Last week I joined the IBM Z Advocacy Office Hours - September - US & Canada, featuring special guest Jennifer Nelson. As I've mentioned before, I'm self-taught on mainframe, and this session turned out to be one of the most encouraging hours I've had in this journey so far.
A funny moment from the session
Jennifer talked about how even her own family asks her the same thing - whether anyone still uses mainframe. I found that pretty funny, because even in my short time learning mainframe, I've heard that exact question a lot of times.
What we covered
We also touched on the idea that we should stop defending the mainframe and just show it off instead. That really connects with my own experience - I only found out about mainframe because I know someone who works closely with it. On my own, I probably never would have discovered it, because in 18 years of my life I basically never heard anything about mainframe, while I heard about other systems and technologies all the time. So I think promoting it and actually showing people what it does is really important, otherwise most people will just never even know it exists.
Jennifer also talked about starting your advocacy journey as an introvert most mainframers are, by her own admission and how you just have to get comfortable being a little uncomfortable at first. I could really relate to that. When I started posting, I was scared my posts would look stupid, and I was afraid to message people because I thought they just wouldn't reply. But after some time, I feel a lot more confident about it now, and honestly it's become something that motivates me and makes me want to keep going.
We also talked about the Advocacy Hub in general like how to report an activity, how the points system for badges works, and what opportunities are open right now, from writing content to helping amplify IBM Z Day in November.
Why this matters for anyone learning mainframe
If you're new - student, career switcher, self-taught like me, so these sessions are genuinely worth your time. First of all, it's just really interesting and gives you a new kind of experience. You get to hear a lot of new things directly from people who actually work in this field and are real professionals, and you can also make new connections along the way.
I wasn't able to attend live, so I watched the replay of the August session instead. You can watch the replays of both the August and September sessions here: https://community.ibm.com/community/user/blogs/iskrenna-panayotova/2026/08/14/2026-ibm-z-advocacy-office-hours-series