The State of SHARE
By Ken Ebbe, SHARE President

Once upon a time, there was a small community of technology professionals. Because they were professional trailblazers dealing with an industry still in its infancy, they sought out each other for support and advice. They shared code, frustrations, insights and experiences. Just as they appreciated unsanitized, free flow of information and feedback from each other, they willingly shared shortcuts and "aha!" moments they discovered on their own either by accident or diligent professionalism. They preserved and grew this community for an extended time, largely as a means of keeping pace with technology, but just as importantly to maintain friendships. This community became SHARE.

Now, nearly half a century later, the same principles and reasons for participating in SHARE apply. Certainly, the benefits are as strong as they have ever been. Not only is SHARE an excellent training conference twice a year, but it's a dynamic community, where dialog and collaboration are as much a part of the SHARE experience as the technical presentations. SHARE inevitably engenders loyalty and a sense of commitment.

If you're like me, you look at SHARE as a means of giving back. Yet, in the process, SHARE never fails to give back more than the time and effort it requires.

Following is a snapshot of our 2002 activities. So far in 2003, we have already made some terrific enhancements to our member benefits and program offerings. At our summer meeting, we will be unveiling three new training offerings: the Application Development and Integration Symposium, the Enterprise Systems Management Symposium, and the "Fine Art of Doing Business with IBM" Workshop. Collectively, these events represent the latest example of SHARE's evolution as the premier IBM users organization.

On behalf of the Board of Directors, thank you for your loyalty and unfailing support of SHARE. As we chart the course for the organization, our thoughts never waver from what is best for you, our customer, as well as SHARE's long term viability. Please let me know what we can do to enhance your SHARE participation, and make the organization the absolute best it can be for you, and future generations of computing professionals.

Sincerely,

Ken Ebbe
President, SHARE Inc.

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Board of Directors
At the SHARE conference in San Francisco, SHARE held its traditional election of officers and directors. Elected to the SHARE Board of Directors in San Francisco were the following:

President: Ken Ebbe, University of Wisconsin at Madison
Vice President: Robert Rosen, National Institutes of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
Treasurer: Michael Stack, Northern Illinois University
Secretary: Kathy Mayberry, Pennsylvania State University
Director: Linnea Nichols, Fairfax (VA.) County Government
Director: Robert Shannon, Rocket Software

The Board roster is completed with the following individuals, who were appointed following the election and/or are continuing terms:

Director: James Michael, California State University at Fresno
Director: Pam Taylor, Sterling Commerce
Director: Martin Timmerman, University of Waterloo
Director: Jeffrey Wilk, U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency
Deputy Director: Robert Parkes, Bank One Corporation
Deputy Director: Alan Williams, Pennsylvania State University
Deputy Director: Carl Youngren, State of California - HHSDC
Immediate Past President: Lillian Cooper, Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technology

2002-2003 SHARE Board of Directors: (back row, left to right) Alan Williams, Jeff Wilk, Carl Youngren, Robert Shannon, Robert Parkes, Michael Stack, Robert Rosen, Jim Michael (front row, l-to-r), Carol McGury, Executive Director, Martin Timmerman, Immediate Past President Lillian Cooper, Ken Ebbe, Linnea Nichols, Charlie Lyman, IBM Liaison. Not pictured: Kathy Mayberry

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New Program Launches

Alliance Vendor Program
To extend SHARE's presence in the vendor community, the organization launched the Alliance Vendor Program in 2002. In its inaugural form, the two-tier Program allowed its participants exclusive opportunities to align with SHARE in established and new formats. Participants provide the organization with strategic guidance and financial support and are given exposure at SHARE events, including conferences and the SHARE Technology Exchange, Webcasts, and on the SHARE Web site. Importantly, the Program was infused with incentives to encourage Participants to market SHARE and their affiliation with the organization, thereby extending awareness of SHARE to a broader-than-ever audience.

2002 Platinum Level Alliance Vendor included Beta Systems Software, Candle Corporation, Innovation Data Processing, ISPW Benchmark Technologies and Serena Software. Attachmate Corporation participated in the program as a 2002 Gold Level Alliance Vendor.

Regional Seminars
SHARE understands that travel budgets and time away from the office can be difficult to come by, regardless of the value training provides. To deliver quality, SHARE-caliber training offerings in a format different than a full-week SHARE conference, the organization launched the SHARE Regional Seminar Series in 2002. A pair of two-day seminar offerings, each with a distinct technical emphasis and proven-effective instructors, were held in regions with a high concentration of SHARE members to launch this program.

The seminars held May 21-22 in Chicago focused on enterprise storage strategy and techniques. The instructor was longtime SHARE expert and author Bob Johnson. The May 21 seminar was entitled "Storage: Why It's Important to You and Your Company," featured a thorough rundown of data storage across all media so attendees could ask and determine answers to key questions about the best storage solutions for their environment. The second seminar, "How to Get the Most Out of Your Storage Dollar," imparted the latest performance running methodologies for applications, operating system and hardware.

The fall seminar series, held October 29-30 in San Francisco, introduced attendees to "WebSphere in a z/OS Environment." The co-presenters were Glen Anderson, IBM Learning Services, and Peter Enrico, Enterprise Performance Strategies. The first seminar in this series provided an overview of WebSphere for z/OS, Java for z/OS and J2EE standards. The latter seminar, "Utilizing WebSphere for z/OS in Your Environment," provided details on implementing the WebSphere Application Server in z/OS and pointed out differentiators between WebSphere and other apps servers on other platforms.

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SHARE Recognizes

SHARE Scholarship Program
Just as SHARE represents continuing education at its finest, SHARE also encourages exceptional efforts at the undergraduate level. In 2002, SHARE awarded two scholarships to deserving students who are pursuing a career in the field of Information Technology. The following candidates were selected from an applicant pool of approximately 200 nominations:

Lema Bostock is a student at Morgan State University in Baltimore. Lema is a distinguished student and campus leader whose early achievements include receiving the Goldman, Sachs & Company Scholarship for academic excellence, Secretary and Student Representative for the Society for the Advancement of Computer Science at Morgan State, and designing and administering the Web site for the Caribbean Students' Association at the University.

Warren Stramiello is a student at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT). Warren is accomplished both professionally and academically, with a number of significant achievements to his credit. These include founding the Speech and Debate Team at GIT and administering, securing and maintaining several UNIX and Windows-based networks at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Donald Z. Smith (left) and Robert Pavlat of Travelers, Inc. with the SHARE Award for Excellence in Technology

SHARE Award for Excellence in Technology
On March 4 at SHARE in Nashville, Hartford, Connecticut-based Travelers Property Casualty, a member of Citigroup, was awarded the prestigious SHARE Award for Excellence in Technology based on its innovative adaptation and implementation of IBM Tivoli Software's NetView Management Console (NMC). The award was accepted by Travelers project team members Robert Pavlat and Donald Z. Smith.

Working closely with IBM and Tivoli specialists met through SHARE, Travelers updated an aging network monitoring application, originally developed in-house, with a streamlined NMC application that offers "drag and drop" functionality, improved monitoring options, support for Internet Protocol (IP), and requires considerably less specialized staff support than the company's previous application. In the nomination submission, Robert Pavlat, Travelers Systems Engineering Director, summarized how he benefited from the experience of implementing NMC at Travelers. "One of the major lessons learned is the importance of having the right information before starting a project of this size and scope," he wrote. "The technical expertise provided by the entire Tivoli team was invaluable." Addressing what role SHARE played in the process, Pavlat wrote, "Participating in SHARE not only gave us access to the right product specialists, but allowed us to capitalize on their wealth of knowledge. Without SHARE, the transition to NMC never would have happened."

Education
SHARE continued to deliver exceptional training for enterprise-class technologists in 2002. Despite a challenging economy, SHARE attracted more than 4,000 attendees to its in-person training events over the year.

SHARE in Nashville
March 3-8, 2002
More than 2,100 technologists convened at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee to learn, exchange tips and challenges, and share. Despite unseasonable temperatures, the "Biodome" proved to be a hospitable location for a successful SHARE week.

SHARE in Nashville began with an inspired keynote presentation by David Weinberger, noted Internet futurist and co-author of "The Cluetrain Manifesto," who imparted a series of thoughtful ideas on how the Internet has rewritten business rules and revolutionized social habits.

In addition to the training curriculum, the Nashville event marked the debut of wireless Internet connectivity complimentary to SHARE attendees. In an increasingly "wired" world, SHARE was pleased to partner with Excalibur Integrated Systems and Cisco Systems to provide this valuable service to attendees at no cost. Our hope is that these services make it easier for SHARE participants to stay atop professional responsibilities while being away from the office. SHARE will continue to evaluate and utilize emerging technologies to serve our constituents in the best manner possible.

Best session winners from SHARE in Nashville include:

Applications Program
Writing User Condition Handler Routines for Language Environment
Speaker: Janice Winchell, MICOM, Inc.

Data Program
CICSPlex/SM User Experience: Now that It's "Free," What Do I Do with It?
Speaker: Lisa Fellows, Fleet Boston Financial

Distributed Systems Program
Securing Your Linux System for the Internet
Speaker: Harold Pritchett, The University of Georgia

MVS Program
z/OS 1.2 JES2 and SDSF User Experiences
Speaker: Dave Danner, Summit Technical Services, Inc.

SHARE-wide Program
An Introduction to Reading Body Language
Speaker: Mitch Mackrory, Storage Tek

Systems Management Program
OS/390 Security Server: RACF Advanced Features
Speaker: Hayim Sokolsky, ae35.net

VM/Linux Program
Linux/390 System Management for the Mainframe System Programmer - Part 2 of 2
Speaker: Mark Post, EDS

Top IBM Session
The World of Java from an IMS Prospective
Speaker: John Ken Blackman, IBM

Top Vendor (non IBM) Session
Real Life Analysis of WLC
Speaker: Alan Sherkow, I/S Management Strategies, Ltd.

SHARE in San Francisco
August 18-23, 2002
SHARE welcomed more than 2,300 enterprise computing specialists to San Francisco for the second of its two major annual conferences. In-depth technical tracks included offerings on application development, disaster recovery, Linux, Security, Storage Area Networks (SANs), Software Asset Management, Web Services, WebSphere and more. A weeklong focus emphasized storage technologies in enterprise environments. Undoubtedly, a social highlight of the week was an anniversary party commemorating 30 years of VM.

The conference commenced with a keynote presentation by the world's foremost aquatic explorer Robert Ballard, most famous for his 1985 discovery of the sunken Titanic. Dr. Ballard captivated the SHARE audience with a collection of tales about his expeditions and how physics, logic and an irrepressible sense of curiosity has driven him to continue to forge new grounds in his endeavors, including his then-latest accomplishment of finding President John Kennedy's sunken navy vessel, the PT-109.

Best session winners from SHARE in San Francisco included:

Applications Program
IBM Debug Tool for OS/390 - User Experience
Speaker: Janice Winchell, MICOM, Inc.

Data Program
IMS Connect User Experience
Steve Nathan, Telcordia Technologies

Distributed Systems Program
Microsoft Office 2000 Tools and Tricks Lab - Part 1 of 2
Patricia Egen, Patricia Egen Consulting

MVS Program
The Hercules 370, 390, and z/Architecture Emulator
Jay Maynard, Global MAINTECH Corporation

Networking Program
Enterprise Extender Implementation at iT-Austria User Experience
Josef Killmeyer, iT-Austria

SHARE-wide Program
Body Language - Have Fun in Business Meetings and Presentations
Mitch Mackrory, Storage Tek

VM Program
Hidden Gems on VM: Great Tools You Never Knew You Had
Jim Vincent, Nationwide Insurance

Top IBM Session
Workload License Charges: End to End Scenarios
Marcy Nechemias, IBM

Top Vendor (non IBM) Session
Data Centers and the Quest for Ultra-Reliability
Speaker: Mark Evanko, Bruns-Pak, Inc.

SHARE Real-Time Webcasts
SHARE enhanced the scope of our educational offerings by sponsoring several real-time Webcast events in 2002. These high interest, virtual technical presentations were made available free-of-charge to interested members and the general IT community. More than 500 individuals, many of whom were new to SHARE, benefited from the SHARE Webcast series in 2002. Specific offerings included:

Performance Management Topics from the Field
Presented by industry expert Bob Johnson on April 3

Managing a Linux World
Presented by Laura Knapp, IBM Tivoli Software, on July 25

Introduction to WebSphere V4.0.1 for z/OS
Presented by Glenn Anderson, IBM, on September 19

SHARE Real-Time Webcasts have been exceptionally popular among participants and effective at extending the reach of SHARE's programs beyond our traditional customer set. For those unable to experience the Webcast real-time, SHARE makes most Webcasts available as downloadable files on the SHARE Web site.

Strategic Concerns Survey
In the spring of 2002, SHARE conducted the traditional Strategic Concerns Survey of its membership. Seeking input specifically from manager and executive-level respondents from SHARE membership installations, the survey solicited 326 responses. Using standard market research benchmarks, this response rate carries a 95% confidence level that the results are indicative of the opinion of SHARE's membership.

In order of priority, the top 10 strategic concerns of survey respondents were:

1. Protecting sensitive data/
resources
2. Business to Customer
3. Multi-platform development, integration and deployment
4. Pricing/Terms & Conditions/Total Cost of Ownership
5. Delivering transaction performance across disparate platforms
6. Core services
7. Relevance to corporate strategy
8. Availability of critical applications
9. Leveraging IT as a competitive advantage
10. Business continuity planning/Disaster recovery

SHARE has taken note and acted on the results of this survey. Many new and improved programs have been developed to meet these demands, including brand new offerings and expanded symposia that delve deeper into technology - and non-technical issues - areas of greatest concern to SHARE members. In Washington, D.C. from August 10-15, several of these programs will make their debut, including the Application Development and Integration Symposium, the Enterprise Systems Management Symposium with a focus on business continuity, security and disaster recovery, and The Fine Art of Doing Business with IBM Workshop. Complete information on these and all SHARE programs can be found on the SHARE Web site at www.share.org, where you can also acquire a detailed report of the 2002 Strategic Concerns Survey Results.

Auditor's Report
SHARE enjoys sound financial health and a desirable reserve balance. Equally important, SHARE's Treasurer, our Board of Directors, accountants and financial advisors abide by the highest level of integrity and accounting standards in overseeing the organization's resources. For further detail, members can access the 2002 Auditor's Report of SHARE Inc..

Volunteer Organization Listing
SHARE remains volunteer-driven, deriving our distinctiveness and value from the front-line professionals that comprise SHARE's member ranks. SHARE is grateful for the support of all the organizations that sponsored volunteers and speakers in 2002, a listing of which appears below. Thank you.