Trick or Treat (Halloween is Irish)

In this edition

Mainframerz event replay ?? Job Opportunities ?? Irish Computer Society ?? AI Act ?? Clock Change ?? GSE UK - Speakers story ?? IBM Tech XChange ?? zopen community ?? Call for Code last call ?? 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.

Our Last Event: Generation AI

Recap

Our last event was a very enjoyable event covering a great overview of what AI is, use case example of AI in the real world and some examples of where we find AI tooling assisting mainframe products.

It was a great way to dip your toe into what is possible with AI on the mainframe and making use of the AI chipset.

It was an event where the Chat channel was very lively and everyone who attended the event seemed to really engage with our speakers and their topics.

Missed our event watch the replay below:-

Our question before the event was AI a 'Trick or Treat'? I think we decided it had many tricks and a few treats.

Job opportunities

Can you help me find a new jobs?

Every so often I am asked about finding new jobs and this time in one week I have had three requests one came from India, one came from Iran and one came from a recruiter in the UK looking for help finding a candidate for Germany.

I thought I would share what have:-

Join our Slack Channel (Link expires - 21st November 2024) here:

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It is free to post a job and it is also possible to ask for ideas and help to find a job, please do not post simply asking for a new job or your post will be removed.

I have shared in the past week 3 jobs in my feed, the last of which is for my colleagues in Germany who are looking for a Control-M specialist but you must speak German, you can read the post hier:

News from Ireland: Irish Computer Society

New President of the ICS

I think we all recognise AI has arrived and is quite a big topic of interest across all areas of the IT estate. The election of Prof. Tiziana Margaria, a pioneer in advanced software systems and AI as the new President of the Irish Computer Society probably shows the importance of AI in future IT developments.

You can read the full post from the Irish Computer Society – ICS about the election of Prof. Tiziana Margaria their new president here:

AI Act

15 weeks and Counting

Even non-EU countries must comply with the AI Act, non-compliance can result in large fines.

All companies as part of the AI Act must:-

? AI Inventory

? AI impact assessment both Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) & Fundamental Rights Impact Assessment (FRIA)

You can read a more in-depth discussion on the implications of the AI Act from Barry Scannell which is available here:

Clock Change

Clocks go back an hour

A quick reminder for all readers that the clocks in the EU and the UK will go back 1 hour on the last Sunday in October, which is the 27th October at this point we stop using the term BST and will refer to the time in GMT.

? EU & UK clocks go back 1 hour on 27th October.

? On 27th October UK time switches from BST to GMT

? In the US clocks will not go back until November 3rd.

It's worth noting for mainframe times (SLA's, OLA's) and also if you have any international teams.

Grow your skills & networking: GSE UK

Are you ready

It's not long to go until GSE UK Region in person takes place between Monday 4th November to Thursday 7th November 2024.

I have probably shared enough about the event itself and I thought of how to describe the planning that takes place behind the scenes for the event, the ordering of equipment, event booth prep, last minute changes in the team attending, the fact that GSE UK clashes with an event I am needed at in Warsaw and more but this isn't a great story.

Instead I thought a few of you reading this might be tempted to put your skills to good use and give it a go and give a presentation (inspired by me - I hope!).

A Speakers thoughts ahead of GSE UK

To be selected as a speaker at GSE UK you must first select a topic for a presentation and then you submit your paper in outline form to the gatekeepers of the various workstreams for review, this is when you have seen the request for the Call for Papers shared by me to help raise community awareness. IBM for the Tech Xchange have done the same call for papers.

The planning for an event like GSE UK starts for many of us by submitting a Call for Papers and then sweating on whether we are chosen to be selected.

The key here is the GSE event is about education to the community not selling products, many vendors will present updates to there products and often have specialists in house who can explain how to use the product to overcome real world challenges.

Last year Broadcom did a really god job of showing the ZOWE platform and explaining it, why am I using this example, ZOWE is open to all vendors and Broadcom in demonstrating the ZOWE platform could also suggest products they had available on this platform.

As an example at Beta Systems Software we took one of our customers to talk through a use case using one of our products because it demonstrated not just out product (XINFO) but how you could run in USS and achieve faster performance with our products and other products such as (Neo4J), thank you Erik Weyler for a great presentation last year.

Now you are through the first hurdle and your paper has been chosen, at this point give yourself a big pat on the pat if you are chosen via Call for Papers. It is the Pop Idol (if that's still going X-Factor, Britain's Got Talent for techies).

Many vendors will submit papers and be unsuccessful and they will have to buy a presentation in order to be seen. As you can see before we have even arrived at the event it can be a nerve jangling experience even to find out if you are selected or not.

If you are selected now you have to work on a presentation and add details to the high level overview and your presentation is then assigned a difficulty rating by the gatekeepers (using the chilli system).

To avoid product pitches and using the format adopted by vendors previously I reached out through the IBM Champions community and found another vendor who Beta Systems are not connected with and asked if I could use their solution to help present my real world case.

At this point a big thank you to IBM Champion Reg Harbeck and Jeanne M. Glass M.I.M. of VirtualZ Computing who both stepped up, Reg as an IBM Champion demonstrated all the IBM Champions value of helping fellow Champions (we help everyone) and connected me with Jeanne and Jeanne was incredibly helpful.

At this point I now had a story: Data Pipeline Journey, Mainframe Modernisation & Open Telemetry built with a story around the Beta Systems SOAP solution.

You are probably thinking good job on the story all done (only an idiot would think that- yes me), wait now I am using a 3rd party software solution to deliver functionality we already offer in our product.

Now I need to get internal sign-off that it is OK to reference another vendor, that I will use the vendor to show a solution we can provide and to use them to help present a story at GSE UK. At this point you need at most companies I would guess to seek an internal sponsor and the value of your proposition is reviewed another nerve jangling experience.

OK presentation is good, presentation has been sponsored, GSE UK are happy all good.

Now if you were sensible you would stop here but I like to go the extra mile or more accurately 500 miles if possible just ask the guys at Mainframerz I am always looking to see if we can add to our events :)

Slido's, ideas themed around dates such as Halloween inspired, etc I love to see if there is a new way to keep our event fresh (creative) and then as a team everyone humours me and smiles lol.

So how could I add and try and do something different, this time for GSE UK. I had an idea to reach out to a non IBM Champion Andy Brisland who was taking part in a number of LinkedIn training courses and asked if he could find me a course that was free and that I could share ahead of my presentation around my the theme of my presentation....

I found a great free LinkedIn training course on AI for IT Operations, you can still view the training even if you won't be attending my presentation and the link for the training is in my post here:

I am flying to Warsaw part way through GSE UK and needed to arrange for my presentation to be held on the Monday or Tuesday due to my travel. Is this the end of the story, well not quite as Colombo may say just one more thing...

Normally at an event like GSE UK you would present your event and then say to people come and find me or find me at our booth and I can demo the product for you; instead as I won't be there I have a new solution in place, I have swapped the event booth at GSE UK for London:-

https://www.betasystems.com/events/events/meetup-london

November 18, 2024

Uncommon Liverpool Street - Flexible Office Work Space

34-37 Liverpool Street

EC2M 7PP?London

United Kingdom

Food & drinks supplied and additionally experts hopefully from the US and Poland will be available to answer any questions around our ANOW Soap solution.

It is lucky that Christmas is around the corner as I can feel my beard turning white after all this!

Last year I took one of our customers and IDUG winner to present at GSE UK, this year ahead of my presentation I have free training and a meet-up event for you afterwards in London.

Did you know? If you give two talks as the main speaker at GSE UK then it is free to attend and if you are selected for 1 talk you can attend on that day for free.

IBM Tech XChange

October 21 -24

I haven't been in Las Vegas this time, the last time I was in Vegas was for pleasure only, although if I am ever in an event in Vegas I am more than happy to organise a mini poker tournament.

I'm very rusty now so it's a great time to play me.

As I haven't made it out to IBM Tech XChange please feel free to post in the comments any highlights of the event that you enjoyed and I might pick a few comments and add them for next time.

z/OS Open Tool now zopen community

Name change

A reminder that last month the z/OS Open Tools community was renamed to the zopen community!

You can find them at

https://lnkd.in/gTrNPkJP & https://zopen.community.

Any questions Igor Todorovski is your man.

Call for Code: Be part of a new era of responsible AI

It's not to late to take part - submission due by October 24

It is now nearing the final stages of the prestigious Call for Code challenge, the competition or challenge is designed to take some of our leading brains and thinkers (or readers of this newsletter) and to ask you to work together to help tackle issue such as Climate Change and other ways to protect the environment for future generations.

I was lucky enough to help as a mentor last year and this is truly the worlds best 'Hackathon with a heart', that's my words it is truly humbling to a have been a part of such a great event.

We're in the final stages of the 2024 Call for Code? Global Challenge! Prepare to submit your team's solution aimed at enhancing equitable access to essential resources and opportunities using generative AI.

Learn more here: https://ibm.co/4aMbHSh

"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} ?

Intel and AMD are friends again

Over the years Intel and AMD have had a rather abrasive relationship and have not always played nicely together.

Well the times are a changing and now Intel and AMD are coming together no not in a merger but they are planning to work closer together to work more closely together on X86. At the recent OCP Summit the companies announced that they will create a new X86 advisory board.

If you would like to read more about what this could mean and it's probably worth having half an eye on this development then you can read the story from the ServeTheHome website here:

Thanksgiving in the US

I just miss Thanksgiving falling on my birthday which this year is on the 28th November (thanksgiving that is), inspired by Thanksgiving I do have one fact I would like to share.

Did you know? I love a random fact (yes of course you already know this), Uncle Sam (note the initials US), is believed to be based upon a real person a meatpacker from New York.

For me when I think of famous US events one is Thanksgiving and the Turkey and the other is Uncle Sam (Your country needs you fame), who is actually based on a New York meat packer.

Oh and the last thing is for me Halloween, actually has it's roots in Irish society. I think because of the pumpkins and the orangeness of the event I always assume it comes from the Netherlands.

Artificial Intelligence or Co-intelligence

A question that I have seen posed which I wanted to share sorry I don't have the source for this to hand is whether the name Artificial Intelligence or AI should be used. The question that was posed is whether AI or the term Artificial such as (artificial flavour, artificial sweetner, etc) has a negative connotation and instead of talking about Artificial Intelligence we should talk about co-intelligence.

If you attended our last Mainframerz event you will know that there is also a term I had not heard before Artificial Super Intelligence where AI is superior to the human brain.

I'm curious would a name change help boost the image of AI or is the name OK? I always wonder what people think about these questions.

Can you hack it with an I-phone

I love stories about hacking of devices and the sheer amount of effort that can go into finding a vulnerability or exploit at times can be quite staggering. I thought it would be interesting to some of you to find out exactly what it takes to hack an i-phone.

If you would like to know more about what it takes to hack an i-phone then you find out more here:

Don't have a cow man

At the last Mainframe event on AI we touched on the use of AI for picture analysis and I thought I would finish with a story about a cow picture.

Ralph Aboujaoude Diaz has shared a great picture taken by Google Maps which has opted to blur the face of a cow. I am not sure if this was some kind of crazy AI, someone having a laugh at work or Google Maps really does value the privacy of a cow.

If you would like to know what I am on about you can see for yourself here:

compensate the victims here?

Read the full post here:

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