With a drop in attendance at other unrelated conferences, OCEAN has not only offered a discount rate to the event but an extension to the original deadline. Current OCEAN members may now receive the discounted price of $120 until July 6, when the rate increases to $220. Nonmembers may attend at the $220 rate if registered before July 6 when the price rises to $320. The conference price includes both breakfast and lunch that Monday at the Irvine, Calif., Hyatt Regency.

Bob Langieri, OCEAN User Group president, and the other OCEAN board members have stressed the importance of users staying current on their technical skills, and the group has dedicated itself to presenting educational programs and seminars that do just that. In order to keep costs down, OCEAN is using its reserves to help subsidize the upcoming conference, making it affordable to everyone.

The OCEAN user group "Catch the Wave" Technical Conference and Vendor Expo for IBM System i and Power Systems--scheduled for Monday, July 20--is divided into several tracks, including application development, new career skills, System i and Power Systems infrastructure, and systems management. The application development track is subdivided into intermediate and advanced RPG and application modernization. The new career skills track is divided into .NET, PHP, Web services, WebSphere, and SOA.

The expected 200-300 attendees will learn about eBusiness Web tools, security and infrastructure, Web modernization, and integration tools. "The vendor expo will provide an excellent opportunity for iSeries vendors to meet the developers and managers that have a voice in the selection of software and utilities," said Langieri in a memo to members. "There will be about 30 vendor exhibitors, and this is the only event of its kind in Southern California."

OCEAN user group will use the event to celebrate its 20th anniversary on the eve of the conference with an open house "meet-the-speakers" reception event on Sunday evening, July 19, from 6:00-7:30 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine. The OCEAN seminar is fee-based, but the vendor expo is free to the public.

"The OCEAN 'Catch the Wave' technical conference has always been the absolute best educational value for IBM professionals," Langieri says. "We understand that we are in tough economic times, but this is also a critical time to increase your value by upgrading your skills."

Given that some of the industry's top subject-matter experts--including Carol Woodbury, Bob Tipton, Bob Cozzi, Sharon Hoffman, Mike Pavlak, Craig Pelkie, Paul Holm, Doug Mack, Isabel Sato, Scott Klement, and Alison Butterill--will be among the featured speakers at this year's conference, users can hardly get a better educational value for their hard-earned recession dollar. If they can get their employers to give them the day off to drive--or fly--to Irvine, California, and pay for their entry fee, all the better, but if they can't during this time of economic uncertainty, what is preventing attendees from investing in themselves? One has to ask only one question in order to determine whether such an investment is worthwhile: whose career is it, anyway?

To learn more about the conference and to view the full list of session abstracts, click here and then on "Technical Conference" in the left column.