I love adventures!  I just returned from a week long cruise to the Caymen Islands, Cozumel, Belize and Honduras.  Each day I tried something that was a little bit outside my comfort zone.  In Grand Caymen,  I snorkeled and then swam with the stingrays. In Cozumel, I grabbed a cab and discovered Chankanaab park. In Belize,  I did some cave tubing (and felt like I was Indiana Jones!). And finally in Honduras,  I drank too much rum and imitated statues!  The big life lesson that was reiterated in this grand adventure was that while it takes a little effort to try different things, the rewards are exhilarating!  Don’t let anything hold you back.

I think we can take this life lesson into the new year!  Sometimes the routine gets too comfortable….especially in our work lives. Sometimes we have to push beyond our comfort zone and try things that may take a little more effort and feel a little bit different than normal to really reap new benefits and gain greater satisfaction.  At ProData, we try to do that with our products so that you can stretch your output in your work environment and your job satisfaction.  We add new products to our product line, we increase the functionality in our current products and we put ourselves out there on the road just to keep our finger on the pulse of the IBM i programmer’s community.

Looking forward to 2014, our first venture out will be at the RPG Summit in Dallas in March.  We have not been to Dallas in quite some time, so look forward to meeting with a lot of our current customers, like Sally Beauty Company out of Denton, TX.  Will you guys be there?  We love all our customers in that region and we especially love the System i Developer Group and continue to support Susan Gantner and Jon Paris in all they do for the IBM i world.

Next up will be the IBM Common, back in Orlando.  Is it me, or do we seem to land in Orlando quite frequently?  No matter, it’s a beautiful destination and will get us out of this polar freeze, which we have been experiencing in the Midwest (altho it sure was cold when our cruise landed in Tampa last week!).  At COMMON, we hope to talk with our customers, business associates and IBM i industry leaders to get ideas on additional enhancements we can make for a new release of DBU, RDB Connect and any of our other many utilities.

Throughout the summer months the regional conferences keep us rolling.  We are looking at a few of these as well as some specialty conferences and will keep you posted on our mid-summer adventures!    These groups are critical to the IBM i ecosystem and keep us moving in the right direction.

In October we will hit a couple of big shows.  We will be at the new IBM Enterprise conference in Las Vegas.  This will be our first outing at the conference that tends to IBM Power and Z series participants.  We are looking forward to extending our reach outside our comfortable IBM i focus and see what we can do in this arena. It’s a challenge and it’s exciting!  Then we will also be back at the Fall COMMON in Indianapolis.  I love Indy!  It’s a good vibe.

Finally we will support RPG Summit once again in the Fall.  We will follow them whereever they may be as they always create a great environment for brainstorms!  We hope to see you on the road!  Isn’t it time to step out of your office and go on a new adventure, too?