Boston Wrap Up Article 

SHARE's 50th Anniversary Celebration Ends in Boston

From August 21-26, 2005, SHARE welcomed over 2,400 professional IBM technology users from around the world to Boston for the summer 2005 SHARE User Events. SHARE participants took full advantage of several hundred hours of technical education, saw the latest developments from more than 80 exhibiting companies, spent countless hours meeting with and learning from fellow users and product specialists, and benefited from hands-on labs and expert panel discussions.

SHARE Past Presidents join current SHARE President Robert Rosen in a champagne toast Monday evening
to celebrate SHARE's 50th anniversary.

50th Anniversary Celebrations
The summer 2005 SHARE User Events also completed the organization's 50th anniversary celebrations. SHARE, as the first IT professionals' organization to reach this milestone, was extremely proud of this fact and included several different anniversary activities into the week’s events. These celebrations included dedicated sessions discussing SHARE's history as well as its future, a memorabilia display case that included items of SHARE's and the computing industry's history, a 50th anniversary cake, and a champagne toast during the SHARE Welcome Reception on Monday evening.

SHARE memorabilia on display for attendees to view.

In recognition of SHARE's anniversary, two additional programs were developed for the Boston event. The first was a member recognition program – Bring 'Em to Boston – that rewarded loyal attendees for introducing SHARE to newcomers. The program was sponsored by IBM Business Partners Logicalis and MSI Systems Integrators. Three lucky individuals won one of the three grand prizes presented during the event. Jeffrey Grigg of LL Bean Inc. won the seven-night cruise package. Mark Crabtree of American National Property & Company was the lucky recipient of a Segway Human Transporter. And, Lisa Bates of Rocket Software received a $5,000 American Express Travel Gift Certificate.

Congratulations to the Bring 'Em to Boston raffle winners: (from left to right) Jeffrey Grigg, Mark Crabtree and Lisa Bates.

The second anniversary program was a quick poll dedicated to the people and technologies having the greatest impact on business computing over the past 50 years. SHARE User Events in Boston attendees were given the opportunity to respond to this quick poll and the results were shared during the week.

zNextGen Program Launched

IBM and SHARE jointly launched a new initiative at the SHARE User Events in Boston, the zNextGen program. zNextGen is a global community for students and young IT professionals interested in mainframe computing. Resources will be made available in the program to ensure these emerging professionals can find jobs quickly upon graduation, can network with each other and with other generations of mainframe professionals, and transition business skills from retiring mainframe experts to these up-and-coming professionals who will fulfill these duties. The group's first meeting was held offsite during the SHARE User Events in Boston.

Industry News

Several articles were released during the month of August in relation to the SHARE User Events in Boston. These articles covered the zNextGen movement, the attendee quick poll results, SHARE's 50th anniversary, and the SHARE User Events in general.

Technical Program Highlights

The SHARE User Events in Boston, Mass. (the Application Development & Integration Symposium, the Enterprise Systems Management Symposium, the SHARE User-Driven Training Event & Expo, and USERblue) delivered quality technical education presented by IBM product development teams as well as user experience sessions from many technical disciplines.

Several user-presented sessions were highlighted throughout the event. Six sessions were added to the SHARE User Events in Boston technical program line-up in response to IBM's System z9 July 2005 release.

A final highlight of the technical program included a 50th anniversary award presentation during the MVS Program Opening and z/OS Keynote presentation on Monday. Randy Daniel, IBM z/OS Director of Marketing, presented the award to SHARE President Robert Rosen. Other Program and Project keynotes/featured sessions provided attendees with relative technical information and updates in their interest areas.

Elections

This year, two Board of Directors slots were up for election. Elections were held on Wednesday. Congratulations to all of the candidates. The candidates elected to the Board were:

• Director – Bill Horton, Eastman Chemical
• Director – Pamela Taylor, Sterling Commerce

Additional User Experiences Abound

Attendees viewed the latest technologies and services, researched future purchases, gained a glimpse of what solutions are on the horizon, and established contacts with more than 80 IBM complementary solution providers over three days at the SHARE Technology Exchange expo.

Interaction with influential developers and product specialists from IBM and other vendor companies from across the industry as well as several professional networking events, such as nightly receptions and Birds-of-a-Feather (BOFs) impromptu get-togethers, held throughout the week were enjoyed by many attendees.

A special thanks to all of SHARE’s exhibitors and sponsors, especially our 2005 Alliance Vendors:

• American Power Conversion
• Computer Associates
• EMC Corporation
• Innovation Data Processing
• Isogon Corporation
• ISPW BenchMark Technologies Ltd.
• Luminex Software, Inc.
• Mainstar Software Corporation
• Siemon
• TechTarget

Best Session Awards
SHARE recognizes the following user and IBM presenters as Best Session award winners from the February – March 2005 SHARE User Events in Anaheim, CA.

Application Systems Program
Rexx Project Opening – Open Source Rexx!
Speaker – Manfred Schweizer, IBM Corporation
Project Manager – Thomas Conley, Pinnacle Consulting Group, Inc.

Java: z/OS Topics – Batch Integration, Tomcat, and Eclipse
Speakers – Kirk Wolf and Steve Goetze, Dovetail Technologies, LLC
Project Manager – Steve Ryder, JSR Systems

Data Systems Program
IMS Diagnosis Via Log Records – Part 1 of 2
Speaker – Deepak Kohli – IBM Corporation
Project Manager – Will Rogers, Affiliated Computer Services

WebSphere MQ Troubleshooting
Speaker – Gary Ward, Automatic Data Processing
Project Manager – Larry Shoop, Checkfree Corporation

Linux & VM Program
New z/VM Systems Management Products from IBM
Speaker – Tracy Dean, IBM Corporation
Project Manager – Jim Vincent, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company

TRACK for z/VM – What's Happening in Your Virtual Machines?
Speaker – Jim Vincent, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company
Project Manager – Jim Vincent, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company

MVS Program
DFSMShsm Best Practices
Speaker – Ed Baker, IBM Corporation
Project Manager – Michael Friske, Fidelity Investments

WLM – Understanding Execution Velocity to Establish and Maintain Goals
Speaker – Peter Enrico, Enterprise Performance Strategies, Inc.
Project Manager – Linwood Merritt, Bank of America

Networking Program
APPN Configurations: Recommendations and Limitations
Speaker – Johnathan Harter, IBM Corporation
Project Manager – Angela Schmitz, AS Communication Consulting Services

Java and XML: Servlets and JSPs
Speaker – Wayne Duquaine, Grandview DB/DC Systems
Project Managers – Kelvin Lawrence, IBM Corporation, and David Frietsch, U.S. Department of Energy Chicago Operations Office

SHARE-wide Program
Conquer Your Fear of Public Speaking
Speaker – George D’Iorio, LL Bean Inc.
Project Manager – Jamie Giovanetto, J. Giovanetto Incorporated

Systems Management Program
Technology Futures – Staying Connected with Technology
Speaker – Daniel Russell, IBM Corporation
Project Manager – Jim Willette, ICON Medialab

Spyware 101 – Spy/Anti-Spy Software – What is it and Why Should I Care if E.T. Phones Home?
Speaker – Robert Stanley, Air Traffic Software Architecture, Inc.
Project Manager – Jim Willette, ICON Medialab

Data Centers and the Quest for Ultra-Reliability
Speaker – Mark Evanko, Bruns-Pak, Inc.
Project Manager – Art Louise, Group Health Inc.

USERblue Program
AIX Practical Performance
Speaker – Susan Schreitmueller, IBM Corporation
Project Manager – Harold Pritchett, Patricia Egen Consulting

Securing Your UNIX System – Part 1 of 2
Speaker – Jaqueline Lynch, Circle 4 Computer Consultants (C4C)
Project Manager – Harold Pritchett, Patricia Egen Consulting

Service Awards

The following individuals were recognized during the Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon, held on Thursday during the SHARE User Events in Boston, for their dedication and service to SHARE. Several five, ten and 15-year awards were presented to those individuals throughout the week.

20-year Awards

• Lillian Cooper
• Rod Hacker
• Joanne Horowitz
• Arthur Louise
• Robert Parkes
• Cynthia Wyatt

25-year Awards

• Richard Clary
• John Lendman
• James Nicholas
• Al Williams

30-year Award

• John Chapman

35-year Award

• Robert Rosen

RAVE Award Recipients

SHARE's RAVE (Recognize A Valiant Effort) nomination program recognizes outstanding efforts from individual contributors. The following individuals were nominated by their peers to receive this recognition pin during the SHARE User Events in Boston:

• Curtis Neal, IBM Corporation
• Larry Trollope, Caterpillar
• Ed Jaffe, Phoenix Software
• Dave Thewlis, DCTA
• Ellis Holman, IBM Corporation
• Tom Ross, IBM Corporation
• Christina McGill, ISPW BenchMark Technologies
• Thyra Rauch, IBM Corporation
• Karla Houser, Caterpillar
• Sandy Harris, IBM Corporation
• Edward Williams, BMC Software
• Chris Rohrback, IBM Corporation
• Barbara O'Connor, SmithBucklin Corporation
• Melissa Evans, SmithBucklin Corporation
• Tony Noto, Velocity Software
• Bob Booth, University of Illinois

SHARE User Events in Boston Conference Proceedings

The conference proceedings were posted to the SHARE Web site prior to the event and are currently accessible for members-only.

SHARE 50th Anniversary Video

Download the SHARE 50th Anniversary Video for a view of SHARE's past, present and future. This video was shared with attendees during Thursday evening's Farewell Reception in Boston.

• MP4 File (compatible with Quicktime version 6 and higher and newer versions of Real Player)
• Windows Media Format

Attendee Directory

The Online Attendee Directory is provided to help SHARE members locate colleagues or reconnect with other attendees after the conference. We hope that you find this tool useful.