusetts
- …And probably more! Submit yours in the comments if I’ve missed some event that’s happening between now and the end of June.
I always enjoy getting out to talk with the members of the community who make it to conferences. If you’re one of them, and you already have plans to attend this spring, great! I look forward to seeing you (or at least to speaking in front of you—as fast as I’ll be moving at times, I don’t know if I can see as many of you as I’d like).
If you have not yet decided to attend one of these events, I’m here to encourage you to make the decision and make the plans. If you need approval from “the bosses,” tell them that big, wonderful changes are happening in the IBM i world, and that you’ll learn so much more about those changes if you can see them taught by experts. Plus, you’ll come back to your office having met other amazing, friendly, helpful professionals in the industry – people who have already followed the paths you and your company want to take, so you will be able to get great advice.
And, very importantly, if you are able to attend any of the events in late April or later, you’ll be among the first to learn about the brand-new things that are out from IBM! How can you be sure of that? Well, ever since IBM i 7.1 was announced in 2010, IBM i has had two big announcements every year (spring and fall), and the spring announcements always take place in time to talk about them at COMMON’s big spring conference. So, certainly, there will be cool new things to learn about. They might be in a Technology Refresh, or they might be in something even bigger. Maybe! Who knows!
I’ll see you out there!