In my previous two blogs, I’ve talked about reasons your executives might have to do a review of your platforms—things which indicate that the time is right to get prepared to promote the value of IBM i to your business leaders. To do that promotion, you need information. Today I’m going to address one of those reasons: staffing.
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Posted: July 11, 2017 |
In my last blog, I started a series to help you prepare yourself, if your organization is going to evaluate the future of your IBM i on Power infrastructure. I want to help people avoid panic, and instead move into “promotion” mode—explaining the value of IBM i to your company. Last time, I wrote about Triggering Events—things that can happen in your company which often result in re-evaluation. But in addition to those events, organizations can initiate a platform evaluation when certain hot button issues or buzzwords become big in a company. Let’s think about each of those.
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Posted: June 19, 2017 |
If you are involved in the infrastructure of your company, or you are on the application development team in your company, you have specific skills related to the platforms you use. Those skills are your “bread and butter”—they put food on your table. And yet, at some point in your career, the leaders in your company are going to evaluate whether they want to move away from those platforms.
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Posted: June 13, 2017 |
For the past couple of years I’ve had the opportunity to talk about strategy many times. Now, this makes sense, since setting the strategy for IBM i is a big part of my job. But I’ve been able to talk about strategy more generally, and in particular, I’ve explained how my interest in strategy games has influenced the way I approach the IBM i strategy. So, today, I’m going to talk about one of the most important aspects of that influence: the Cooperative Strategy game.
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Posted: May 30, 2017 |
The COMMON Annual Conference this year was a great experience. I’ve been trying to summarize for people why this particular event was even better than the usual excellent conferences we have when IBM i folks get together. I keep coming up with more and more reasons. For example, the IBM team was finally recognized as the Wizards they are.
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Posted: May 20, 2017 |
For many years, IBM has used several methods to get customer input on the direction of the platform that has grown into today’s IBM i. The COMMON organizations in North America and Europe have been instrumental over the past two decades in providing processes for their members to submit requirements for new function to IBM, and those two organizations use their Advisory Councils (CAAC and CEAC) to advocate for the requirements that come from their members. Similarly, the Large Users Group submits requirements to IBM related to IBM i. These requirement sources, and the groups that help us work with them, have been invaluable as we’ve jointly worked to ensure that IBM i satisfies the needs of our users.
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Posted: March 09, 2017 |
This might come as a bit of a surprise, but it’s announce day again. I know, I know–it doesn’t seem all that long ago that we announced IBM i 7.3 Technology Refresh 1. And it wasn’t! But this year’s “spring” announcement of IBM i 7.3 TR2 (and the accompanying 7.2 TR6) comes a little earlier than spring. (Maybe we’re all just hoping for a short winter!) Whatever the reason, it’s time again for me to give you an overview of the announcement.
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Posted: February 14, 2017 |
Late last year, I asked my followers on Twitter and Facebook what topics I should address early in 2017. I heard several ideas, but the one I heard most is today’s topic: Open Source on IBM i. In fact, when I started the year with a different topic, one of the comments my blog received was another request for the open source topic.
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Posted: January 30, 2017 |
One of the most common questions people ask me is “What’s the future for IBM i?”
I think I’ve gotten that question 20 or more times since the start of the year--via e-mail, LinkedIn messages, customer briefings, Twitter direct messages--and as I write this, I have only been at work for eight days in 2017. And this is the slow part of the year.
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Posted: January 16, 2017 |
Today I’d like you to use your imagination a little. Today I want you to imagine you run a business – you’re an executive. This is not hard for some of you readers, because you do, and you are. But for many of my readers, you are not upper level executives, so I’m asking you to put yourself in the position of those “bosses” in your company. OK, so, imagine it.
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Posted: December 14, 2016 |
