Travel continues to be the great educator

Leadership Meetings are always rewarding simply by being held!

Early January kicked off with the NTI leadership meeting. As of January 1, 2024, Margo and I working as a team are now the marketing team for NTI. Many of you may recall we have been engaged in support of NTI’s marketing efforts on behalf of its sales team so this change is simply a transition that has been underway for some time. Having said that, Margo and I are most appreciative of all that the senior management of NTI have given us through the years. We are remaining under the leadership of the Sales organization, of course!

We are not lessening the engagements we have with our other clients but rather, it is an acknowledgment that interest in all things NonStop is visibly improving. The NonStop vendor community is stepping up its investments in NonStop with funding for new product development, services offerings and the support of regional groups. It all is showing real signs of improvement following the years we missed out on due to COVID. The global pandemic appears to be well and truly behind us and this increased investment is evidence that NonStop holds its own when it comes to supporting mission critical applications – a remarkable achievement given that shortly, NonStop will be celebrating its 50^th year of existence!

Leadership meetings can be fun just as they have moments of seriousness. Tackling growth requires prioritization and for NTI at least, the focus is now firmly on migrations and the modernization of infrastructure. Much of these developments will be covered at upcoming events, with the first event of the year, the gathering in Chile of the LATAM NonStop customers in that country. The turn out was very good as evidenced by the many photos taken during the event that have begun to appear in various posts and publications. Congratulations are in order for all those involved in making this event as successful as it was.

It’s not all that often that I reference a post to our social blog, Buckle-Up-Travel. Although I always include links to these posts at the end of this article – and again, you will find them included alongside all of the business posts made this period – but with all the talk of change, resilience and transformation, for Margo and me this has hit a lot closer to home. Check out this post by going to –
https://buckle-up-travel.blogspot.com/2024/01/less-than-thrilling-times-but-die-is.html

I reference this post as it addresses a number of questions that arose during our time at the NonStop TBC 2023 Conference in Denver. We are on the move as circumstances make it impossible for us to consider further residence in the mile high city. With that, we have a series of moves being planned and if all continues to go according to these plans, by early next quarter you may run across us somewhere between North Carolina and Florida. What is important for Margo and I to convey is that there will be no disruption to our professional lives even is this life-altering transformation comes at a time when one set of plans is firmly overlapping previously set plans and as we absorbed the need to change and are adapting as I write, this transformation clearly demonstrates at a personnel level, resilience we often overlook.

What are those previous plans? They all have to do with participating in upcoming NonStop user events – decisions made at the recent NTI’s leadership meeting. Shortly we will be flying to Australia to attend OzTUG meetings in Sydney and Melbourne. This international trip will be followed shortly afterwards with a flight to Berlin for the pan-European eGTUG conference. On our return, we pack up the car – not sure yet which one as it will be weather dependent – and head to Atlanta for ATUG, then Tampa for SunTUG before heading west to Dallas for N2TUG.

Following our Spring engagements and with the approach of Summer firmly in our sights, it will be a short drive down to Las Vegas for HPE Discover 2024 (will we see you there?) before a trip to attend at the NonStop TBC 2024 Conference in Monterey, California. On the way back from Las Vegas we will stop at Monterey to finalize plans for NTI’s entertainment at TBC 2024 so that is something to look forward to reading in a future article to this publication

As you can tell, our support for the NonStop community shows no signs of lessening and all told, we wouldn’t want it any other way. Celebrating fifty years is a significant milestone for any tech manufacturer and Margo and I have talks about getting to this milestone as being almost miraculous. Who knew? Both of us came to the original Tandem Computers campus in Cupertino in the 1990s – Margo arriving a few years before me – and, as a result, we have been associated with Tandem and later NonStop across four decades. For our business of storytelling, what this has created is so many storylines that I cannot see anything easing up on that score as we see a new era for NonStop beginning as the impact from NonStop becoming almost a pure software play gradually taking hold of mindsets across the NonStop community.

When it comes to storytelling and the reference to NonStop and to modernization, resilience and transformation – and yes, for my latest article on modernization look for it in this issue of NonStop Insider – you can read my most recent posts by simply following the links below.

Real Time View column (The Connection):

January – February 2024
New Year Fireworks Means New Year Resolutions
https://connect2nonstop.com/new-year-fireworks-means-new-year-resolutions/

Real Time View blog:

December 13, 2023
Did someone say party time?
https://itug-connection.blogspot.com/2023/12/did-someone-say-party-time.html

January 16, 2024
What’s new with NonStop may not appear to be shiny and yet NonStop will allow us to shine!
https://itug-connection.blogspot.com/2024/01/whats-new-with-nonstop-may-not-appear.html

Buckle-Up:

December 25, 2023
All at sea … untethered and happy!
https://buckle-up-travel.blogspot.com/2023/12/all-at-sea-untethered-and-happy.html

January 31, 2024
Less than thrilling times but the die is cast!
https://buckle-up-travel.blogspot.com/2024/01/less-than-thrilling-times-but-die-is.html

Follow me on LinkedIn and look for my regular commentaries on the industry, HPE NonStop and the community as I am now posting on a more regular basis.

rkbuckle@gmail.com

Richard Buckle
Cofounder and CEO
Pyalla Technologies, LLC.