I'm a little late to the conversation, I was off work the last few days.
So here is my 2 cents.
For those of you that may not have heard of me, I am the webmaster for
www.youngiprofessionals.com and one of the leaders of the YiPs group. Our
primary focus is to bring more people to the IBM i platform. We currently
work with the IBM Academic Initiative and are building our own projects to
"preach" the advantages of our systems to the masses.
All it took to build our little group from a few scattered members that
met at the COMMON annual conference to an organized and enthusiastic
community was the commitment of a few members to put forth some time and
effort. Now, we have our website (running entirely on a 570 using open
source applications), regularly scheduled conference calls with IBMers,
and the support of IBM, COMMON, and many individuals wanting our efforts
to succeed.
In addition to my work with the Young i Professionals, I have also begun
to write articles for various newsletters and trade mags as well as
speaking to groups such as LISUG about running open source applications on
IBM i. The one thing that has stood out most to me as I have started
these various projects has been the excitement of the various
organizations that I have worked with. All of the magazines, newsletters,
Local User Groups, etc. that I have dealt with in the last 8 months have
been looking for people willing to stand up and be an IBM i
evangelist/activist/promoter (pick your favorite). In fact, I have more
requests for interviews, articles, opinions, presentations, and
group/committee memberships that I have time for at the moment.
All anyone can do is get involved. If your local college does not offer
IBM i classes, just offer to come in and speak to a class or two about IBM
i and answer their questions about it. I would be surprised if an
instructor declined your offer. If you have problems finding staff, voice
that need to the academic community, bring on interns from your local
university, or hire people whose resume does not have the keywords of
"RPG", "AS/400", "CL", etc. and teach them on the job (from what I have
seen and heard from others, PHP developers make great RPGers and vice
versa). Doing so only increases the workforce available to the community.
Brian May
Project Lead
Management Information Systems
Garan, Incorporated
Starkville, Mississippi
Young i Professionals
http://www.youngiprofessionals.com
midrange.com
