Hi All,

It is hard to believe that the 2024 Winter SHARE conference is half-over already.  And what a conference it has been – our very own Cheryl Watson was presented with the SHARE Distinguished Service Award at the opening session on Monday morning. This honor recognizes Cheryl’s 47 years’ of contributions and dedication to the SHARE organization, its members, and the mainframe platform.  In addition, SHARE presented my colleague Mario Bezzi and me with the John Ehrman Award for our work on delivering technical education and guidance to SHARE members.  I have to say, when I was an eager young System Programmer 40 years ago, I would never have believed that I would someday be working with superstars like Cheryl and Mario, and receiving an award like this – I truly have had a charmed career.

What a fantastic start to a great week. I always say that I learn something new every day.  Well, that’s not true so far this week.  At the moment, I’m running at about TWENTY new things each day, and I expect tomorrow and Thursday to be just as interesting and enlightening.

The conference agenda and abstracts for the sessions are available to anyone here.  Conference attendees can access the agenda, the session handouts, and other material on the events.rdmobile.com website – the link to the site was included in an email titled “Download the SHARE Orlando Mobile App” that you should have received after you registered for the conference.

Given the short week, we are only presenting one session at this SHARE:

  • Thursday, 13:15, Salon 13-14, my colleague Mario Bezzi and I will be co-presenting the Watson & Walker zRoadshow session. We will have our usual eclectic mix of new functions, customer experiences, interesting APARs, and so on – well, neither Mario nor I have any slides yet, but when we do, I expect they will cover all those topics 😊. Much more important, given that the zRoadshow is the descendant of Cheryl’s famous ‘Chery’s Hot Flashes’ sessions, we are expecting Cheryl to join us.

In case you haven’t heard, Cheryl is planning for this to be her last SHARE conference, so if you would like to give her your thanks for all her great work over the years, or your good wishes for an adventure-filled retirement, maybe grab a selfie, or even snag an autograph, this will be an excellent opportunity to do so.

Our W&W Guide to SHARE in Orlando 2024 (Part 1) post included a list of some of the sessions we were hoping to attend yesterday and today (Tuesday).  The following are the sessions on Wednesday and Thursday that especially caught our eye:

Thursday

I think that should be more than enough to keep you entertained for the next two days and on your flight home.  If you are at SHARE, please say Hi if you see us.  And make sure to wish Cheryl well and pass along any paraglider tips you might have.  We hope you have a great week and a safe trip home afterwards.

Frank