Mind the Gap!!! Fill up your Containers

In this edition

Mainframerz Next Event update ?? Upbringing new mainframers ?? Overcoming the Employment Gap ?? Presales Consultant v Mainframe Consultant ?? IBM HMC mobile app ?? Return of Readers Questions ?? GSE UK 2nd Reminder ?? Share in Kansas Agenda announced ?? The Open Mainframe Project - Mentees have been chosen ?? IBM z Skills Depot ?? Latest UK News: Court Cases ?? AI Act ?? Potpourri - various stories ??

Intro

The Mainframerz meetup events & newsletters are designed to share the latest news and training to 'help you grow your skills and network'.

At our events and through the newsletter you can network with like minded friendly folks keen to help and engage in discussion around the mainframe.

To get the most from our community we invite you to jump in with questions, ideas, or helping with one of our events.

P.S. The Mind the Gap announcement is kind of famous in London, if you have ever worked or visited London the saying is a bit of an ear-worm, it's very catchy you will here it in your head at some point, also you will hear your children saying it to each other as well !!!

Grow you skills & networking: Mainframerz Event

Containers on z

Planning is ongoing for our next event 'Containers on z'.

Sign-up to our event via Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/mainframerz-london/

You can attend our event and explore the topic discussed many of our speakers are available for up to 2 weeks to ask/answer follow-on questions, you can also ask the community through me or our slack channel after the 2 weeks has elapsed.

Employment & Recruitment: Upbringing new mainframers

Closing the mainframe skills gap

One problem issue which we all agree on in the mainframe community is the 'Mainframe Skills gap' or lack of Mainframe skills available for employers to dip into. A recent article shared by Kresimir Mudrovcic of CROZ is really interesting in the way the problem of the mainframe skills gap is broken down and the techniques used to bridge the gap.

I would recommend the article if you have not read it, it is very interesting and is probably one of the hottest topics for the mainframe community to consider:-

? Specialised Training

? Engagement with Educational Institutions

? Knowledge Transfer Workshops

? Mainframe Summer Camps

? Mainframe Boot Camps

I don't want to give away all of the goodies but the article in the 'Mighty Mainframers newsletter' is a good blue print for anyone staying on the mainframe or looking at returning to the mainframe; it is one of a series of articles on this topic around mainframe skills shortages and how to plug them, but I have chosen this one as I think it is most interesting.

You can read the article in full ?? here: ??

I have also added a link to the Mighty Mainframe newsletter featured to the bottom of this newsletter if you would like to subscribe and see other newsletters from them.

Employment & Recruitment: Can we stop the nonsense about an employment gap in a resume.

It's not 1988 any more

I would like to give a shout out to Chris Herbert as you know one of the areas I have championed and have tried to make a positive change with has been in the employment of mainframe hires and moving of roles. Many of you have asked me questions which I have answered in private and I have written a short article around mainframe recruitment & careers to try and help answer some of the comment questions I have seen.

The next topic I think we should discuss is the topic raised by Chris around employment gaps in your Curriculum Vitae or CV.

Chris has done such a great job of highlighting this issue I am going to lift some of the content but invite you after you read it the option to visit the original post by Chris's to read the comments and give it a like; if you have any thoughts on this for mainframe hires please add them as comments to this newsletter for general comments please add them on Chris's post:-

"Hi Andy, The post has 7M plus impressions so it seems to have resonated with a great deal of people."

As of the 12th June Chris told me his post had been seen by quite a few times on LinkedIn, please see extracts of the post by Chris below with a link to visit the original:-

What on earth is the difference if the person took off three months or six or seventeen months to travel Europe or wherever?

? Many top performers were part of a Covid layoff or due to economic conditions.

? Maybe.... they had a child and stayed home for a year or two or even three

? Maybe... they had an accident or a health condition or somebody in their family did.

-> If the person had or did any or all of the above how does that make them less of a candidate?

-> Everybody is unique and brings something to the table.

Instead of acting like you have caught them and dismissing the candidate for a gap you discovered why not ask them what happened.

Then take a look at your own department and company. Has anybody had a gap is his or her resume? In no way shape or form does a gap in your resume mean you can not make a valuable contribution to the team. Treat every candidate as if they are different. It is not a one size fits all process.

Not only will you get a better understanding of the person you will likely get some great candidates others are overlooking. Let's do better!

Read the post and additional general comments ?? here: ??

I have many questions from people concerned about employment gaps or where they have changed roles and want to move back to the mainframe and are worried they will not be given a chance, is it time to re-think mainframe recruitment now?

Growing you skills: The Open Mainframe Project

Successful Mentors, Mentees & Admin selected

Thank you to Rituraj Mahato who has made me aware of the successful mentees chosen for the The Open Mainframe Project whittled down from over 1600+ applicants has been published, the list below is a list of names you will see more of as admins, mentors and students you can expect to see more of these names.

Congratulations go to:-

? John Mertic ? Maemalynn Nokdhes Meanor ? Yarille O. ? Tom Slanda, CSM, CSPO ? Rituraj Mahato ? Michael Bauer ? Ashis Kumar ? Naik Sudharsana Srinivasan ? Elizabeth Joseph ? Deveshi Dwivedi ? Apurv Sonawane ? Divya Goswami ? Jade Carino ? Mike Cobbett ? Aazam Thakur ? Mike Friesenegger ? Dong Ma ? Maryblessing Okolie ? John Lovett ? Lauren Valenti ? Aditi Rai ? Swathi Rao ? Bruno Azenha ? Misty Decker ? Vincent Terrone ? Fernando Zangari ? Krishi Jain ? Ali Mousa ?

You can read more about this by reading the post from Rituraj ?? here: ??

Employment: Mainframerz Job Channel

What's in a name: PreSales Consultant / PreSales Engineer vs Mainframe Technical Consultant - Mainframe AIOps

Recently I posted about my role as Presales Consultant and I wanted to help those of you looking by making your job search harder but more helpful.

Many people have reached out and I have explained my role responsibilities as PreSales Consultant / PreSales Engineer, if you have been looking for these roles you may have found many roles that match the skills profile but these roles are often seen in distributed roles.

I wanted to share a very similar role but by another name when which has been posted by Broadcom. I have only had a quick glance as I am not leaving my current employer but it looks very much like the role of a PreSales Consultant but under a different name.

I added the Broadcom role to our jobs channel, if you are looking at mainframe roles please be aware different companies call similar roles by different names.

When I first joined the Mainframerz team the name PreSales Consultant caused some confusion [certain industry colleagues in the team thought I was in sales which was very funny and annoying at the same time].

IBM HMC Mobile

A phone app for your mainframe

It shows how times are changing I know we lead the way with technological innovation but a recent post genuinely had me look twice to make sure.

Emma Skovg?rd has shared a mainframe post that she felt was insane and I agreed this has blown me away, apparently it is now possible to get an app for your phone to connect to the IBM Hardware Management Console [HMC].

You can read the post by Emma which has a link to download the software ?? here: ?? Emma always posts some great stories around the mainframe.

Jump straight to the IBM HMC download page ?? here: ??

"For me personally I can remember as Senior Operator having to check that the load parms were correct and had been updated ahead of IPL, other than that nobody was allowed near the HMC.

Why was nobody allowed near our HMC because we had an incident when we had a locked LPAR and our Sys Progs took too long to recover; a Senior manager told us to IPL over the top and we said we wanted to wait, he said he would do it and then IPL'd the wrong LPAR using the HMC, true story".

Readers Questions

Bots for Mainframe Operations & Learning COBOL [IBM z Mainframe Depot Training]

1?? Bots for Mainframe Operations

A question has come in that could become a very interesting topic which I am currently capturing more information around what the reader would like to do before I share further updates. As I am currently working with Automate Now I can see some use cases in how you could use technology to do this and many other tasks.

For now I will leave the teaser from the conversation:-

"Hi Andrew

??

Want to connect and discuss about an idea around bots for operations for mainframes"

As I learn more about this request I will share this into an article as I think it could be very interesting.

2?? Moving into a COBOL role

A second question which I know will light up the room so to speak is around moving into a COBOL role. I have a little more I can share here but will try and summarise what I have been sent:-

"Hi Again Andy,

I’d been thinking about learning cobol but I wasn’t sure if technical hiring managers recognise the IBM mainframe depot training.

Are you aware of anyone who has been able to move into a cobol role after completing a path on that platform?"

.....

"So, I haven’t obtained any Cobol or mainframe related certification yet. I come from a cloud environment. I thought I’d learn from those already in the Mainframe space.

??

I’d be happy to hear from your community if they have advice around it"

.....

"Okay, I’d be starting from scratch without COBOL experience.

From outside, it looks like enough hours to become an entry level mainframe administrator."

I would love to know what advice you could offer or share for this question, please message me or leave your answer in the comments.

Grow your skills & networking: 2nd Reminder GSE UK

GSE UK in person Event

GSE UK in person takes place this year from Monday 4th November to Thursday 7th November 2024.

"We will be looking to build on the success of the 2023 in-person Conference which was our largest event to date with over 600 delegates".

GSE UK: Call for Papers

Important Dates

• 15th May 2024 - Call for Papers Opens
• 28th June 2024 - Call for Papers Close
• 2nd August 2024 - Decision on Call for Papers Announced

Submissions

Each presentation slot will be 45 minutes in duration and you will be expected to present in person. Hopefully my presentation is chosen this year again!

Please be sure your submission focuses on educating and informing, not products specific to your company.

Grow your skills: 2nd Reminder IBM z Day virtual event

1st October 2024

Last year the event saw "70 sessions led by more than 200 industry experts and global thought leaders across five tracks over 26,000 views from 135 countries."

Topics this year to look out for:-

? Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

? Data and App Modernization

? Digital Transformation and Hybrid Cloud

? Sustainability and Innovation

? Security, Privacy, and Resiliency

? Open Source Technology

? Client and Industry Best Practices

?Skills Programs and Career Journeys

? Global Talent Showcase and Accelerated Learning Opportunities

Answer the Call for papers ?? here: ??

Grow your skills: 2nd Reminder Share Kansas City

4th August - 8th August

The Agenda for Share in Kansas is now been released, details for the event are on the SHARE Headquarters website, please find a link to the technical agenda ?? here: ??

Grow your skills: IBM Z Mainframe Skills Depot

700 hours of self-paced IBM Z? learning content

If you are looking to grow your skills this year the make sure you follow Vagner Bellacosa for some great posts including, his current post which is a link to the 700 hours of self paced learning available from the IBM Skills Depot.

Read the post and follow Vagne for more graet content & posts ?? here: ??

Read the post and follow Vagner ?? here: ??

Latest News: UK Court Cases

I wanted to share what I think is a historic moment in the UK, three court cases have taken place in the UK courts have come to our courts in the UK which are very significant. I can't remember a similar time when we have had just one case such as these.

Normally when I think of court cases I think of America and TV shows such as LA Law, Ally McBeal, Suits and many others come to mind and yet at the moment we have 3 UK court cases with any one of them worthy of being a case of the century in technology.

1?? IBM v LZ Labs

If you haven't seen the post yet by Trevor Eddolls then I highly recommend reading it for an unbiased neutral take on the arguments of the case.

In brief did LZ Labs reverse engineer IBM software used for the mainframe.

You can read his blog post ?? here: ??

2?? The Horizon Post Office Scandal

I think you could call call this a good UK scandal, peerages have been returned, false convictions, allegations of lieing to parliament and the list goes on.

In short summary The Post Office Ltd in conjunction with 富士通 developed a new solution for Post Masters and this didn't work and Post Masters were being accused of stealing money (￡5,000+) which never happened the software was faulty, the issue is whether it was covered up and if so by whom.

This scandal has proved so big that ITV have created a hit TV show called Mr Bates & The Post Office.

"One of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British legal history where hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to a defective IT system". IMDB 8.6 out of 10

Read the review ?? here: ??

3?? Phone Hacking

The last scandal which was so big it eventually became two separate investigations [Operations Weeting & Tuleta] is the juiciest. It has everything from Royalty & Celebrities with Prince William accepting a pay-off (donated to charity) & Prince Harry pushing for justice, Hugh Grant accepting a pay-out I think he donated some or all of his award away.

A UK newspaper was closed: The News of the World

"PC's were industrially cleaned in a manner even the police could not recover files" - I did not know this was even possible.

Two sports presenters who spoke out about the issue of 'hacking' Richard Keys & Andy Gray were sacked (& some suggest smeared).

What was initially described by Piers Morgan as merely reporters guessing the pin code of voice mails quickly turned into much more including the use of hacking groups, pc hacking / server hacking & links to UK & Israel for spy technology Pegasus software so juicy has this been that most of this case was heard in private to protect national security.

The links between the media and the police, intelligence services in the UK & Israel in this story possibly means that we will never know the full story - it is a story that is known about a bit like Spy Catcher it may never be published in the UK [official secrets act], but could be in another country.

Read about this ?? here: ??

In other legal news - Al Act

Article 4

I would like to credit Barry Scannell who has written a great post about the legal implications of the growing push for AI adoption and what this means legally for business. I won't lift everything from his article but I strongly recommend reading it in full, I will include a link to the article below the story.

It is probably fair to suggest that most software vendors will be affected by this it applies to any software wherever it was developed being used in the EU, yes UK & USA etc that means you as well.

Six months after the Al Act is published in the Official Journal (Happy Christmas!), if an organisation is using Al in its business, it will have a LEGAL OBLIGATION under Article 4 of the Al Act to “ensure, to their best extent, a sufficient level of Al literacy of their staff and other persons dealing with the operation and use of Al systems on their behalf.”

Oh and this doesn't only apply to EU organisations, it also applies to non-EU entities who place Al systems and models on the EU market...

So what does this mean? Well, businesses that develop and deploy Al systems may face legal obligations to ensure staff who use AI are adequately trained/literate in Al technologies.

Read the full post ?? here: ??

"Do you have an idea or topic you would like to present at one of our Mainframerz events, do you have a topic you would likes us to discuss at the Mainframerz event.....

....or would you like to suggest an article, topic or discussion for the newsletter...

...if so I want to hear from you as well as my regular contributors!".

? ?? Potpourri {mainframe & non-mainframe stories} ?

Pride month 1st - June 30th June "Lynne Conway"

The start of June marks the start of Pride month, and I wanted to lead with this for my next story about an early computing pioneer Lynne Conway, I feel the story of Lynne really shows how attitudes have changed over time.

Lynne helped design the architecture for a supercomputer in around 1964 with other IBM researchers called Advanced Computing Systems (ACS) a design later adopted into many high performance microprocessors.

In 1968 feeling a woman trapped inside a man's body she decided to transition to become Lynne Conway, at the time this came at a very high cost she was denied access to her children after transitioning and she was also fired by IBM in 1968 who have subsequently apologised for this albeit it took until 2020.

Lynne won a number of medals and recognition for the projects she worked on, sadly she passed away recently at the age of 86.

Rail Departure Boards

It's time to share a childhood memory one of the quirks of childhood. I'm not sure if anyone else can relate but here goes:-

"As a child I remember traveling by train and standing on the platform waiting, I really loved looking at the large digital clock display they used on the platforms and always thought one day I would like one of them. For many years I looked and never found anything that matched what I was looking for."

"Many years later when I look back on my list of things I wanted to see or do as a child I have done I'm not sure how, but I have by luck or planning done many of these through my job."

? Give a presentation about the film War Games

? Visit Seattle & see the Space needle [also electric bus & mono rail]

? Visit Berlin & see the TV Tower

? Visit the BT Tower (stood next to it no public access - anyone from BT can help me here)

? Vancouver (caught my eye as a holiday destination prize on Catchphrase and wanted to go)

? Buy a train clock for my work room, possible birthday present

? Paris [Eiffel Tower & Arc de Triomphe]

?New York [Statue of Liberty, UN & Empire State]

? & Moscow (haven't done Moscow)

Back to the story in hand I don't know if this is still the case but I believe the National Rail timetable was created using a mainframe in the past.

In case anyone wishes to ask me about trains sorry I'm not into model trains or trains spotting but the large digital clock always drew my attention and the bright yellow box surround.

If like me you just think a giant clock is cool you can buy a train information board from:-

https://ukdepartureboards.co.uk/store/product/small-led-departure-board/

For my German colleagues at Beta Systems Software who have subscribed to the newsletter you can download an api from Deutsche Bahn I'm not sure if they are compatible with these boards though, but you can get the same display.

Applications:

? My local Morrisons have a board displaying bus information for the bus stop outside

? A Media agency (London) displayed underground information in the reception

The inspiration here is because I have submitted my 'Call for papers' to GSE UK Region and I remember last year attending a talk where a few people broke out into a small discussion around a love of trains.

Lets run the numbers: Finding the perfect match

I wanted to share a quick video from Hannah Fry who has become one of my favourite people to watch, this is a video on finding a perfect date.

"Now if you have watched this and apply this same technique to the mainframe recruitment 'skills gap' the story I published earlier in the newsletter, in my opinion I believe we should consider adding more flexibility around mainframe hires, such as employment gaps and return to mainframe hires."

Many people have emailed me about applying for roles and were worried because they had moved into other IT roles or functions they would not be hired if they tried to move back into COBOL and other roles; my personal thought is that if we overlook some hires we are missing an opportunity to fill the skills gap!

Sport: AI apps

Can anyone help recommend in the comments, I am looking for a website [TV Channel] which might enhance my sporting pleasure of watching the Euro's; I am looking for something similar to IBM deployed 'Watson enhanced coverage of the US Master Golf at Augusta, Georgia' or advanced analysis of the games.

I'm looking for recommendations for a good website that is covering the Euro Football.

I am also open to suggestions for a website for the T20 Cricket, I stopped following the cricket and I didn't realise the USA played cricket and was a bit shocked to find that they had beaten Pakistan, was it a fluke?

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