One of the things I’ve learned in my five years at IBM is that the enterprise nature of the company means that our IBM-branded events are incredibly important to our ecosystem, and people are really excited to attend them, me included. Brand events are something I’ve definitely seen in my two decades in the tech […]
Archive for the ‘tech’ Category
Open Mainframe Project at IBM TechXchange 2024
November 19th, 2024 by pleia2
A few weeks ago I had the privilege of traveling to Las Vegas to participate in the IBM TechXchange 2024 conference. My big project there was as one of the leaders of the Open Mainframe Project event, which we’d been working on for months and took a bunch of my time (and stress!) during that […]
IBM Telum II at Hot Chips
September 12th, 2024 by pleia2
Back in 2021 the IBM Telum processor, the heart of the IBM z16 mainframe, was unveiled at Hot Chips (video here). I watched the recording when it came out, absolutely glued to each little detail that was presented, even the ones I didn’t fully understand (after all, I’m not that much of a processor expert). […]
Solo time at baseball and RSA 2024
May 29th, 2024 by pleia2
I’ve always known I was an introvert, but my need for alone time to recharge was always a rather casual thing. Sure, I’d miss some parties and maybe I don’t go out as much as other people, but that’s OK. Having kids has changed that. I get very little time to myself, and ultimately it […]
Open Source Summit 2024
May 1st, 2024 by pleia2
My journey to the Open Source Summit North America came on the tail of the Texas Linux Fest, so I flew to Seattle from Austin on Sunday afternoon. A quick ride on light rail put me in downtown Seattle where a short walk got me settled in to my hotel that I’d call home base […]
5 years at IBM
April 30th, 2024 by pleia2
On April 30th 2019 I had my first day at IBM. Five years ago! I began my job on the road, as would characterize much of 2019, where I met my new boss at IBM TechU, which I wrote about here: IBM TechU 2019 in Atlanta. It’s with IBM that I found a new way […]
Texas Linux Fest 2024
April 14th, 2024 by pleia2
The last Texas Linux Fest I attended was all the way back in 2014, which means it had been a full 10 years since I’d been. I was supposed to speak at the event in 2020, but no one spoke in 2020, so I was really happy to finally, finally be back. But first, I […]
Celebrating 60 years of mainframe in Poughkeepsie
April 12th, 2024 by pleia2
On April 7, 1964 the IBM System 360 was launched, with much fanfare from (and risk to) IBM. I’ve recently been reading the biography on Tom Watson Jr. (The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived) and it was fascinating to read about what led up to this launch, specifically that even 10 years prior to it, […]
CPOSC 2024
April 9th, 2024 by pleia2
Regional open source conferences are so important. I’m reminded of this yet again as I come home from another Central Pennsylvania Open Source Conference (CPOSC), which for the second year in a row aligned with our spring visit to Philadelphia. They may not have the numbers power to impress the marketing team or whoever is […]
SCALE 21x
March 21st, 2024 by pleia2
The last conference I went to before the COVID-19 pandemic began was the Southern California Linux Expo, which I wrote about here: SCALE 18x. Being on the cusp of the pandemic, it was a surreal experience. But it’s still one of my favorite conferences, so I thoroughly enjoyed our time there, and the ability to […]