Conferences and Events

A Regional Conference is usually organised annually by GSE in the UK, normally taking place in November. Varied topics are covered and plenty of time is allocated to just "talking shop". See the GSE UK Conference Pages for more information.

At a European level, GSE organises a Management Summit, a Guide Executive Club meeting and paticipates at the IBM Technical Conferences where GSE members can obtain a 10% discount off the full conference fees. Full details of the forthcoming events can be found on the GSE HQ Website and also from the Upcoming Events page.

GSE Working Group meetings and other events are also held throughout the year. For dates and other details of these see the linksto the left.

Publications

GSE HQ Website

• The GSE HQ Website holds information and useful links for GSE Members that operate at a pan-European level. Home pages exist for a growing number of other European GSE Regions. Members can locate colleagues and Working Groups in other Regions that are working in their own areas of expertise, sharing knowledge and drafting European-wide Requirements. Details of all current Special Projects and upcoming Conferences are also held on this Website, together with links to other sites of interest to GSE Members.

Strategic Concerns Survey

• Every other year, GSE members are asked to participate in a membership survey aimed at determining their most important strategic concerns. The results of the survey are then used to determine future European-level Conference content as well as any Special Project work that may be needed.

Membership Directory

• The GSE Membership Directory is a complete listing of all active Working Groups and Projects. To date, there are approximately 270 such groups Europe-wide. Members of GSE can search for colleagues with shared concerns within their own region or anywhere in Europe.

Conference Proceedings

• The presentations given at both International and UK Regional Conferences are published in Proceedings and are available to members.
• Proceedings from the UK Region Conferences, including copies of presentations, will be available on the GSE UK website.

Requirements Status Report

• GSE members are able to submit their product and service requirements directly to IBM laboratories around the world through the Requirements Process. The requirements Status Report is an annual update on the status of over 11,000 specific user requirements.

Requirements

GSE had submitted over 12,000 product and service requirements to IBM for consideration and action. Whilst not all requirements are acted upon, the majority result in the desired change or modification to a product or strategy to suit the Users' needs.

If a requirement is important enough to a wide range of members, it may be escalated and considered a "Matter of Concern". These items receive top priority from the relevant senior executives within IBM.

Co-operation between users and vendors depends to a great extent on the ability to register formal, well defined user requirements. As a member of GSE, the tools to do this are provided, and your installation has the backing of more than 2,000 other important organisations.

More information on the Requirements process can be found here.

Working Groups

GSE Working Groups are formed whenever a group of members shares an interest in a specific topic that they wish to discuss, resolve or investigate. Some of the groups are very specific, such as the CICS, DB2 or IMS Working Groups. Some are more widely defined such as those that cover Business Communications, Application Development Distributed Technologies.

Each year, members receive through their site contacts a complete list of all GSE Working Groups and their contact details. Not only do the members of these groups contribute a great deal of experience and knowledge, but each Working Group is also assigned an IBM Liaison to give direct access to the right people in IBM for the subject being handled.

If you would like to find out more about Working Groups in your area, see The UK Working Groups. Working Group meeting dates are also listed on the Upcoming Events page.