Our charter is to bring speakers and presentations

to the Minneapolis Convention Centre that are of interest

all the people in the IS Twin Cities Community

Our Spring meeting will be Thursday, May 21 at the Minneapolis Convention Center. This meeting will have a variety of topics, ranging from Universal Database to connectivity, Web access, Oracle, and CICS user exits. Note that we are once again sending out the newsletter with one month's notice to ensure timely receipt.

Our keynote speaker at 9:10 is Mr. Tom Mitchell. His presentation is "DB2 Universal Database Version 5." There has been quite a bit of talk in the industry about IBM's latest version of DB2 for the UNIX and Intel platforms, DB2 Universal Database. This presentation discusses the exciting new features contained in the DB2 Universal Database product and the way it can help your company move forward in the client/server and Network Computing world. From Web enablement to data warehousing and decision support to scalability across numerous platforms, many companies see Universal Database as their strategic tool to take them into the 21st century.

Mr. Mitchell is a Certified Software Specialist for Enterprise Data with IBM Corporation. He was one of the first two individuals in IBM to be certified as a Database Specialist. He has extensive experience with IBM's database products across all platforms, and is a frequent speaker at database user groups throughout the Midwest. He regularly consults with IBM's database development labs, providing design guidance and recommendations for product enhancements. He has been with IBM for 25 years, working primarily with IBM database and application development products. Over the years, he has helped many Twin Cities area customers with DB2, which includes the first installation of DB2.

At 1:00 on Track 1, Mr. Tom Mitchell will present "IBM Data Management/Database Connectivity." There is a rapidly increasing requirement in the industry today to move data from one database to another as well as to provide users and applications access to single or multiple, heterogeneous database(s) on a wide variety of platforms. This presentation will discuss IBM products designed to help our customers accomplish these complex objectives. Bruce Staberg of Northwest Airlines will be joining Tom to talk about NWA's current implementation and future plans for replication of data between DB2/MVS and other databases on a variety of platforms throughout the organization.

Also at 1:00, our Track 2 speaker is Mr. John Hennen, speaking on "Oracle and Data Warehousing." This presentation will cover a broad range of topics, including business justifications/return on investment factors, data warehousing components, technologies employed in data warehousing, Oracle's product strategy, and implementation issues. This presentation will also touch on the latest directions and trends in the industry.

Mr. Hennen is a Principal Sales Consultant and Database Product Specialist at Oracle, where he has worked for seven years. Recently, he has been providing architectural advice to corporations throughout the Midwest. He is a specialist in data warehouse technology and related business issues. He also has a strong background in general relational technology, object technology, and open systems architecture.

At 2:30, our Track 1 speaker is Mr. William (Bill) Fessler. He will speak on "Process Re-engineering through an Enterprise-Wide Intranet." This presentation will discuss how re-engineering of company processes can be facilitated through the implementation of a company-wide Intranet, which can significantly improve effectiveness and efficiency of intra-company business tasks, processes, and procedures. The following topics will be discussed: paperless work environments, elimination of support 'middlemen,' participatory human resources management, and sales force automation.

Mr. Fessler is Senior Director Corporate Systems at Deluxe Corporation. During the past 32 years, he has been instrumental in utilizing state-of-the-art technologies to solve complex business problems and opportunities resulting in measurable financial rewards for his employers. He has provided independent management consulting to numerous companies, technology consulting to various companies, countries, and vendors, given various presentations and seminars around the world, and worked with Chris Gane on the development and marketing of the Stratis methodology. During the past four years, he has been an advocate and proponent of Web-based computing within Corporate America for educating our children and providing knowledge to our citizens.

Also at 2:30 on Track 2, we have Mr. Christopher Frank speaking on "Exploiting CICS User Exits - A User Experience." CICS/ESA provides a number of different forms of user exit. All of these have seen additional functionality added in recent releases; and with global exits in particular, the number of points where these can be invoked has increased dramatically. As CICS is a general TP monitor, installations often find it necessary to use these facilities in order to extend the base CICS product to meet an installation's unique business needs. More and more CICS exits are being used to integrate products into CICS, so we need to understand how these interfaces work...and why they sometimes don't. Even if you never personally write an exit program, you need to understand how they interact with CICS and with each other, as well as how they can improve your ability to support your environment.

Mr. Frank has over 19 years of IT experience, 17 of which have been with CICS. He works for System Technologies, Inc. He actually volunteered to speak!

This is just a reminder of our dues policy. A corporate membership at $250 allows a company to send an unlimited number of people to meetings. An individual membership is for a specific (named) person to attend meetings, and is $100 per person. Starting with our May meeting, we will be validating 1998 membership. If you or your company are not a member, the single meeting fee will be $40.

Email us at tcdbug@geocities.com or at richard.casement@bestbuy.com.