It’s official. I’ll be attending Dell EMC World 2017. I’ve been invited to attend on a Media/Analyst pass.
Naturally, I’m excited and looking forward to it. This conference seems to be causing a small amount of confusion for folks who’ve attended past events. Folks who came from the EMC side (I include myself in this group) have to keep correcting themselves when they call it “EMC World”, and folks who came from the Dell side have to keep correcting themselves when they call it “Dell world”.
But “Dell EMC World” it is. I’m looking forward to seeing the joint solutions and how the two technology portfolios are coming together.
A Brief Personal History
I’ve attended every EMC World since 2010. Yes, I’m aware that there are others who’ve been going much longer, but I’ve possibly got them beat on the number of different roles I’ve attended as.
- 2010 – I attended as an EMC employee and worked in the VNX booth, giving demos on VAAI integration.
- 2011 – I attended as an EMC employee. I had no set booth, but gave a couple presentations in the VMware booth. I also gave my EMC/VMware integration presentation in an electronic whiteboard format that was streamed live.
- 2012 – I attended as a Sponsor. I helped represent Accunet Solutions in our booth on the EMC World Solutions Exchange floor.
- 2013-2015 – I attended as a Partner, splitting my time between technical sessions and the Global Partner Summit sessions.
- 2016 – I registered as a Partner. About two weeks before the event, EMC’s Analyst Relations group reached out to me and invited me to attend the Analyst/Media events at the conference. This put me in the unusual spot of being the only attendee to have simultaneous Partner and Analyst/Media status.
I also used EMC World 2016 as an opportunity to launch the GeekFluent Minicast — something I keep telling myself I need to pick up again. - 2017 – I will be attending Dell EMC World as Analyst/Media.
What This Means to Me
Personally, I enjoy that much of the technical industry in general, and the IT industry in particular, has embraced tech bloggers as Media. I get as much of my technical info and opinions from other bloggers as I do from “actual” Media. I certainly find that your average blogger is far more likely to engage in a dialog than your average media outlet is, and I’ve seen a lot of great ideas grow out of good dialogs.
It’s also somewhat humbling to be considered an “Influencer” in this space. Whenever this term is applied to me, I’m tempted to compare myself to the people who are my influences and I see them writing more and having larger followings than I do. It’s pretty great to know that some folks consider me worthy to be included in that company.
Will You Be There?
If you’ll also be at Dell EMC World this year, reach out and we can make plans to meet up at the event.
If you won’t be there, feel free to let me know what things you’d like me to write up about the experience there, or which products and solutions you’d particularly like me to report on. I’m always open to suggestion.
