This past week I spoke at the 28th annual WMCPA spring technical conference. This conference is for developers and administrators of IBM Power Systems focusing on the IBM i operating system (though Power Systems also runs AIX and Linux. ) Years ago I would have also added 'and the RPG Language' but the conference now goes so far past just RPG that it would be an injustice to say that today.

It was an amazing conference put on by a group of impassioned people. The undisputed leader of this group is the inimitable James Buck. Jim is not only WMCPA president but the lead instructor in the IBM i space at Gateway Technical College in Kenosha WI. In his spare time he also writes textbooks, certification tests, and somehow still finds time to engage in his other passion, sailing. He's even served as Commodore of his yacht club. Jim leverages the skills of many other WMCPA leaders almost all having served 10 or more years in their positions to pull off this endeavor. Perhaps the most important group though is his students. He enlists the help of those in his classes or formerly in his classes to help with all the detailed things that need to be addressed over the three days the conference covers. This gives these students not only an opportunity to begin to give back to the IBM i community but gives them connections to those in the industry. Especially at breakfast, lunch, dinner and evening events they get additional education that simply cannot be taught by 'The Google'.

You might expect that at an industry leading conference such as this you would find great speakers, and you would of course be correct. The WMCPA team does a great job at their conference and speakers want to come there! If they don't, Jim uses some of his Jed'i' mind tricks: "This IS the conference your were looking for" and they come.

You would also expect to find industry leading topics and again you would be correct. No more is RPG the primary topic instead nearly half the sessions have something to do with Web or Mobile or Cloud! These things weren't even invented when WMCPA started hosting this conference but like the platform the conference has modernized as well.

While there I spent every available minute with people. I talked to students, other instructors, the WMCPA staff, and many other attendees. What I heard from them was Excitement! One group came into one of my sessions and couldn't stop talking about that one guy, can't pronounce his name, the guy from New York. He was GREAT! They were checking the schedule for more of his sessions. "The guy from New York" was Charlie Guarino, president of Central Park Data Systems and top notch speaker, and yes he IS great! He was 'on the list' of speakers that impressed, Educated and and importantly ENTHUSED attendees.

The conference started with an experts round table on Mobile computing and Application Modernization. Many tough questions were raised and generating interesting discussions. It was a great session that went for a couple of hours!

Each day includes a keynote address and this year the first was delivered by IBM's Alison Butterill on IBM i application development strategy. One of the key slides I remember from her excellent presentation was the one showing the languages that run on i. Whaddaya think, 3? RPG, COBOL, CL right? Or maybe 6 if you include C and Java and SQL. If that's what you think you've completely missed the boat, the list is huge and includes industry leader PHP along with Ruby and Python and many more. Another important theme Alison described was the tooling IBM has provided to allow leveraging all that RPG and those RPG Skills to work with web and mobile devices. It should be noted that several vendors already have leveraged this including Profound Logic and Look Software. Thursday's keynote was Trevor Perry - "You are (already) extraordinary." It was an engaging session and was indeed a KeyNote: Trevor tweeted: "It's not a keynote until you have pissed someone off! Today, I did a keynote!!"

The conference was a great success, tremendous success even, except for one group. This group got nothing from it, they paid no attention in the sessions, took no notes, asked no question, exchanged no puzzled looks and made no head slapping discoveries. They didn't visit a single vendor to see if LongRange or PHP or any other product could turn a difficult task into a simple one. They didn't sit in a single lab session and try out a product or tool that they didn't have to purchase or even install to demo. They took back nothing that can help them do their job better to help their companies prosper or help ensure that IBM i will 'Live Long and Prosper' in their shops. They also ignored the food, the time to bump elbows with experts and peers, ask specific questions or learn from the answers to the questions of others. They didn't improve their value one iota. How can they miss the entire conference!? That is indeed the question, isn't it? How can you miss something THIS valuable? HOW?

Well you see, the answer is that they didn't come. They stayed back in their shops and offices behind the same four walls. They sat at the same keyboards staring at the same 5250 screen using the same tools as yesterday. All too often these tools are the same as last month, last year, last decade and some of them, last century! This means the chances of any of this education rubbing off on them, of it solving a problem they've been struggling with, giving them a new direction to pursue, or a brilliant plan to modernize something (INCLUDING themselves!) is, well, exactly *ZERO. ZIP. ZILCH. Nadda. What keeps them away?

It can't be the location because the conference is annually held in the resort area of Delavan WI. You can get there from anywhere, a super highway running right past it and it's less than an hour from the Milwaukee airport.

It can't be the price because for as little as $700 you get two and a half days of expert education, two nights of lodging, and it includes all your food. (And breakfast at WMCPA is much more than 'Coffee and a doughnut'!) As a bonus you might win a textbook, rounds of golf, or other prizes along the way. I know some of you are saying that 'My boss has NO budget for education.' Perhaps that's true but does your boss pay for improvements to your golf game? To your injured foot? To your boat or your car? To your recreation room? Neither does mine.

It can only be one thing. It's the one thing that I was promised to my face personally by Rear Admiral Grace Hopper herself. She promised that if I ever said: "Because I've always done it that way!" that she would appear with her cane and beat me about the head and shoulders. This is a threat (promise?) that I will never forget. Our industry is changing, our platform is changing. Sure it still runs code compiled 25 years ago and runs it well, but that doesn't mean it should! And you shouldn't be coding or thinking or doing things they way you did 25 years ago. But if you stay put in your 25 year old office chair with your 25 year old logic and thinking the results will also be 25 years old, they'll just be late.

We hear a lot of complaining that IBM doesn't to enough to promote IBM i but if we won't put in the effort to educate ourselves, does it matter?


- DrF