A Few New 2015 IBM Champions I want To Thank

Oh the stories we could tell...

Many of us know each other, if not in person, then online and usually we found each other through blogs and sessions we gave at various events. Or at a User Group event or Lotusphere, IBM Connect, now IBM ConnectED. But sometimes we never meet which is a shame and some people, myself included, never know just how much we helped or are helped by others until they come up and tell us.

I was named a 2015 IBM Champion for ICS for the 3rd year in a row. I don't know what I did to deserve it, but I do know a few new people and why they deserve it from my view. I nominated some, and they were accepted, which is always nice to hear. First and only IBM Champion for ICS based in Israel, I now have some serious evangelizing to do to get ICS a bigger push here.

There are a few people I want to mention that I am really happy to see today including:

Daniel Nashed probably has done the most for me from his blogs and especially his AIX perspective over the years with his scripts. I can't thank him enough and very happy to hear he is an IBM Champion. Thank You!

Richard Moy who has tirelessly made MWLUG the great user event that is each year. Very happy to see him, and many other LUG founders/leaders named IBM Champions. My only regret is I did not make it this year, we were moving country at the time. If you are in the Midwest you should go to the next event held in Atlanta in August 2015, it is in a different city every year. Richard also works with me on some client applications and has never let me down.

Kim Greene whom I have worked with in the past, I greatly respect not just for her iSeries knowledge but her excellent sessions on troubleshooting and maintaining Domino servers. If you have an iSeries or Power and do not have her working on your servers, shame on you.

Mark Myers who puts all he has into his work and his presentations to provide some absolute genius development code. And reminds me why I should not code. Ever. A great man that probably has no idea how much we all love him and appreciate him. Let him know next time you see him.

Thank you to the review board and to our chief cat herders Oliver and Amanda who somehow keep sane while dealing with all of the things we manage to raise awareness about over the year.

Congratulations to all 96 of us who made it this year. You can read the full list and official announcement here. Oliver published this post about the process IBM made to find the new IBM Champions after my post went out.

Do, or Do Not, There is No Try

Yoda always had a way with words.

It seems my activities in the last year or so on this blog have been slacking, a sure sign I was busier at work and home. Twitter was down too, I know hard for you to believe. But for those keeping score, my Klout score is still hanging around 62-64, so maybe I was more active than I thought.

And yet I did get to do all of this:

• guest blogged over here a bit
• live tweeted, not one, not 2 but 3 Palm Beach Operas (La Cerentola, La Traviata and Salome) and doing it again for Macbeth right before heading to Orlando
• was rewarded with another year as an IBM Champion
• home schooled my kids (and still do) and it's been great
• spoke at SugarCon for the 2nd time in a row
• got to listen to and spend 1 on 1 time with the great Paul Greenberg
• attended and spoke a few times at my first ever IBM Impact 
• shot a few videos for/with IBM and fellow Champions
• spoke at MWLUG and had a great time with everyone in Indianapolis
• finally went on a trip with just my wife and no kids for the first time since the oldest was born, we went back to Israel for the first time since 2001
• paused my other blog

But I did not write any articles this year that were published, first time in a while. No books written either, although I have some in mind, both technical and fun. I will at least look into having these books published and if there is interest will start writing them.

I want to write more articles this year, well even 1 would be more than last year, so will work on this as well.

The muse just wasn't very active and I apologize, but as it appears, I have been blogging for 7 years so maybe this was a little sabbatical and now I will ramp back up.

Of course, Lotusphere Connect 2014 is coming up and I will post more on this in time.

See you in Orlando I hope and since my session is on Sunday at 10:30am no reason not to pop in, that is unless you are on the hog ride that morning.