Pesky End Users, Not

In an earlier blog, there was a comment from James Vincent about being just a 'pesky end user', and I said I'd get back to that. The IBM heritage through the Watson family was customer oriented and embodied by the second of the three original IBM Basic Beliefs:

A desire to have the best customer service of any company in the world.

For the first year or two of my career, customers were like antelope. I had read about them and seen them on television, but never in person. I wouldn't see one until the announce day for VM/SP 5. At that time, it was customary to send programmers from the labs out to branch offices for announce day. I was one of the lucky ones selected, and was sent to Nashville for three days of meetings with customers and IBMers in the field. The customers looked a lot like me, only a little more comfortable in suits. On the last day, a customer jokingly said, "you must be from a development lab, you're wearing a blue shirt." At the time, I was still paying off college loans, so my wardrobe was limited. All the IBMers from the branch office would have fresh white shirts each and every day, so I stood out on that last day. I really should look for my notes from that trip, as I can't remember which customers I visited. I just remember it opened my eyes.

SHARE and other conferences would continue to make an impact on me. Meeting customers and hearing how they actually used our product put a face on both the customer and the business. It was no longer just about implementing a design, supporting an architecture, or adding a new feature. It was about giving our customers what they needed to be productive and successful.

Last year we arranged a couple meetings where customers spoke to the z/VM Development Lab. At first I wasn't sure how many on our team would be able to take time to attend. I was very pleased to see a great turnout for each event. I was even more encouraged to hear some of the feedback as my co-workers got a glimpse of what our customers' lives are like.

One of the most frequent comments was about the awe of realizing the importance of z/VM in a customer enterprise. The idea that millions of transactions, millions of dollars were dependent on z/VM gave them a sense of pride. Hearing of critical monitoring systems running on z/VM gave them a sense of responsibility bordering on duty. While discussing a customer usage of z/VM with one young programmer, he admitted that it made him a little nervous to think of how much people were relying on the code he wrote. I was encouraged, as I knew he got it.

I also heard comments of respect for how much a z/VM system programmer has to know besides z/VM, the various products and systems that make up an overall application solution and business process. The names of some of the products were new to us, let alone how they worked.  We live in our well defined world of z/VM, but system programmers have to journey through different lands of software and vendors.

z/VM system programmers are able to juggle multiple applications and various types of workloads. Their own customers on these z/VM systems aren't simulated workloads, but often people who get vocal and angry when things do not work. They have naming conventions and schedules and change control systems to understand. Most work for corporations in the business of making money. The systems that support or generate revenue are kept running in harmony by these skilled and diligent people.

It's also fun to see how customers use or extend the system in ways we didn't expect. The degree of integration they create is amazing. The example that popped into my head just now is the creative way the NAMES file construct has been used over the years. I've seen customers use it as a mini database, tie it into a disaster recovery solution, or provide a problem tracking system based partly on it. There are also modifications to various components of z/VM, tons of REXX and Pipelines based tools, and exploitation of various user exits.

After hearing and seeing how our customers use z/VM to make the world run, I don't think of them as 'pesky end users'. I think of them more as musicians who take the instrument we craft, and create rich tones from it. It is then that I'm in the audience, listening with pride.