The 2024 Winter SHARE conference will be held in the Rosen Center hotel in Orlando, Florida, starting this coming Sunday, March 3.  This one is a 5-day conference, with the last day (Thursday) being a full day.  If you are attending, check out the agenda and download the SHARE app for your mobile device.

I don’t have the Technical Agenda from a previous SHARE conference to hand, but it seems like there are more sessions in parallel than normal (for example, there are 13 sessions all at 9:15 on the Monday morning); maybe it is my imagination, or maybe it is because the conference ends on Thursday.  But in any case, when building my plan for the week I’m finding that I have many instances of scheduling clashes between multiple sessions that I really want to attend.  If you are attending with colleagues, I suggest that you sit down in advance and agree who will attend which session.

Our week will kick off with the keynote session at 7:30 on Monday morning.  Those that know me will be aghast at the idea of me being up so early in the morning – obviously I am not in control of the session scheduling 😊.  Much more importantly, however, is that this will be Cheryl’s last SHARE conference, so if you would like to give her your good wishes, maybe grab a selfie, or even snag an autograph, this will be an excellent opportunity to do so.

Given the short week, and my unofficial role as Cheryl’s paparazzi blocker, we only have 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 – Spring 2024 Collection session. This will be one of the last sessions of the week, and it is a descendent of Cheryl’s famous ‘Chery’s Hot Flashes’ sessions, so we are hoping that Cheryl will join us – this gives you another opportunity to wish her and her husband Tom well in their upcoming adventures.

There are many interesting sessions this week, some related to z/OS V3.1, but there are also many other topics – I don’t think there is a single slot when there aren’t multiple sessions I would love to attend.

Some of the sessions I would love to attend (but often can’t because of scheduling clashes) are:

Tuesday

And that’s just for the first two days! We’ll be back in a day or two with some suggestions for Wednesday and Thursday – and remember that Thursday is a nearly-full day, with sessions running until 15:30, and our zRoadshow session from 13:15 to 14:15.

Many of you will know that we (Watson & Walker) have a strong working relationship with IntelliMagic.  Intellimagic’s co-founder, Dr. Gilbert Houtekamer, recently announced his retirement.  Like Cheryl, Gilbert will be at SHARE next week and is looking forward to meeting up with old friends and reminiscing about ‘the good old times’.  This is going to be a SHARE conference to remember, with two titans (and two good friends) of the mainframe performance world, both in attendance for the last(?) time.  If you know Gilbert, make sure to say Hello and wish him a long and happy retirement.

If you are going to be at SHARE, please say Hi if you see us.  And don’t be shy about wishing Cheryl well with her next big adventures.  We hope you have safe travels and an enjoyable conference.

Frank