SPARTA News October 2001

October 2001

SPARTA Chapter President’s Corner

- by Brad Carson

Our September meeting brought us a presentation by SPARTA member Chris Blackshire on giving a presentation. Chris explained that he uses M$ Powerpoint to give most of his presentations. Some of the key things that Chris told us were: 1) Do not try to put too many things on one slide. 2) Do not over do using graphics, sound, and animation as they can detract from what you are trying to say on the slide. 3) Any presentation is really trying to sell something like an idea, a plan, or a product. If you keep these things in mind when developing your presentation it should help you produce a clear and concise presentation.

October has been a busy month here at LabCorp. We have migrated DB2 V7.1 into production with all the new IBM DB2 utilities. We are now beginning the migration of CICS/TS 1.3 into our test regions. We are also in the midst of the conversion from Jobtrac to OPC (a big conversion), TLMS to RMM, and Endevor to SCLM with the Breeze extensions. Along with all this we have installed the Omegamon products (MVS, CICS, and DB2) and are learning to use these as well. November looks to keep this pace up with other tools we are converting from and the installation of MQ/Series. This year has gone by so fast with us being busy.

Our presentation this month will be from Computer Associates. I'll look forward to seeing you all on the 30th.

Our next meeting is on Tuesday, October 30th, at LabCorp. BarBQ, drinks, and dessert will be provided.


Future Speakers
(subject to change)

Oct. 30 CA BrightStor Storage Management by Jerry Paterson
Nov. 27 OS/390 Tech Conference Report? by GlaxoSmithKline

We need ideas and volunteers for future speakers. Presentations don’t have to be fancy, just informative and interesting. Even a 5 or 10 minute talk can start an interesting interaction. Contact John Bryant by phone or e-mail as noted below.

2001-2002 SPARTA
Board of Directors

Brad Carson - President
LabCorp 919-572-7504
1912 Alexander Drive
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 Brad_Carson@labcorp.com

John Bryant - Vice President
GlaxoSmithKline 919-483-9548
5 Moore Drive; D.111
RTP, NC 27709 JEB33378@gsk.com

Mike Lockey - Secretary
Guilford Co. Information Services 336-412-6235
201 N. Eugene St. 336-227-2021 (Home)
Greensboro, NC 27401 MLOCKEY@netpath.net

Duane Reaugh - Treasurer
DTS Software 919-833-8426
2913 Wake Forest Road
Raleigh, NC 27609-7841 Duane@DTSsoftware.com

Ed Webb - Communications Director
SAS Institute 919-531-4162
SAS Campus Drive 919-362-0232 (Home)
Cary, NC 27513 EDWISTUO@aol.com

Meetings

Meetings are scheduled for the last Tuesday evening of each month (except no meeting in December), with optional dinner at 6:15 p.m. and the meeting beginning at 7:00 p.m.

These monthly meetings are held at LabCorp’s Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology (CMBP) near the Research Triangle Park (see last page). Take I-40 to Miami Boulevard and go north. Turn right onto Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn Left to the CMBP Building. In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Brad Carson. Brad will escort you to the conference room.

Call for Articles

If you have any ideas for speakers, presentations, newsletter articles, or are interested in taking part in a presentation, PLEASE contact one of the Board of Directors with your suggestions.

Newsletter Mailings

The SPARTA chapter policy is to mail a copy of the monthly chapter newsletter to each SPARTA member, NaSPA national, each advertiser, persons who have requested a copy, and to other chapters who send us a copy of their newsletter. The newsletter is mailed about the 20th of each month so you can prepare for the meeting. The mailing list is maintained by Mike Lockey at (336) 412-6235; if you have corrections or problems receiving your newsletter, call Mike.

Latest CBT Tape Online

The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V438 (dated August 1, 2001) are available from www.cbttape.org.

If you need a complete tape, contact Brad Carson at LabCorp or Ed Webb at SAS (see Board of Director’s list for contact info).

Minutes of the September 25th, 2001 Meeting

•Meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM by Brad Carson, the Chapter President.

•Ten (10) people were present; all were members.

•Everyone in the room introduced themselves, told where they worked, and briefly described their job function.

•The minutes of August 2001 meeting were accepted as published in the September 2001 newsletter.

•Duane Reaugh, the Chapter Treasurer, was unable to attend the meeting. As of August 28, 2001 the balance is $488.08.

OLD BUSINESS

•Articles are needed for this newsletter. If you would like to write an article for this newsletter, please contact Ed Webb. Keep in mind that you don’t really need to write the article, it can be an article that you read that you would like to share with the membership.

•The SPARTA Web page is now available. To access the SPARTA Web page, point your Web browser to this site: www.netpath.net/~mlockey/sparta.html. Please send any comments or suggestions about the Web page to Mike Lockey (mlockey@netpath.net). Be sure to check the Web page every once in a while to see any new or changed information.

NEW BUSINESS

•Future Speakers and Topics:

October 2001 - Jerry Paterson of Computer Associates
November 2001 - TBD
Other ideas:
- Conversion to RMM - Tommy Thomas
- TDMF - Ken Frump
- WLM Goal Mode - Jim Horne
- UNIX Services for OS/390
- IBM New Announcements
- CICS Web Bridge

If you have suggestions about speakers and topics, contact John Bryant.

•John Bryant mentioned that EMC would like to host one of our meetings. Those in attendance had no problem with EMC hosting a meeting.

•Food for the October 2001 meeting will be BarBQ and sodas.

•The October SPARTA meeting will be held at LabCorp in RTP.

•Thanks to Brad Carson of LabCorp for hosting the September meeting.

•The business portion of the meeting ended at 7:50 PM.

•Chris Blackshire of Perot Systems talked about Making Presentations. The topics Chris discussed were:

Preparation
The customer
What is their interest?
Who are they?
What do they do?
Management - don’t want details - big picture
What is their level of expertise?
How much time do you have?
What is your purpose?
Appeal to interest, before intellect
What benefit can I offer?
Focus on the customers needs
Nerves
Be authentic
Be a servant
Focus on the customer
Keep the spotlight on the audience
Fear is your friend
Getting the point across
Decision Drivers
Words 7%
Physiology 55%
Posture, gesturing, grounding, eye contact, facial expression
Develop a base
Go home - where you feel comfortable
No jingling (remove keys and change from pocket)
Facial - smile (attitude is contagious)
Do your best - be you - be consistent
Eye contact
Voice 38%
Tone, pace, tempo, timber, volume
Visual support
Larger is legible
Bold is better
Brief is best
Bullets bring focus
Limit to bullets per page, 6 works per bullet
Do use projectors, flip charts and handouts
Don’t use pointers
The presentation
The right stuff
Message - make it exciting
Amount - fit the time
Structure
Delivery - use your energy, but don’t race
Words - fit to your audience
Short speeches are not always the best - but the best speeches always seem short
Four phases of the presentation
Tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em
Tell ‘em
Tell ‘em what you told them
Call for action
Questions
Watch for and welcome questions
Repeat question, if not everyone has heard it
Clarify before answering
Confirm response as acceptable
Don’t know? Say so!
Final countdown
Arrive early
Setup room
Test equipment
Check materials
Greet customers
Practice
Practice, practice, practice
Rehearse
Be prepared
2 minute drill (memorize first 2 minutes of presentation)
Summary
People do business with people, not companies
Help people become successful
All is selling
Have a plan
Do well, not perfectly
Practice
2 minute drill
Don’t hurry
Excellence through continuous improvement
Call for action
What are you going to do to get better?

•The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 PM.

Treasurer’s Report for September 2001

contributed by Duane Reaugh

As of August 28th we have $488.08 in the bank.

Items of Interest

SHARE Minneapolis Proceedings on the ‘net

contributed by Ed Webb

SHARE Minneapolis proceedings are now available:

http://www.share.org/proceedings/sh97/share.htm


SHARE Webcast about Network Management

contributed by Ed Webb

>From SHARE e-mail:

Don’t forget to sign up for the next SHARE Real-Time Webcast on Enterprise Systems / Network Management on an Extreme Budget. This new learning opportunity is provided free-of-charge from SHARE, the original IBM users group. Details are below. Register today! (If you have already signed up, please forward this invitation to a colleague.)

Next SHARE Real-Time Webcast:
Enterprise Systems / Network Management on an Extreme Budget Tuesday, October 30, 2001 - 1:00 PM EDT (12:00 noon CDT, 10:00 AM PDT). Reserve your participation at http://www.regsvc.com/share.

The SHARE Real-Time Webcast is an hour-long virtual technical session that delivers SHARE-quality education simultaneously to your desktop and telephone. Participants view presentation slides while listening to live speaker audio, thereby creating a virtual classroom from the convenience of your home or office. Audience members can even submit questions to the presenter during the session.

While many of us have great needs in the areas of network and systems management, not all of us are given the budget to succeed (especially lately). For those of you in this predicament, Don Mahler of Telcordia will detail some ideas on techniques, products, and political strategies that can help. Free and inexpensive software will be discussed, as well as tools you may already have, but are under-utilizing.

Don Mahler, Enterprise Management Architect at Telcordia Technologies, has worked in systems/network management for the last 10 years, including mainframe, server, network, desktop, and applications management environments. Don is a veteran presenter at technical conferences, with experience that includes SHARE, AOTC, and Planet Tivoli, on topics such as Tivoli TEC, SNMP, NetView/NGMF, network management, and automation in general. Don has been awarded the SHARE best session award four times.

Sign up for this real-time Webcast and receive additional details at http://www.regsvc.com/share. Registration for this event is open through the start of the webcast.

This unique educational opportunity is provided FREE-OF-CHARGE by SHARE. Be sure to complement this offering by attending SHARE in Nashville, March 3-8, 2002. Event information is available at http://www.share.org.


Humor


Kids Say the Darndest Things

contributed by Chris Blackshire

Things that some teachers have gleaned from their students’ papers

The future of “I give” is “I take.”
The parts of speech are lungs and air.
The inhaitants of Moscow are mosquitoes.
A census taker is a man who goes from house to house increasing the population.
Water is composed of two gins. Oxygin and hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water.
H20 is hot water and CO2 is cold water.
A virgin forest is a forest where the hand of man has never set foot.
The general direction of the Alps is straight up.
A city purifies its water supply be filtering the water then forcing it through an aviator.
Most of the houses in France are made of plaster of Paris.
The people who followed the Lord were called the 12 oppossums.
The spinal column is a long bunch of bones. The head sits on the top and you sit on the bottom.
We do not raise silk worms in the United States, because we get our silk from rayon. He is a larger worm and gives more silk.
One of the main causes of dust is janitors.
A scout obeys all to whom obedience is due and respects all duly constipated authorities.
One by-product of raising cattle is calves.
To prevent head colds, use an agonizer to spray into the nose until it drips into the throat.
The four seasons are salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar.
The climate is the hottest next to the creator.
Oliver Cromwell had a large red nose, but under it were deeply religious feelings.
The word trousers is an uncommon noun because it is singular at the top and plural at the bottom.
Syntax is all the money collected at the church from sinners.
The blood circulates through the body by flowing down one leg and up the other.
In spring, the salmon swim upstream to spoon.
Iron was discovered because someone smelt it.
In the middle of the 18th century, all the morons moved to Utah.
A person should take a bath once in the summer, not so often in the winter.