System iNetwork

February 26, 2008

A Goodbye from Product Guy

The title sort of says it all. After almost 17 and a half years of covering the AS/400 and its successors, I'm moving on. The time has come for me to take wing and start a little business venture of my own while I still have enough career left to have a chance to make it amount to something.

Product Lines, though, will continue. We're doing a little reorganizing as we launch our new website, and some dear colleagues with whom I've shared many happy experiences will be jointly appearing in this space to keep you updated on what goes on with new products for the System i. Rather than try to take on every product area, as I have, my successors will specialize in different topic categories and trade off speaking when events in their areas justify it. They'll provide some different voices and perspectives, and I hope you will make time in your busy lives to pay them some attention. They will prove as dedicated to providing you with reliable information as I have always tried to be.

I feel very lucky to have had the tremendous run that I have in covering this platform, which qualifies as a truly remarkable phenomenon. Although I've said it before, it bears my saying one final time that for a single computer platform to have lasted as long as it has in this industry is rather amazing. I have thoroughly enjoyed covering it all and watching it evolve, and fortunately for all of us (or perhaps I should instead say "all of you"), it still has plenty of life left despite its already long tenure in the world of business computing.

When I think back on all my years, I find my memories organizing themselves around COMMON, the gatherings where those of us in the System i industry have had our rare chances to meet each other face to face. Anaheim was my 25th, a fitting number on which to conclude. My first COMMON was in Las Vegas, in the spring of '91, where we stayed at the Bally but had sessions across the street at Caesar's Palace. I'd never been to Vegas before, and I was fascinated by the moving walkways that helped people enter Caesar's. (I was also amused by how the walkways went in but none went out. It seemed a little unfair to me that, after having its way with you, that casino didn't at least give you a free ride to the curb.) There wasn't a trade show associated with COMMON then, so my job that first time was to absorb info and count heads at sessions to help us figure out what article topics would be best for us to provide.

Midrange Productions did the trade shows back then before it went under and COMMON started offering them. One of the most memorable of those was in Boston in '93. I was bringing my new wife along for a honeymoon after the show, and I still recall the vendor party on a boat anchored in Boston Harbor and how our booth was next to Ken Akren's and he kept shooting everybody with Silly String when floor traffic got light. (See, Ken, I told you I'd get back at you for that one day.) The other memorable MP show was the one in Edison, New Jersey, in November '92. It was at a hotel so far out in the sticks that even my cab driver didn't know where it was. It was so far between the hotel and the conference hall that you couldn't walk between them in under an hour, and there was absolutely positively nowhere to get a meal except at the hotel's single, sad little restaurant. Lucky for us we don't see shows like that anymore!

Things got better after COMMON unbent a little and let vendors put on a trade show, starting in Atlanta. Was that in '96? But it started out as an ugly stepchild. That first time, the show floor was several blocks from any conference hotels. Many attendees didn't know how to find it and missed the one tiny sign advertising shuttles to it at the headquarters hotel. Although caused by the lateness of the decision to incorporate a show into that COMMON, that distance was more than a little symbollic of the "arm's-length" attitude COMMON took to the vendors then. Some wags (who, me?) might say they've moved all the way up to the sharp elbow these days. But that would be exaggerating.

Some COMMONs are memorable because of their location. San Antonio, for example, is a beautiful city, and I've enjoyed my visits there quite a bit. Nashville, site of this year's COMMON, features the Gaylord Opryland Resort, a botanic garden masquerading as a hotel and conference center, an environment so inclusive some of us still refer to it as "The Habitat." I walked in the door one Saturday afternoon and didn't see the sun for five days. It's a nice place, really, but I expected to see an activity wheel in my room. Since I won't be there this time, someone give the palm trees a pat for me, won't you? I hope that some day COMMON can return to New Orleans. It's a grand American city that deserves better than it's gotten. I still remember the sick feeling I had flying back from COMMON Orlando as my plane had to dodge Hurricane Rita while she finished Katrina's task of turning the proposed COMMON New Orleans that year into COMMON Minneapolis.

Some COMMONs are memorable for silly things that happened: a bunch of editors getting lost in a Tijuana taxicab at COMMON San Diego, me being late to a vendor dinner because the bus from the airport got lost at the last COMMON Orlando. I can't remember at which COMMON it was that I put Garrett Heaberlin into hysterics by positing a Celebrity Death Match between the Linux Penguin and the Help/Systems Robot. (Forgive me, Tom.)

Of course, I have plenty of proud achievements not associated with COMMON: countless articles, columns, and product roundups on topics no one else has offered you; writing a science-fiction serial for e-Pro Magazine, our Notes/Domino publication; working on the AS/400 Sourcebook, which I still miss; 15 April Fools projects; and, of course, Product Guy and this blog.

I have these and so many other great memories that I'll remember for as long as I live. I've met so many great people, too. I hope old friends will stay in touch with me at ghrist@comcast.net.

Before I finish, please bear with me while I thank a few people, Oscar-style. My thanks to Dave Duke for hiring me so many years ago and to Wayne Madden for his leadership in the years since. Thanks to Ronnie Patterson, Trish Faubion, Katie Tipton, Kathy Blomstrom, Kathy Nelson, and Dale Agger for being the best collection of bosses a guy could have. Thanks to all my fellow editors and all our technical editors, for their friendship and guidance. Special thanks to Erin Bradford, who showed me that even after 15 years, I could look at the product editorship with fresh eyes.

For the geek in all of us, just imagine me closing with Bilbo Baggins's final line in The Return of the King. And to all of you, my very best wishes for you in your adventures, too.

Posted by at February 26, 2008 10:32 AM