Opening letter

2024 was an amaZing year, and the best part had to be meeting all the incredible New to Z community members either virtually or in person. 

I’m excited for 2025, we will continue to grow the New to Z user group in to a curated space for all things that are for New to Z, while continuing to be inclusive of anyone interested.

Each month we will continue to hold both a technical talk and career conversation, work with the Washington Systems Center to bring you their legendary tech bites sessions, grow our New to Z chapters globally, and create spaces at larger events, like IBM TechXchange where we can get together.

This is your community and you will continue to see updates taking place as a result of your feedback. Have any questions, or have topics you’d like to see covered, let me know in the discussions.

Shari Chiara

Upcoming New to Z Events

Virtual

January 23 - 11 am ET - Ask what Zowe can do for you, and what you can do for Zowe? Learn more and register

February 11 9 am ET - Industry-leading security with IBM Z hardware. Learn more and register

In Person

January 23 - Dallas, TX. Learn more and register

February 19 - Vancouver, Canada Learn more and register.

Featured Event replays:

Thanks to your feedback, we’ve created playlists that have replays of our recent events for both our technical talks and career conversations. Catch up with anything you’ve missed .

If you missed our first Career conversation of 2025, you can catch the replay below:

January 9 - How to talk to executives.

You still have the opportunity to participate in IBM Z Tech Bytes and earn up to 3 badges. Learn more

Meet up Groups

Our new to z local chapter program is growing, and we are starting to set up meetup groups for these chapters. If you are located in or around any of the following locations, please join the meet up group. Local events are being planned and will be added in the meet up group and New to Z user group shortly.

United States

Dallas, TX

New York NY

Minneapolis, MN

Canada

Toronto, Canada

Vancouver, Canada

APAC

Australia / New Zealand

Interested in creating a New to Z chapter near you? Find out more here.

Featured blogs

The Quantum Computing Era: Implications for Mainframe Security - Madeline Sanchez

SDSF Tips - Filtering Job Names - Morag Hughson

Advocacy

It’s a new year, which means the 2025 IBM Z and LinuxONE Advocacy badges are available.

Do you:

• speak at events?

• contribute to open source?

• write blogs?

• mentor others?

• play a leadership role in a user group?

Acts like these, that are not part of your job, are all examples of advocacy and can be reported to claim your 2025 advocacy badge. Learn more and claim your badge.