Asleep at the wheel
I am enjoying my latest conference and user group presentations, usually titled along the lines of “How to be an IT Survivor” or “When I Grow Up, I Want to be an i Programmer”. Given there is a lot of apathy and lethargy in our community, it is a chance to stir a little passion. Remember that buzz you got in your first coding jobs? Tap into that for a moment, and see if you can find it again.
It certainly has been well received, but there does seem to be one thing I missed. I discovered that hole during a panel session I was moderating this week at an i conference. There were a lot of questions about what should and could be done about the shrinking numbers of i developers. The answer from the panel, as is usual, covered the IBM Academic Initiative. There seemed to be a lot of interest from the audience, and, as is usual, everyone thought it would be a great idea to have their local college, or local community college, be engaged in teaching RPG, IBM i, etc.
And the conversation went around and around. And the complaints continued. While we all love love love the platform, there are not enough people who know about IBM i, not enough new programmers working on IBM i, not enough, not enough, not enough… So, I asked everyone in the room – about 40 or so, some questions I have used with the i community in the past. I had just not paid attention to the answer.
The questions were:
- “How many of you have talked to your local college or school and encouraged them to teach IBM i and RPG?”
- “How many of you have hired interns from local colleges to work with your IT department with IBM i and RPG?”
- “How many of you have told someone outside this community about this amazing platform?”
- “How many of you have posted something on the web about how this amazing platform?”
And the answer?
.
.
.
.
A deafening silence….
.
.
.
.
What commentary can be made here? Are we, as a community, really missing the point by THAT much?
What is obvious is that a majority of the i community are complaining bitterly about many things – name changes, lack of IBM marketing, shrinking market, smaller numbers of resources, greying of the i population, and so on and on and on. What is now obvious is that the same complainers are simply not DOing anything about it.
Are they willing? I am not sure…. I do know that when I asked those questions, everyone was very uncomfortable, which made the deafening silence become very cold. Does this mean they will now go out and DO something? We hope for that result. Does this mean they will complain less? Most likely not. Does this mean they will remain uncomfortable, mired in their own insecurities and talk about how they were pissed off at this event? Closer to the truth, maybe..
How about you? Are you a complainer, who can reform and become a doer? Are you sleeping at the wheel, and watching the IBM i platform swim right past you into the drain? Are you willing to DO something? Are you willing to ask questions, offer your teaching services for free, preach the i gospel? Every change starts with a small step. Make YOURS today. Make a difference….
i i i i…
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by angustheitchap: Asleep at the wheel? http://blog.angustheitchap.com/?p=159…
[...] Perry writes this week about a recent System i conference he went to, and a panel session he moderated. Anyone who knows Perry knows that he complains about the complainers. That is, he criticizes those [...]
We work at selling the i everyday. But IBM is telling me I need to sell more or I cannot sell any. We work with an experienced group of programmers SAP, JD Edwards, BPCS, etc. I find it amazing that they do not know what is happening with the i. And for the most part they do not care. The advanced ability of the i does not concern them. They are programmers working on specific apps. If they want to run PHP or a web server they feel they should run it on a Linux box. In years past, going back to 1994, I would partner with them. I provided hardware, software and education. This helped keep them informed and was good for them, the customer, me and IBM. But then IBM started charging me for keeping current on the latest release of the Program Products. Suddenly it was not possible to provide these services to them. So they have moved to platforms they perceive as less expensive. And it may be for there development. But then it gets implemented that was as well. Perception is reality. I simply do not have the financial resources to continue as I have in the past, not to mention the time require by IBM today. If IBM would allow us to upgrade development boxes to V6R1, we could better promote the i as well as related software.
We built relationships with customer and in 1994 moved many accounts from the S/36 to the Advanced System 36, (this when they were ready to move to PCs), then to 170s, 720s, 820s, etc. As the boxes got bigger, IBM made it harder for us to be the ones selling the boxes. They would send bigger business partners in to compete with us. Our margins went down. Sales dropped. And now IBM says “you are not selling enough, we do not want you as a partner”.
Software must drive the hardware and business partners must develop and maintain the software. But IBM has forgotten this and I cannot afford to play in their market for the SMb marketplace.
I respect your question/challenge. But when I look back over the last 15 years, I think we have done a lot. But I will agree, today, not so much. I feel bled out.
Don, the post really refers to the i developer who complains bitterly about the perceived problems with IBM i, and is not willing to DO anything about it. For the business partner who is the silent champion of the platform, there are many ways in which IBM can place obstacles. To them, unfortunately, it seems that ~where~ the revenue comes from is not important. And, of course, the smaller business partners are the ones who can invade spaces and business where the larger partners cannot. I agree wholeheartedly that IBM needs to get their act together and facilitate a smooth path to sales for the champion business partners.
In the meantime, I am working to kick some developer butt so they will call you and buy more Power Systems servers running IBM i!
[...] the i Trevor Perry’s recent blog post Asleep at the wheel asks “How many of you have told someone outside this community about this amazing [...]
I was one of those in attendance, and I will have to admit, the silence was not only deafening, but embarrassing as well. Talking to the community college and hiring interns is a great idea and in fact, I got my start with the i through just such an initiative undertaken by the business community. However, not all the people in that room are in a position to hire and fire, and so have probably never thought about approaching the college asking where the RPG programmers are. Also, could it be that there is dwindling demand for RPG programmers, and therefore no need for the businesses to be approaching the colleges? And if so, why? It is up to the programmers to demonstrate that the i can do more than green screen.
Now, your second two questions are about evangelizing the i and all of us have a responsibility to do just that. (Remember Guy Kawasaki, when he was at Apple in the late 90’s? His job was to evangelize the brand, because at the time Apple was supposed to be dying). Trevor’s ‘call to arms’ inspired me to not look so sheepish whenever someone asks me what platform I program on (IBM i) or what programming language I use primarily (RPG). I was at a social event this past weekend and it turned out that the gentleman sitting next to me was a CIO at some company. We started talking and it turned out that they run their POS apps on Linux using PHP and Oracle. I said we use the i and it’s great because we don’t need all these servers or database administrators to keep everything running, it runs PHP, AND it NEVER goes down. He seemed genuinely impressed. At least I changed the perception of the i being an old platform.
Sorry, but there are some ‘deadbeat’ RPGers out there who don’t want to learn anything new and are just trying to make it through the next 5 or 10 years to retirement. Hopefully, it’s not too late to bring some young (and young at heart) developers into the fold who are (dare I say) passionate about developing software in general and specifically on the i. I honestly believe that the i solves some major problems in software development today (proliferation of servers, over-engineered frameworks, etc) , and could quite possibly enjoy a renaissance. Trevor’s questions inspired me to start work on some tutorials, and generally become more active, both at work and outside of work.
It’s not that hard to do. You can start by not looking down at the ground when someone asks you what platform you work on.