Four Hundred Monitor, November 3
November 3, 2021 Jenny Thomas
Fast foodies might have caught the recent news the IBM is working with McDonald’s to help automate the drive-thru window. It’s hard to ignore that this development will eliminate jobs, but artificial intelligence makes for interesting reading for our audience so we figured it was worth mentioning. Turns out, McDonald’s has already piloted an AI drive-thru system in 10 stores in Chicago. Those restaurants saw 85 percent order accuracy, with only one-fifth of orders needing a human to intervene and help. It’s rage inducing to leave a drive-thru without everything you ordered, so those numbers are not super impressive, but this is still a work in progress. Right now, not sure “I’m lovin’ it,” but they have a little time to get it dialed in. The current plans sees AI at McDonald’s drive-thrus across the nation by 2026.
Top Stories From Outside The Jungle
(Interesting Engineering) Would you like a side of AI with that Big Mac? Big Blue has a new partnership with a fast food giant.
(TechCrunch) Red Hat is the bright spot in IBM’s recent earnings report.
(ComputerWorld) If you’re a user of Microsoft Teams, there’s some changes in store coming in 2022.
(ZDNet) Some strategies for the new in-person/online meeting hybrid.
(Financial Times) We talk about the cloud a lot in our ecosystem, but a national cloud could be on the horizon for the U.S.
Redbooks, White Papers, Blogs, and Other Resources
(LANSA) This blog reveals the best kept secrets about EDI modernization.
(Open Mainframe Project) Watch this panel discussion for an explanation of what COBOL is and why it matters.
(Illumio) This blog tackles the latest alert from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI and the NSA, which are warning of a relatively new ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group known as BlackMatter.
(TechChannel) In this podcast, Charlie Guarino talks with Mats Lidström, CPO and IBM i chief architect, Apper Systems, about his IBM i journey and his unique perspectives.
(Halycon) IBM Champion Liam Allan is planning a small-scale online event for everyone who is doing development on an IBM i – be it RPG, COBOL, Node.js, PHP. It will be hosted on Twitter Spaces, which means it will be an audio-only live event and you do not need a Twitter account to listen in. Find more details here.
Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings
November 4 – Webinar – Learn how to “Close the IBM i Skills Gap – Low-Risk Strategies for Adopting IBM i Cloud” during this live webinar with Marcel Sarrasin, CPO from Fresche, and Thomas Harris, COO from Abacus, as they dive into some low-risk, high-value initiatives that can ease your organization into cloud and help you better manage your IBM i servers.
November 8 – Webinar – Join N2i for this networking session led by former COMMON president Larry Bolhuis, who brings a wealth of knowledge about IBM i and system administration.
November 8 – Webinar – This COMMON POWERcast features Mike Pavlak, Senior Solutions Engineer and IBM Power Champion and Matthew Weier O’Phinney, Product Manager at Zend by Perforce as they discuss the future of PHP, and how you can leverage PHP on the IBM i to build value for your business.
November 9 – Webinar – To make better data-driven decisions you need to unlock your most valuable asset, location. Join Precisely for a webinar with databricks and CMA and learn to enrich your data for better, more accurate analytical models.
November 10 – Webinar – It’s not the platform. It’s the perception. Join this live webinar as the IBM i experts from HelpSystems offer education around what you should do when facing objections, obstacles, and real-life business challenges, You’ll also learn how to automate, secure, and get data out of IBM i when your staff is not familiar with the operating system.
November 18 – Webinar – Join Profound Logic’s CRO Jordan Antonoff for a business workshop that showcases how to build a strong business case for transformation. We will explore the business issues, strategic imperatives, critical success factors, and expected benefits of code transformation.
November 19 – Online Event – IBM i Developer Day is an online event for IBM i developers, talking about the latest and greatest in development on the platform.
May 23-15, 2022 – New Orleans, Louisiana – Mark your calendar for POWERUp 2022, which will take place in the heart of the French Quarter. This will be the first in-person POWERUp since 2019! Include this exciting conference in your budget planning and come join the community once again for the most extensive and comprehensive IBM i education and networking available.
October 3-5, 2022 – St. Louis, Missouri – NAViGATE is COMMON’s annual Fall Conference. This is an event offering unique in-person and virtual networking opportunities that will take place to allow attendees to interact and share knowledge. Details to come.
