A number of individuals were honored by IBM at the recent Information on Demand conference in Las Vegas, Nev., including MC Press author Roger E. Sanders.

IBM recognized industry contributors to various technology blogs, Web sites, conferences, and book and magazine publications with special individual awards. Recipients were honored by having their profiles posted on the IBM Information Management Web site, receiving special invitations to events, receiving engraved crystal awards, and getting virtual badges for email signatures and community site recognition. IBM is calling those recognized "Data Champions."

"Technical communities, Web sites, books, conference speakers and blogs all contribute to the success of IBM's data management products," the company says. "But these activities don't run themselves. Behind the scenes there are dedicated and loyal individuals who put in their own time to run user groups, manage community Web sites, speak at conferences, post to forums, and write blogs. Their time is uncompensated," the company said in a statement.

Sanders was among 23 individuals honored by IBM at the conference. All are listed on IBM's Data Champions Web site. Sanders, a consultant corporate systems engineer with EMC Corp. who also is president of Roger Sanders Enterprises, Inc., has authored 17 books on DB2 and one on ODBC. Among his current works are DB2 9 Fundamentals; DB2 9 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows Database Administration Certification Study Guide; DB2 9 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows Advanced Database Administration Certification Study Guide. They are available through the MC Press Book Store.

"I felt very honored to have been selected," said Sanders after the conference. "To me it was IBM saying ‘thank you' for all the work you have done over the years promoting the DB2 product."

Sanders has written articles for Certification Magazine and IDUG Solutions Journal, and has a regular column called "Distributed DBA" in DB2 Magazine. He authored tutorials for IBM's developerWorks Web site, and has given presentations at numerous international and regional user group conferences.

A designer and developer of database applications for more than 20 years, Sanders has taught classes on DB2 fundamentals and database administration drawing on years of experience gleaned from working with DB2 as far back as when its predecessor was part of OS/2 1.3 running on the IBM PC.

Chris Smith was the Senior News Editor at MC Press Online from 2007 to 2012 and was responsible for the news content on the company's Web site. Chris has been writing about the IBM midrange industry since 1992 when he signed on with Duke Communications as West Coast Editor of News 3X/400. With a bachelor's from the University of California at Berkeley, where he majored in English and minored in Journalism, and a master's in Journalism from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Chris later studied computer programming and AS/400 operations at Long Beach City College. An award-winning writer with two Maggie Awards, four business books, and a collection of poetry to his credit, Chris began his newspaper career as a reporter in northern California, later worked as night city editor for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, and went on to edit a national cable television trade magazine. He was Communications Manager for McDonnell Douglas Corp. in Long Beach, Calif., before it merged with Boeing, and oversaw implementation of the company's first IBM desktop publishing system there. An editor for MC Press Online since 2007, Chris has authored some 300 articles on a broad range of topics surrounding the IBM midrange platform that have appeared in the company's eight industry-leading newsletters. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..