I was recently in NYC hanging out with people who do not have a technical background (the extent of their IT knowledge is how to use the iPad and iPhone!), let alone knowing what a Mainframe is. We got to talk about our careers, what we do and what we would like to do in the future... Now, these people were a journalist who works for a major international TV station, two university professors and an interior designer...
From my experience in the Mainframe business (getting up to a quarter of a century now) I can say that most of the people I have met over the years, did not plan to be in this business: they found themselves in it and for most of them it is not been a very happy ride. Most of the people I have met highly dislike their job. They think what they do makes absolutely no difference in the lives of others on a daily basis and, at the end of the day, they all dream about being laid off with a fat severance package and go do what they really would like to do (it mostly involves escaping to a semi-deserted island and sell shaved ice cones to tourists while wearing nothing more than shorts!).
I personally always wanted to cook for a living and was lucky enough (even though at the time I did not think so) to be able to live my dream for a few years, and I can tell you something: be careful what you wish for because your dream might come true and turn into a nightmare!! After 5 years of running my catering business I realized that the world of IT was not so bad after all.
Yes, of course in the catering business I had the instant gratification of seeing happy customers and receive loads of compliments about the food, but at what price? I was busy 24/7, neglecting my family and myself and the physical effort was making me age faster than I could say 50!
So, you might think, what does this have to do with iMainframe? Bear with me a bit longer and I will tell you...
As I said previously most of the people who work in the Mainframe business just found themselves in it and stayed. And the general assumption is that other professions are more of a call and people are drawn to them because of passion for journalism or because they want to make a difference in the lives of others etc. Speaking to my non-IT specialists friends in NY I found out this is not true at all... I was a bit shocked I must say. I kept thinking: 'How can someone be a journalist without being passionate about it?'
At the same time I was constantly confronted with articles about Steve Jobs' death and it got me thinking... Here is a man who followed his passion and created something great. He created things that make a difference in the comfortable life of a lot of people. He made IT come closer to the general population. When did this ever happen in the Mainframe world?
Never, you might think... and I must bitterly admit it is true, but things could be different.
If we, the Mainframers, would find better ways to explain what we do and how it positively affects the lives of millions of people (think bank statements or payroll or booking a flight to name a few examples) I am sure, slowly, we would also feel prouder of our profession. We need to be proud and 'spread the light' because even though in our inner circle we think we are the best, guess what? Nobody else outside our 'circle of trust' does... they all think we are nerds ( I had a lady telling me that since I am Italian I must work in fashion and that she really could not picture me being someone who works with computers!!).
We need to start showing the next generation how cool a Mainframe can look (think about groundbreaking products like Chorus and MSM), use the social networks, never miss a chance to tell what we do, speak about the secret passion that makes us go forward, the sense of belonging to an elite community and how, what we do, makes a huge difference in the lives of people.
And only after we have done so, we might be able to use the term iMainframe!