“‘There are two conceptions of the mainframe: shops that say it’s the center of their business and shops that say it’s the dinosaur of their business,’ Eunice said. ‘Sure, there are new z customers — sometimes in non-traditional industries — but if I’m a Windows guy, I’m not going to go look at System z.’” (Searchdatacenter.com – IBM zEnterprise Mainframe embraces Unix and Linux)

“Despite growing their overall MIPS, one mainframer at a Fortune 500 manufacturing company using zLinux reported that his firm is migrating its Linux instances off the mainframe onto its VMware clusters. The cost of running Linux on VMware is about the same as running it on System z, he said, but it’s much easier to find open systems and VMware people than mainframers, he said.” (Searchdatacenter.com – SUSE zLinux shops unfazed by Novell Attachmate deal)

In context neither of these quotes suggests that Mainframes are going away but these both provide a little insight on the reality of mainframe world.

“Social networks cause many problems, and a few opportunities.” Slide 15

Shift in online usage is not about belonging to a certain social network but about connecting to people. Slide 31

“Understanding sociability will become a core requirement for designing online.” Slide 33

“Understand BEHAVIOR, not technology.” Slide 35

“Social networks are not new.” ~Slide 45

Things that create social networks: Lifestages, Shared Experiences, Hobbies, Family. I’m sure there are more. Slide 58

Most groups are defined not as “friends” but as something that ties that group together. Slides 75-82

Strong ties vs. Weak Ties. Slides 95-113

“Our brains can only keep up with about 150 weak tie relationships.” Slides 114-120

“Social networks don’t necessarily create more connections, they just make our existing connections more visible.” Slide 121

Temporary Ties. Slides 125-

The rest of the slides talk about how people are influenced and about the importance of creating transparency on websites with regards to user privacy.

What an excellent presentation!

Details: Memory on the mainframe works with priority and interrupts.  Essentially, ever LPAR is set to have a weighted priority.  Tasks with a higher priority will always go first.  If another task is running and a task with higher priority is presented, the running task will be interrupted and the higher priority task will run until it is finished or a higher priority task presents itself.

It’s not a whole lot of info but I justwanted to write it down.

Someone already answered that question on his blog (thanks Mr. Huggins) so check it out.

http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/tek1/prefixes.htm

I hoped maybe Yottabyte was referencing Yoda since he must have 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 working neural net pathways but I guess that’s not the case.

In our home we did a few small things like paint and what not and then last year just before our fourth child was born I decided to knock down that wall in the kitchen that I always felt should not have been there.  Well, in an older home, doing some small remodeling projects usually opens up a can of worms.  Knocking down a wall isn’t small so we opened up a can of snakes.  I remodeled the entire kitchen.  It’s awesome too.  It still ate into our wallet even though we saved thousands doing it ourselves.

Back to the topic at hand…I learned a lot.  Hands-on learning is definitely my preferred method of learning.  In the intern program I’m working on my fourth rotation.  I feel these rotations provide the most learning out of any element within the program from classes to books to shadows to mentors.

Not only have I learned a lot about the specific jobs and locations that I’ve rotated to but I learn the tacit (non-tangible) lessons about the unwritten processes and political rules of the organization.  You just can’t get those lessons from a book.

As I think about the Neighborhood Cleanup that I’ve implemented and am leading with the Church sponsorship, I think about all the “How’s that gonna work” questions that I had at the beginning.  It really comes down to exhibiting some faith and going to work.  I’ve learned a lot about “How it’s gonna work” and so far it’s working out well.  If it didn’t work, that would be okay too.  The risk that a project or effort might fail can always be looked at positively as a learning experience.  Isn’t that why we are all here, anyway?

I also learned about one of the powers of the mainframe.  It has kept it “power” because it used Dynamic Address Tables (DATs).  This allows multiple users to access the systems at one time.  When we talk about a user, we really mean I/O devices.  On a PC, once you have 5 to 15 users logged in, the system is bogged down and doesn’t function smoothly.  Mainframes can have 1000s of users and still have no issues.  That’s why ATMs work so well.

I also mentioned something I learned about communication in the workplace.  People with poor communication skills need leaders with good communication skills in order to translate and keep the peace.  It seems like that is one of the key skills of a good manager.  Also, on a spiritual level, God ultimately understands all of us the best, so if He is willing, then it would behoove us to use him as our manager and consult him when it comes to having succesful communications with others.

Another spiritual tie, God must be a mainframe or use DATs since he is able to compute all of the prayers, thoughts and actions of billions of people.  He might delegate a little, too.

On a final note Ronald Reagan said, “All great change in America begins at the dinner table.”  I’m down with that.

Management is the plan, the program, the coordination of efforts.

Sharing is the actual doing.

Many have complained that DISA does not have a Knowledge Sharing Culture.  Even the Campaign Plan is seeking to “provide a collaborative, efficient, and effective information sharing…environment.”

So I asked myself, “Why don’t I Share?”  Here’s what I came up with:

Too busy.

No reward.  It’s not part of my job.

Nobody asked.

I might be wrong.

I’m not the authority on the matter.

Everybody else already knows.

Will anybody see what I document?

I think these are probably typical answers of most of our employment, especially the “too busy/no reward” answers.

Many times we hear that our agency (specifically, the older generation) feels “knowledge is power” and “if I share, I will be giving away that power.”  I haven’t experienced this attitude yet and I’ve asked for many people to share their thoughts, feelings, and ideas.  In fact, I think the roadblock to sharing is that we don’t encourage it enough or in the right ways, however I know that the powers-to-be are working to remove that roadblock.  I am looking forward to the improvement.

Why don’t you share?  Please, take a minute and “share” your answers with us.

It seems like good advice  to get into the bosses head and do what they want.  Bosses want to get ahead, right?  Most bosses are striving to work up the ladder just like you and I.  So that means most bosses are thinking, “How can you, my worker, get me ahead?”

Let’s look at an alternative to this thinking:

What if the boss asked, “How can I get my worker ahead?”  I know, you’re thinking that if the worker get ahead they’ll leave the boss behind.  Not necessarily.  When we empower those below us to get the job done then they will get it done and likely get it done well.  This makes the boss look good to his boss.  Also, if the worker is a good person, which most people are, then she will remember the empowerment extended her and return the favor in some way.

It’s all about developing relationships of trust.

Think about Christ…His goal is to empower each of us to get to the top of the ladder.  He mentors, guides, trains, etc.  Does He do it for His benefit?  Yes, it adds to his glory and it means that His work will get done in a better way.  He doesn’t get the benefit at our expense though.  We are also benefited from His empowerment of us.

It’s the Golden Rule and contrary to popular belief, it can work in the political world of organizational management.  The boss is empowered when she empowers her workers.

Thanks Paul for the thoughts.