Seattle Wrap Up Article
SHARE Thrives in the Great Northwest
March 10, 2006 - SHARE entered its 51st year in style by welcoming more than 2,200
On the morning of Monday, March 6, SHARE was the subject of a feature article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, IBM Users Invade Microsoft Country, by reporter Todd Bishop. This positive publicity, coupled with the ubiquitous Starbucks outlets in and around the Washington State Convention & Trade Center, provided an excellent springboard to this latest SHARE User Events.
SHARE Board of Directors gathers in Seattle for SHARE User Events Winter Conference.
2006 Award for Excellence in Technology
During the evening welcome reception on Monday, March 6, SHARE President Robert Rosen announced the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) as the winner of the 2006 SHARE Award for Excellence in Technology. SSA project team members Judy Miskill and Scott Simmons accepted the award, as well as congratulatory comments from Mike Bliss, director, IBM zSeries Technical Support and Marketing, the executive sponsor of the 2006 award. Judy and Scott delivered details of their award-winning process in a technical session on Tuesday, March 7.
Mike Bliss of IBM, Judy Miskill of SSA, Scott Simmons of SSA, and Robert Rosen of SHARE
celebrate as SSA receives the 2006 SHARE Award for Excellence in Technology.
New Communities Welcomed to SHARE
As a result of collaborative opportunities with IBM, SHARE’s acknowledged Strategic Partner, the organization welcomed two new communities of mainframe-focused professionals to Seattle:
- zNTP (New Technology Professionals) and
zNextGeneration .zNTP is a community of IBM staff – and customers - who formerly held their own dedicated training at IBM facilities. This week marked their first integration intoSHARE, when 65 new participants benefited from SHARE’s robust program. - zNextGen is a community of IT professionals new to mainframe technologies. Using SHARE as a conduit, dozens of mainframe “newbies” received a week of intense education, community-building activities, and access to an unparalleled experience base of practicing professionals.
Show ‘Em Seattle
Following a tremendously successful program launch at our summer 2005 conference, SHARE brought back the member loyalty program for our Seattle events. Called “Show ‘Em Seattle,” and sponsored once again by premier IBM Business Partners Logicalis and MSI Systems Integrators, this promotion recognized and rewarded SHARE customers who introduce SHARE to colleagues by way of attendance at our semi-annual conferences. More than 100 SHARE customers participated in this promotion for the Seattle event.
Those who referred new attendees to SHARE in Seattle were entered into a drawing for a series of three Grand Prizes, each valued at an estimated $5,000. SHARE congratulates the following winners of the Show ‘Em Seattle grand prizes:
- First-class Alaskan Cruise: Debbie Gross, FBI
- Home Entertainment System from Best Buy: Theresa Tai, IBM
- $5,000 American Express Shopping Spree: William Smith, IBM
Theresa Thai of IBM wins a Home Entertainment System from Best Buy.
Best Session
The cornerstone of any SHARE User Events is the technical session program. As announced at the Volunteer Recognition luncheon on Thursday, March 9, SHARE is proud to congratulate the following technical session presenters, and their organizations, for receiving the highest attendee ratings from SHARE’s 2005 summer events held in Boston:
Steve Aaker, Storage Technology Corporation
Rick Barlow, Nationwide Insurance
Bill Bitner, IBM Corporation
Stephen Blendermann, Storage Technology Corporation
Nick Carbone, IBM
Brian Cummings, KPMG
John Dravnieks, IBM
George D’Iorio, LL Bean Inc.
Wayne Duquaine, Grandview DB/DC Systems
John Ehrman, IBM
Johnathan Harter, IBM
Morag Hughson, IBM
Charley Kline, University of Illinois, Urbana
John Monti, IBM
Craig Mullins, Mullins Consulting, Inc.
Mark Nelson, IBM
Tom Petrolino, IBM
John Shebey, IBM
Michael Stack, Northern Illinois University
George Tamsula, AIG Technologies
RAVE!
To recognize outstanding efforts, SHARE continues the RAVE – Recognize a Valiant Effort – Program. Anyone who participates in a SHARE conference can nominate another meeting participant to recognize efforts over and above the norm.
SHARE recognized:
- Geoff Payne of Bank of Montreal for chairing/co-chairing sessions all week.
- Catalin Comsia of IBM for going out of his way as session chair to rush-copy extra handouts when additional people arrived.
- David
Gendle of Triad Enterprises for doing work behind the scenes to ensure the diverse set of labs runs smoothly. - Richard Lewis of IBM for making sure the “z” labs ran smoothly and setting up a new
lab in a moment’s notice. - Martha McConaghy of Marist College for gathering chairs for the LVM Program and chairing a significant number of sessions.
- Glenn Schneck of Suntrust Bank who helped chair/co-chair sessions all week.
- Rich Smrcina of VM Assist for chairing a high number of sessions for the LVM Program.
- Jason Vijil of SHARE Headquarters staff for meeting the SHARE evaluation process with patience and a smile despite all the obstacles and surprises he has faced.
- Lance Kumis of SHARE Headquarters staff for his expert technical assistance.
- Mike MacIsaac of IBM for stepping up without being asked into helping chair a session when the original chair was a no-show