Meet Us in Las Vegas or New York for the Open Mainframe Summit – The Open Mainframe EP 22

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Open Mainframe. The Open Mainframe is a monthly video series produced in partnership, uh, by Techstrong.

And I'm Alan Shimmel, CEO O of Tech strong group, and our good friends at the Open Mainframe Project, which is part of the Linux Foundation. And we thank, uh, the Lennox Foundation and the Open Mainframe Project for, I mean, it's really, they, they help, you know, they more than help. They're the engine.

We're the caboose on these things. Um, they put together our shows every month with amazing guests like you're gonna meet today. And, uh, many, many thanks to John and, and the team at the Open Mainframe Project for, uh, all of their help.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, and I, I'm, I call her May, but it's May Mallon Manor. John, can you help me? Malin Mayner, Because she really, her and and a woman named Jody Ashley on our team are really the, they're really the people who do the work here.

We're just the kind of pretty faces, some of us. Um, anyway, we're here today to discuss and announce a first, we believe in the history of the Open Mainframe Project. We're actually gonna have two open mainframe summits this year.

We, you know, coming off of Covid, we didn't have any. And then we had one, I believe it was in Philadelphia, wasn't it, John, last year. Yep.

And, um, and so now this year we're gonna have two, and it's twice the fun. And, uh, we're really looking forward. We're gonna talk to you about it.

But first, let me introduce you to our panel, who's gonna be discussing it. I wanna lead off with the Dean of the Open Mainframe Project. Uh, he's been around, ma well, he hasn't been around as long.

His mainframes have been around, but he's almost, um, he's Len San Lucia. And, and Len, welcome back. Tell people a little bit about your background, Len.

Oh, thank you, Alan. It's good to be back. Hello, everybody.

I'm Len Santo Lucia, and I am the C t O of a company called Viacom Infinity. We are a converged company. We were, uh, acquired by them a couple of years ago.

We have been around since the middle nineties, uh, designing, architecting, reselling, you name it, anything to do with the mainframe and, uh, it's associated storage systems and, uh, software. And, um, uh, when I first met these folks, uh, I was still at ibm and I was at IBM for over 30 years, 31 years actually. And, uh, I was supporting all the partners, uh, whenever they needed anything from I b m in their work with the mainframe.

And then, uh, as t Luck would have it, when I got ready to retire from I B M, uh, the owner of this company offered me to come to work. And here I am still, almost, uh, 16 years later, it's been, uh, quite a ride and I'm still enjoying it very much. And I just got off of a conference that John knows about, and I, I think even May, and the rest of you guys know, um, the Mayor Enterprise Computing Conference, which was all this past week.

And, uh, we had representation there, um, both for the Open Mainframe project as well as ourselves. I was right next, Rick to your, uh, guys at Broadcom. They were right to my left, and we exchanged a lot of barbs and had a lot of fun.

It was good. We very well attended. And, uh, that a Marist University Mar Mes College.

Yeah. Marris College. Sure.

So I, St John's grad Lynn Marist was a touchy point for us. Uh, uh Oh, uh, oh. I knew it wasn't a university.

That was just my little way of putting in a, uh, go red. We're not the Redmond anymore, we're the Red Storm. Uh, go Red storm.

But Glenn, you're being modest. You also hold several posts with the Open Mainframe Project, correct? That's correct.

I happen to be on the, uh, board and, uh, chair of the Open Mainframe project governing board, uh, since its inception. And, uh, it's been great. And I, and I get a chance to work with all the folks that here on the panel today.

Uh, and I really enjoy that. That's probably the most fun part of the whole thing. So, uh, it's an honor to be able to do that.

Honored to have you on board. Lynn. Thanks for joining us as always.

Next up, I want tore, uh, introduce you to Donna Hootie, no relation to who you ever, you may think she's related to. But Donna, why don't you talk, Donna, why don't you give us a little, your background. Sure.

Um, I am the Chief Marketing Officer and head of business Development at Phoenix Software International. Uh, Phoenix has been around since 19, uh, 79 and, you know, basically provides enterprise level mainframe solutions. Um, prior to joining Phoenix Software, I was actually shares executive director for almost five years.

Um, I was fortunate enough to be the executive director of Cher when the Open Mainframe Project launched, um, and very specifically when the Zoe, um, project was launched. And fortunately when I, uh, left Cher and came to Phoenix, I had the opportunity to, um, uh, bring Phoenix into the, to, uh, the Open Mainframe project in the Linux Foundation as a silver member. And I was fortunate enough to be able to join the marketing committee as well as work with the folks here, the technical folks here, who are, um, Zoe collaborators, if you will, in, um, uh, work to put out, um, Zoe components as as well.

So it's been very exciting to kind of be there at the beginning and be able to continue on, even though I changed roles. Um, so it's been very exciting. It's a pleasure to have you on and, and to have you back.

You like Len, you always step up and help us out, and I appreciate it. Thank you. Pleasure, uh, going up at least on my screen, going up to our next guest.

He's also a, a frequent contributor here to our Open Mainframe video series. And, uh, breath, always a pleasure to have on. It's Rick Parrot.

Rick welcome. Hey, great to be here, Alan, uh, once again. And, um, I always excited to be part of the, uh, part of the, uh, the series.

Rick, why don't, maybe a little bit of your background. I, I know I mentioned you're a Broadcom, but you have a storied history too, in mainframes. Some, well actually, uh, probably the shortest, if you will.

So I'm at Broadcom in the mainframe software division, and I lead open source in open mainframe marketing in the division, as well as have responsibility for IT analyst relations. I've been in tech for about 25 ish years, and both tech and consulting, uh, big chunk of time was at ibm, uh, where I worked in every division except mainframe. Uh, oddly enough.

Mm-hmm. Uh, spent half of half of my time in, uh, the Watson Research Center actually, uh, around technology commercialization, uh, in that space. And then moved on to, uh, brought, uh, ca in 2018.

And then we were, of course, were acquired by, by Broadcom Mainframe. And, uh, I've been involved with, uh, open Mainframe projects since joining in 2018. Obviously, Broadcom was a founding member, uh, at, I believe it started, what, 2016 ish timeframe?

I don't know when the exact, uh, one year prior 15. Close enough. 2015.

Close enough. Yeah. But I, I joined a 2018 just as Zoe was starting to get off off the ground, if he will, from, from concept to actually launching some intellectual property.

And, and, uh, since we're a founding member and plan, and I've been on this committee now for five years, so it's been a, a great experience working with everybody in the ecosystem, for sure. Excellent. Rick, thanks and thanks for all you do.

Uh, our last, but certainly not least panel member is Elizabeth Joseph. Elizabeth, welcome back. It's good to see you.

Why don't you tell our audience a little bit about yourself? Hi there. Thank you.

Uh, so my name is Elizabeth Joseph. Um, I work for ibm. You might have heard of it.

Um, I, uh, the last time I think, I think I spoke, um, to all of you, um, I, my role was a developer advocate, and I was joined I b m about four years ago. And I knew nothing about mainframe then. Um, and so they were like, Hey, you have a background in Linux and distributed systems and containers, and they wanted to bring that perspective in to reach more people like me.

Um, and then of course, COVID changed everything for everyone. And the developer advocacy role I had kind of had to shift. And one of the things that I noticed was that open source is incredibly important to all of us, and I have a background in open source.

And so I sort of started pulling things together, um, into my new role as the global head of the open source program office for Z and LinuxONE. Um, which is something that is now my role as of this year, which is pretty exciting. Um, and so inside of I B M, of course, there's tons of open source happening.

And so we're trying to sort of herd the cats there a little bit, um, with this new office and make sure that we're, you know, all out there in the community and, and doing things, um, more, uh, I guess, um, in an organized way, um, while still keeping autonomy for all the great work that folks are doing. Um, and in this, all of this, I I, I'm also contributing to the Open Mainframe project directly in a couple of projects. So I work on the software discovery tool, which allows you to search, um, thousands of open source packages for things you're looking for, whether they're running on Linux or Z os.

And then I also got together a bunch of Linux distributions that work on Z And so we're now collaborating with them, like they're all working on their ports, and then they come together for monthly meetings and say, Hey, what's broken for you? Hey, that's broken for me too. Let's work with upstream together.

And really, so I guess a lot of the work that I do is bringing people together. Um, so yeah. Excellent.

A lot of coordination, right? Cause there's a lot of, a little bit of herding cats, but a lot of coordination and thank to That. Yeah.

And I have a very, I have a very technical background, so this is all kind of new to me, but I think it, it's, it's woven all in because you need to know a lot about the technology, uh, too A absolutely this. Thank you. Okay.

And then our last, in my last introduction, he's not a panel member, he's actually my co-host, but he's also, when he's not co-hosting this show, is the Ed, um, executive director for the Open Mainframe Project. And a recent author, published author of a book. He's a, wait, there's more from Billy Mays.

Here's the book, uh, my friend John Murdoch. Hi John. Why don't you introduce yourself and, and keep the book up there.

Let's show it to people. I Think, no, I'll get the book up here, um, available on Amazon or wherever. Fine books are sold here.

Um, uh, yeah, so executive director here at the Open Mainframe Project. I work across a couple different of our, in our industry verticals, um, here as well. Um, you know, my career is, is an open source at every darn level from writing code to helping run these large scale projects, which is where a lot of the experiences came for this actually specific book here of all of the great stuff.

And Elizabeth, I know can appreciate that is the, the easy part of open source is the code relative to all of the other stuff that goes around it. Um, and you know, I'm fairly new to this mainframe world as well, and I've really had the fortune of just learning from a lot of these great people that have spent their careers here and have so much interesting stories and experiences and, and just the interest to collaborate. Cuz that's, that's really kind of like what this industry is really about At its very heart.

They're a collaborative group of people. We've, everything in open source, we've learned from the mainframe community in one way or another. And it's, it's just so fascinating and privileged to be able to work, um, with such a group and to be a co co-host, which with such an esteemed person as Mr.

Thank, thank you. I, my wife will appreciate that, John, I, I'm just gonna put that on loop and play it over and over. That's right.

That's right. That's right. Um, but thank you and thanks for all you do.

I, you're being modest also, the name of the book, is it Everything you Need to Know About Open Source Building a Community, Open Source Projects Beyond Code? Right. That was it.

Excellent. All right. So John, we've, as I said at the outset of the show, we've done Open Mainframe Summits before, right before Covid.

I, it was a little bit more regular. Of course, COVID made it hard for everybody. We, they went virtual to a certain extent.

And then last year, I, I believe it was Philly, uh, we, we, we had an in-person this year I feel like, you know, we just went to the doctor and told We're having twins twice the fun. Twice the fun. Twice the fun.

Yeah. Would've been double gum. That was the Music there, right?

Double Gum twice the fun. Yeah. Well now you're dating yourself.

Fair enough. Did you ever hear of a band? Huie and The Blowfish?

But Anyway, I have the CD over here, if that's helpful. I'm sure. So do I.

But anyway, why, why to this here? What, what's behind it? So I, if, if you look at the whole reason why Open Mainframe Summit came together in the first place was that there was just an emerging open source community.

And, you know, for all of you that work around open source, you know, the, the way that these communities grow and flourish and new ideas come, you know, is, is through collaboration and getting people together. We've, we've seen this in open source for decades. You know, the, you know, the early days of LinuxCon and, you know, oscon at O'Reilly, uh, have ran in the past and the open source summits of Linux Foundation run and, you know, some other more regional efforts.

It's bringing these people together and drives amazing collaboration. And what we've actually seen out of every single time we've ran one of these events is it has brought people together and we've seen new things come out of it. We saw our first one, we saw a couple new projects come out of it.

Um, you know, we've seen, uh, you know, new members, new organizations see it and say, Hey, we wanna take a part of this. Um, and I think last year when we finally got all the back together in Philly, it was really interesting cuz there were so many people that really hadn't seen each other in a few years. And it was great for them just to get together.

And they start collaborating and chatting and thinking of ideas that comes together. And, you know, matter of fact, there's a couple that started at that event that we're gonna, that will probably be announced here before too long. There's some really interesting initiatives.

But, you know, the idea with that is, again, bringing people together. The one thing that is important when you're bringing people together is you wanna bring 'em together where they are. Um, and we saw some really interesting opportunities to get at a few different audiences with some collaboration across, um, a couple of really large, uh, events here in this space.

Um, the first, you know, is a great event. IBM is running is IBM Tech Exchange. Um, it's the week of September 11th.

September 11th through the 14th. Um, and we're gonna be doing an all day event on, you know, September 11th. And if you look at that event that is bringing together all of the mainframe practitioners, so these are end users customers that are doing interesting things on the mainframe, they're using that, um, along with you're just gonna see also some accessory communities that are sort of around that space a little bit.

The other half, and this is a lot of, when we talked to, um, a lot of our participants last year, is they said, Hey, you know, we, we really want to get a better alignment and advocacy within the financial services vertical. Uh, because they're seeing that as just, you know, that's not only just where probably the predominant amount of deployments of mainframes are, but also the really greatest opportunity to have really integration across the entire IT landscape in the business applications landscape. So we have a, a sister foundation here at the Linux Foundation called Enos.

Um, they've been around for several years here. They've had an event running, um, called Open Source and Finance Forum. And we had the really nice opportunity to partner with them to do, um, part of our open source summit.

As a part of their events, we're actually gonna do one whole track, which is gonna be the other part of Open Source Summit. And what's unique about that is it's going not just at the mainframe financial services, but everybody distributed cloud blockchain, um, Hyperledger, you know, all sorts of, you know, new technologies that are out there, web dev, uh, and it, and it lets us kind of help showcase really what's going on in the mainframe world because what we're seeing is that the customers that are farther ahead and that are seeing their mainframes of strategic investments they're seeing of how we plug it into different places, they're seeing a project like Zoe as a critical component for them to, to really, you know, help bring those workloads and the data from them back into the enterprise. They see the COBOL investments as ways to help modernize what they're doing on that front and, and so on and so forth.

So, you know, the idea here is let's, let's be where the people are, um, so to speak. But I think more importantly here, let's give an opportunity to really showcase the amazing things that are happening and draw in that larger group of people that are gonna be at some of these existing events. And like I said, luckily we've had two great partners that have invited us to be a part of it and, and we're really excited.

Absolutely. And you know, and I, I want to dive into it, but before I do, I just wanna mention something for our audience out here because look, a lot of people in the mainframe world have started watching this show. If you'd like to speak at any of the Open mainframe, either of the Open Mainframe summits, the call for speakers or call for papers, call for speakers is open right now, but it's only open for another two weeks.

June 30th I think is the last day. org. You could, uh, fill out your CFP there, submit your app, and the good folks, maybe even some of the people on this call will be reviewing those submissions and, and picking what we hope is gonna be a great, great set of speakers.

I wanna talk a little bit about the choice of venues. One is this ibm, um, summit, and one of is is this open source and finance. John, I think you hit the nail on the head.

These are, these are two of the foundational communities in, um, in the open mainframe world. One of the things, look, I'm not a mainframer, I'm not even in the Linux Foundation or any of these things. I'm a, I'm a media guy these dates.

But what amazes me about this community is how many times we could trace everyone's roots back to B m Len Len's. Got 31 years in there and still working with I B M, you know, I was with this other company, Donna, I forgot, but I think you were an IBM er at one point. No, No, I, I was a, a programmer on the distributed side in financial services.

Absolutely. And you are kind of the rare bird then, right? Because I am Rick, you're an IBM er and, right?

Yep. Elizabeth, you're in. I, well, you are, I mean, I'm the odd man out.

Mm-hmm. Exactly. But Time, give a time you'll eventually work for ibm No, Sooner or later.

Maybe John knows something. You don't, I dunno, apparently. No, no, no, no.

Apparent. But um, but that being said, you know, and look, they, they produce the hardware platform Yes. That z platform and, and what a platform it is.

But they've done a great job of embracing the community, whether it's Broadcom. I remember even before Broadcom, when ca I, I went, I went to, I think it was an IBM think one year, and ca was the, uh, z partner of the year. And I said, what a beautiful thing that I, IBM picked ca as a partner of the year because that talks about this kind of, you know, we might compete, but we also cooperate.

And, and so that IBM event, I'm sure is gonna be an amazing event and a great, great place for the, for the summit. But the financial farm is too, right? Because that, I mean, look, that's the bread and butter, the, the mainframe is, is the, you know, no pun the backbone of so much of, of our financial, uh, systems today had an interest.

Well, we'll, we'll talk about it offline. I was gonna tell you an anecdote, but we'll come back. Len, I I'd like to ask you, you, you've been around here, you, you chairman of, of the, of the committee.

What do you think, why should people, if you are talking to the audience directly now, why should people come to these summits beyond, you know, what we've heard before, but in your mind, what, what's, what's the big draw? What's the reason? Oh, well, um, to me it is really all about the connections, the networking, the people.

And, um, some of you that may be listening in here may have, uh, may remember the I B M Technical University that was run for many, many years in Vegas, Orlando, many different places around the country, very large get togethers in now, you know, the name, the name that's been given. It is this BM Tech exchange. And with the Open Mainframe Project now, part of that for a whole day, right alongside it, this allows people to really, um, attend a lot of things all at once.

In fact, they're gonna, I think the challenge is gonna be, is what to go to, uh, first, you know, or what to attend. There's gonna be a, just a whole mess of things to go to. And it's right there, uh, in a very, um, good venue with a lot of, uh, things to do, uh, and a lot of people to meet.

And, um, the Open Mainframe Summit is really the epitome of a lot of work that people put into projects and, uh, bring, uh, their best accomplishments to the up to the minute, uh, of the day of the conference. And they'll be sharing that, giving a chance to, um, maybe even get some hands-on type of things and so on. So you just can't beat it.

And then of course, the other side of the fence back in my backyard is, uh, being in New York with Enos, um, you know, I grew up with the gang on Wall Street for all through my career. And to be able to be right along with them and give this kind of exposure both, uh, from, uh, the mainframe side as well as the alternative platforms that many of them, uh, have implemented or in and alongside of their mainframes or, or maybe some of them don't have any kind of mainframes at all yet. Um, you, you, you can't beat that kind of synergy.

Uh, we saw it, uh, last year, uh, when we were, or the year before, I believe it was, um, where we were there. Uh, and, and it just, uh, showed the interest. Uh, the room was packed, the room was packed, and they, um, there were some people there that have been around it for a long time.

The mainframe for a long, some people that never were, and some that used to be. And they were all amazed on what accomplishes accomplishments have been made. Uh, now what the mainframe, it's the old saying, it's not your grandfather's mainframe is definitely true.

Uh, it is the finest technology on the planet. Uh, and as people listen and with open mind, the key thing is being open-minded. Um, I think people are starting to see this that didn't see it or aren't as lucky as us that already see it.

So that's, that's my comments for today. All right. You know, what you led off with, I think the most important thing, and that is people want to see people for two and a half, three years.

Even if we went out, we went out like dipping a toe in the water with our mask on. If someone coughed, everyone turned around and, and kind of said, Hey, stay away from me. You know, but, but shows in-person conferences are back.

Well, they have been for me, right? I, I recently, I was in Amsterdam for the, uh, cloud Native Computing Foundation, CubeCon Cloud Con. We had 10,000 people there, 2000 people on a waiting list.

I then hopped on a plane in San Francisco to the RSA Conference where they had 40,000 plus people. I haven't been around that many people before. It was, it was interesting, Rick, Don or Elizabeth, have you guys been attending conferences?

Are you back to going to conferences? And I, I wonder what's been your experience, right? We forgot how great it was to see our peers.

Oh yeah. It's, I've been several conferences, uh, so far. Right?

And, uh, people are just loving to see each other. I mean, I was acher for the first time in Atlanta, um, back in March. That was an interesting experience.

It was great. I mean, again, it was just exciting to see the diverse set of people that attended, uh, that conference, you know, and are calling themselves main framers, if you will. Yeah.

It, it's interesting you mentioned Cher because like that's kind of the other big conference in this area. And, and Donna, I think this is a great question for you as a, a former executive director of Shared. So you're really, really familiar with it.

Like if somebody is used to share and they see this event, what, what should they expect different? Like what, what, what would be the draw to someone to, to attend here? Um, not versus share, but just, you know, as somebody who comes from a share lens coming to here.

You know, I I, I think the, one of the biggest benefits of share, and I learned this when I became its executive director, cuz as I said, I spent nearly 30 years, is a hands-on developer in the distributed world in the financial services industry in Chicago. And that is not a community at all. Um, and so when I came to share and I was first exposed to the Share community and the IBMers and all the main framers across all these, the, the industry, I was blown away at the level of community and just the friendships and the, like, they're so close knit and they're always learning from each other and they're always sharing, no pun intended.

Uh, they're always sharing their knowledge and their expertise with each other everywhere. You know, in the hallway, in the session rooms, you know, in the coffee shop, at, at dinner, at a party, whatever, that there's no lack of. You know, there's so passionate about what they do, and I would expect going to, you know, the BM Tech exchange is just an extension of that, right?

You're gonna have access to even more of the experts, if you will, of the folks who actually make this platform, right? They build this platform. So you're gonna have, pardon me, you're gonna have a broader access to those tho that those that group of people that, you know, help make the platform that you're so passionate about available.

Um, and then when it comes to Fin Os, you know, I, I, from firsthand experience, I can tell you that, you know, um, like I said, I spent a lot of years, uh, in that world, albeit on the distributed side, um, on the buy side of the street. So we didn't have main mainframes. The mainframes are mostly on the sell side of the street, but when I moved over to Share, I was like, wow, I know these people.

And I had no idea that they were all working on mainframes. And so, um, to me it's kind of exciting that we're getting into that, that side of the business, right? Because I think there's a huge opportunity there both on the mainframe and as within the distributed side, um, as it relates to Open source.

So, And, and Donna isn't share actually mean Share, it's not an acronym for anything, right? It, it Is not an acronym. It, uh, it's, oh really?

It is what we do. There's what they really do. It's, it's, yeah, that's, that's the tagline.

The tagline is Share is not an acronym, it's what we do. Great. That's great.

Yes. Elizabeth, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I was just gonna say it's the longest running conference in the world since 1955.

That's correct. Since 1955 share was started by the first, uh, the first purchasers of the I bm, um, business class machine back in 1955. And it was either 13 or 17 of them.

All my share people now are gonna call me up and yell at me for not remembering that number properly. Still. That's impressive, impressive, impressive.

Elizabeth, look, you work for ibm, so we're gonna kind of put the onus on you here. Of course, there's much more going on at IBM Tech Exchange than just Open Mainframe, but how does it work if people come out for the Open Mainframe Summit? Do they get to stay at Tech Exchange as well?

Or is it separate? Yeah, it's, it's the same pass for the, for the whole week. Um, and so technically the Open Mainframe Summit Summit is landing on our Community day.

And so there's a bunch of different communities coming together, um, who are all having their own set schedules, um, on that first day of the event. Um, and then it transitions, um, into sort of a broader event, um, that's more centrally choreographed. Um, and, and like that, but the community days, you know, really where we can make our own space, which I think is a really nice fit for the Open Mainframe Summit for sure.

Fantastic. Um, And I I also, go Ahead. I'm Sorry, go ahead.

I also wanted to, to add onto what Donna was saying, um, as someone who's relatively new to this space, um, I wanna add that like, you'll, you'll go into these spaces and you'll see lots of people who are friends already, and it'll be a little bit intimidating, but, but don't be scared. People have been so kind and so welcoming, especially if you really show up. Like if you engage, if you put yourself out there and talk to people and try to get involved.

Um, like the, the most valuable thing I found about the summit last year, being in person was like, it, it demystified a lot of the projects and the people for me, um, and it, you know, these are not just products you pull off the shelf. You can go talk to the developers, you can get involved, and those conversations that you have there are incredibly valuable to the project leads. Like they will listen to you and it's going to be more memorable than, you know, an email or a Slack message.

Um, so just getting there in person is incredibly valuable to everyone involved. I would add to that, that, you know, one piece of advice you could give to anybody that attends any of these events is don't be afraid to ask a question, no matter how stupid you think it is, because these people are so passionate about what they do. They eat, sleep, live, breathe this stuff, and they love nothing better than to share that information.

So if you want to make friends for life, ask questions and listen to their answers because they will happily explain anything you want them to explain. Just ask all the people I work with here. You get the passion of people and they, they love to hear about it.

That's, that's absolutely for sure. I, so on the other half that we talked about the call for papers closing here in a couple weeks, um, and Elizabeth, I know you've spoken at this event before and knowing sort of this year we're kind of having the two events talk to somebody of like, if they're thinking about putting a paper in, like what they should think about, like what sort of things do you think would really resonate with this community? I, I think for sure it's gonna depend on the, the venue.

Um, there's the really, there's a really good blog post that went out with the call for papers and I, I highly recommend people reading the blog post because it'll give you sort of a background of, of what the events are. So obviously with the Fin FinTech event, it's gonna be a more financial focus. Um, and with tech exchange, I, you know, I don't, I think it's all gonna be very technical, um, but I think with Tech Exchange you may have access to a more developer audience, um, potentially.

So just some things to keep in mind. And the session formats are a bit different because, um, with the event, the, the open source and finance event, um, we are going to be more, um, in line with their event schedule. Um, whereas the one in Las Vegas, we're gonna have a bit more, um, freedom to do what we want based on what the submissions are.

Yeah. Guys, are we looking for any topics in particular for either one of these events? I, Rick You guys are on the program committee, so I wanna hear from you.

What do you wanna hear? Yeah, Look, my perspective is, is along the lines of case studies, you know, use cases, because we're at an interesting point with the project and with, and certain elements of the project, let's say like Zoe, right? I think we're reaching this critical mass or achieving this critical mass of, uh, people that are using, let's say, technologies like Zoe.

I think arca, uh, the Arq yearbook, mainframe yearbook, they had recently reported that I think some 20% of the respondents were actually using Zoe and 30% were planning to. So as you think about, as we think about evangelizing more of what the pro, you know, the different, uh, projects can do under, under O M P, the more we can showcase, uh, people actually using that in their, in their organizations becomes important. I would, uh, add to that too, Rick, maybe, you know, the use cases of folks who are implementing Zoe, right?

Who've just implemented Zoe for the first time and, and really kind of the tips and tricks. What did you learn along the way? The good, the bad, and the ugly?

Tell us everything, right? Share your experience, your infor you know, the, anything that you learned throughout that process, because that's the stuff that people really wanna hear, right? Because if they're thinking about do, doing this implementation, they wanna know what to look out for, they wanna know what they should keep in mind.

Those kinds of things. And, and, and adding on to Donna and Rick, um, what were the alternatives that you considered to what you actually ended up implementing with Zoe or any other of the technologies from the Open Mainframe project? Because, uh, that could save, uh, people a lot of time to, uh, going back and just doing the same thing all over again.

Uh, cause it might just streamline it and get people moving faster and, uh, through, through their, uh, discussions internally. Yeah, Definitely. And I think one theme, maybe the need kind of cuts across a lot of this is, is looking at sort of the, the, the new growing, you know, main framers out there.

Um, you know, from uh, a next generation perspective, a diversity perspective, and just kind of showcasing the amount that is out there. Cuz this is, this is where this is all going. And, and, and I think if you're someone, especially if you're new in your career, I will, I will tell you the one thing that you might be very intimidated by somebody new in your career of going and presenting this audience will love you.

I remember our first mentees we brought to share back in 2016. They were, they were like the, the, the talk of the show. Like, people loved them.

They had full bags of swag to go home with, um, business cards. Everyone knew them. A bunch of them are hired now in places.

So, I mean, it's, it's a really, really exciting, uh, bit there. So don't definitely be intimidated, um, by this audience cause it's stupid. It's still very, very welcoming and uh, it's good to see a lot of like diverse views and diverse backgrounds in that because that's truly what just drives the stronger community.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Guys, you know what I'm sitting here thinking, you know, we, we spoke a lot about people who maybe wanna speak at these events for people who just wanna attend though.

How, how do you, is there an Eventbrite? Is there, like how, how do people go about registering for the events? So you register through the events, through kinda the respective, and we have some links on the website that can help direct you to it.

Um, to register for the New York event, um, you register for the larger open source and finance forum, um, event. And so this is just sort of a piece and part of it. Um, and for the open source summit in Las Vegas, it's a part of the community day of tech exchange.

You register for the larger tech exchange. Um, and we have a blog post and an event thing on our website that can direct you right to the right places. org?

John? Yep. Mainframe project org.

And you can look right at our events page and it'll, it'll get you right to where you need to be. Fantastic guys, what about from our panelists? Who's gonna be at these events?

Any of Youlan? Yo there fantastic. Yeah, Rick, you'll be there, Donna as well, Elizabeth.

So look, if you want to meet these rock stars in person, there's your chance, uh, you'll be there. I Am not bringing the Blowfish with me. Alright.

All. Alright. You said it not me Are, But you know, seriously, we, it'll be a pleasure to see you there cuz the community does come out in force and I, I wanted to emphasize something Elizabeth said, cuz she is the newest person, I guess at the table here.

Don't be intimidated. You shouldn't be intimidated. I, I will tell you, you know, I'm a bit of a gadfly.

I hop, I hop from group to group to group. I go to a lot of conferences. The mainframe community is probably one of the most welcoming communities that you'll see in the tech world, right?

Because we do, we have people like Len who, you know, who've been here, been there, done that, and have the t-shirts to prove it right? But we also have people like Elizabeth who are brilliant people and new to the project. And then, you know, even younger people, right?

Over the course of our almost two years of doing open mainframe videos here, we've met the, the education programs and the college professors who are, you know, making sure kids learn mainframe in school today and learning cobalt and, and stuff like that. And all of these folks are welcome. All of them are welcome and part of the community.

So please don't feel intimidated, right? This, this is, this is a great place to cut your teeth in a, in a vibrant even, you know, a mature but still maturing community. I, I, I, uh, encourage you all to go there.

Hey, we're almost outta time. It, it, this is, well I think we're over time already actually, but I want to thank each and every one of you for participating John and, uh, as usual, fantastic job, John. I Was gonna give you the last word.

Awesome. Well just, uh, call for papers closes June 30th. So get your papers in.

Uh, registration is open now for both events. Um, we have links on the website and, you know, keep posted. We're gonna be doing the announcements of the schedule for both events in, in July and into August.

So, uh, keep posted on that and hopefully we're gonna have a real great program. All righty, Donna, Elizabeth, Rick and Len, of course. Thank you so much.

We hope to see you again on future episodes of the Open Mainframe. Uh, until then though, this is Alan Schmo for Techstrong. Thanks for joining us today and we'll see you at the Open Mainframe Summits with an S, New York and Vegas.

Fantastic. We're out. Thanks everyone.

Bye everybody. Bye bye.