It might seem a little late in the day to be talking about a conference that took place last November, but it was such a stunning success that it warrants this review.
For many years now, the GSE UK conference has been the one for mainframers from the UK and Northern Europe to go to. For many years, up until 2019, it has been held at Whittlebury Hall, Whittlebury, near Towcester, in Northamptonshire. In 2020, the plan was to move it to Celtic Manor Resort near Newport, in Wales. However, and these events are not linked, because of Covid-19, the conference went online. And what a fantastic online conference it was.
It ran from 2 November until 12 November. And, apart from keynotes etc, there were multiple streams running at the same time – just like the usual conference. In fact, the conference had 180 sessions, each lasting an hour – and that includes the six keynote sessions. There were 1254 attendees, with the majority coming from the UK, but also people from the USA, Australia, and even the Russian Federation.
It was an amazingly good two weeks. The quality of the presentations was every bit as good as having a speaker in the same room as the audience. The quality of the Zoom connection to the speakers very much depended on how good their broadband and WiFi were. In truth, I watched a couple of presentations where we lost the speaker because of their connection. However, most people had rock solid connections and it all worked very well.
It was disappointing not to spend time in the same room as other mainframers and start ad hoc conversations with whoever was standing near you at the time. And it was a shame not to meet up with old friends that I sometimes only ever see at the conference. And it would have been nice to meet up with colleagues that I probably email every couple of months.
On the plus side, having the presentations spread out over more than three days made it possible to carry out work around the sessions. It was easy to block out individual hours of the day in my calendar for the conference and work normally the rest of the time. Although, having said that, there were plenty of occasions when I wanted to watch two or more live presentations. Good job they were recorded.
And, because the whole conference was free, it was possible for everyone to watch presentations that interested them, rather than just the few lucky members of staff who got to attend the conference. Plus, there were no travel or accommodation expenses – and no worries about who was doing your work while you were away.
Even though (or, perhaps because) the conference was online, there was still a large number of sponsors this year. This included BMC Software, Broadcom, Luminex, Velocity Software, Macro4, SMT Data, Fitz Software, New Era Software, Red Hat, Micro Focus, Zetaly, MainTegrity, z Exchange, Rocket Software ASG Technologies, Model 9, and IBM.
Every year, the conference raises money for charity. This year, the charity was NHS Charities Together (aka the Association of NHS Charities), which is the umbrella organization for the NHS' official charities in the UK. There are 230 NHS charities in the country, which provide extra vital funds and services to NHS hospitals, ambulances, mental and community health trusts, and health boards. This funding is above and beyond what the government provides and is spent on enhancing care and experience of patients.
It's hopefully back to meeting in person for the 2021 GSE UK Conference. The dates for your diary are beginning of November. And the location is Celtic Manor Resort.
I can’t recommend this conference highly enough – whether it’s online or not, it’s brilliant.
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