Ahaheim Recap

It's hard to sum up a conference that's not over yet.  Just know that I'm not.  I'm actually just giving a quick recap of my last few days.

I'm the newest member of the Common Americas Advisory Council (CAAC).  We met for two days of meetings this past Friday and Saturday before the Common User Group annual meeting and expo in Ahaheim, CA.

I arrived in Anaheim after about twelve hours of travelling from Nova Scotia.  Air Canada, you're not Westjet in terms of in-flight service, but you got me there with only one stopover in Montreal.  While I love Montreal I only had 45 minutes to change planes.  I had to sweet talk my way to the front of the line in both security and US customs and sprint hard to the gate (with belt, passport, Blackberry and wallet in hand) in order to make my connecting flight to Los Angeles International airport. 

While I can't talk about the specifics of our CAAC discussions, I can tell you that we are working very hard to represent the requests of the IBM community to our many partners within IBM.  As Common President Pete Massiello said in the opening session this afternoon, 62% of CAAC requirements have been delivered by IBM within IBM i releases 6.1 and 7.1.  I will stress that parts of the other 38% can still be put out in technology refreshes or future version releases.  The point is, the CAAC is working with IBM to ensure community needs are being addressed and IBM is doing a darn good job of addressing those needs.

From my brief time on the CAAC I can say it's a very effective relationship.  I can't wait to contribute more.

After our CAAC discussions, my time at Common was limited to the Sunday sessions as I had to fly back Monday morning.  As I've mentioned to many people, my company's IT department is very much in a support mode right now so even if I stayed in Anaheim, I'd probably be on the phone all day.  I do, however, plan on being in Columbus, OH in the fall and in Austin, TX in spring 2013.  While there, I intend on spending much time volunteering as I can.

The Sunday opening session was awesome.  I was adopted by the IBM Power Systems Champions (as I'm a Collaboration Solutions Champion) and asked to share the stage with them.  What a treat. 

The electricity and optimism from IBM and their customers at Common is just unreal.  I'm even more stoked to be running IBM i than ever before. 

See you in Columbus!