While many people have been working from home for quite some time, a traditional office was the norm for so many others. Indeed, it is the camaraderie with talented and caring people that makes our workplaces as special as they are. When we were all obliged to stop meeting in the office, lots of us felt cut off and out of touch. For those of us who perform more effectively in an in-person environment, the feeling was even more intense. Video conferencing, while hardly a new technology, has brought us together in a whole new (and perhaps permanent) way.
Through my travels, I know members of the IBM i community are both closely connected and mutually supportive, regardless of their global coordinates. It is truly as wonderful as it is astonishing. Certainly, technical conferences and user group meetings are excellent vehicles for fostering personal and professional growth. With these venues being closed for the foreseeable future, we need another way to keep the community together. Enter iChime.
iChime, an online ZOOM forum, encourages anybody in the community to participate. In fact, in our first three meetings, attendance has grown from less than ten to thirty people, across TEN time zones. Truly remarkable! What I found most interesting is regardless of where our associates live, we have learned how similar our concerns and day-to-day issues are.
In this one-hour(ish) meeting, which takes place roughly every ten to fourteen days, discussions have been widely varied. Attendees have included technical people, system admins, recruiters, managers and independent consultants. There is definitely no shortage of topics. As for the topics themselves, a small sampling of recent discussion items is:
- Working from home
- What we might expect from our users / management once we return to “normal”
- How the 24/7-time requirements have changed our care and feeding of IBM i
- Proper scheduling of system backups
- Preparing for the next round of projects
- Readying our applications for future large demands
- Being better ready for a disaster
I hope you will consider joining our next iChime meeting. Why not bring someone along, such as your manager or consumer of your software? Everyone’s opinion is welcomed and valued.
The meetings are scheduled for 2:00 PM Eastern (New York) time. Given the broad time zones we are spanning, this time works best.
To register and be notified of future meetings, visit www.centralparkdata.com/ichime.
See you there!