Tag Archives: Community

NetApp Names Members of 2017 NetApp United Program

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NetApp has announced the first members of their new community recognition program, called NetApp United. I’m proud to announce that I’m one of those 111 people.

What makes a good candidate for the NetApp United program? According to the application announcement, NetApp was looking for technology enthusiasts who:

  • Have a social media presence
  • Have overall expertise within the technology industry
  • Are a member of the technical community in good standing
  • Are interested in learning more about NetApp products and services

My own NetApp experience dates back to 1993, when I installed several of the first Network Appliance “file toasters” to be purchased in the New England area. Back then the NetApp boxes were often replacing larger and more expensive Auspex NAS devices (although we hadn’t yet started using the term “NAS” at that point). Never heard of Auspex? NetApp is a lot of the reason for that…

More recently, in my last job I got quite familiar with Solidfire‘s scale-out all-Flash arrays. Solidfire joined the NetApp family through acquisition.

I look forward to meeting my fellow NetApp United members and seeing back this program brings in the coming year.

You can see the full list of the 2017 NetApp United members on NetApp’s announcement of the program’s launch.

 

How I Accidentally Became a Conference Keynote Guest Speaker

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Over the years, I’ve attended many industry technical conferences. I’ve been an attendee. I held a whiteboard session that was livestreamed over the Internet. I’ve done video interviews. I’ve been booth staff. I’ve given presentations in booths. I’ve been responsible for the entire booth.

With all that, there are still a few things I haven’t ever done at a technical conference. I’ve never given a keynote speech (yet), and I’ve never been a guest speaker in a conference keynote.

Pure Storage logoEarlier this week, that changed when I accidentally ended up with a (very brief) speaking role in the keynote on Day 2 of the Pure//Accelerate event.

If you were there, you may have witnessed it, or if you were following the event on Twitter, you may have read about it more-or-less as it happened, but I’ve been encouraged to share the story of how it came about. Continue reading →

Storage Field Day 9 (#SFD9) Preview and How to Follow Along From Home

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Storage Field DayIf you weren’t able to guess from my previous post about this, I’m very excited to be returning to Storage Field Day as a delegate for SFD9.

If you won’t be there at the event, I figured you might like more info on the presenters and on how you can follow along — in real time.
Continue reading →

VMware Announces vExperts for 2016

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VMW-LOGO-vEXPERT-2016-kToday, VMware announced the list of vExpert recipients for 2016.

The VMware vExpert program recognizes those who have gone above and beyond their normal job description in sharing the messaging, knowledge, and “how to” of virtualization in general and VMware in particular.

The vExpert program is open to VMware employees, partner, customers, and others.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t really excited to have been named a VMware vExpert for my fifth year in a row. I’m also honored and thankful, but, yeah, excited too.

You can see the full list of 2016 VMware vExperts here.

EMC Elect 2016 – Just the Facts

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EMC Elect 2016Yesterday, EMC announced the list of those who had been awarded the EMC Elect designation for 2016.

The EMC Elect is EMC’s community recognition program. Now in its fourth year, the Elect program seeks to recognize those who exhibit engagement with the EMC community, commitment to be “part of the EMC conversation day in and day out, offering thoughtful feedback and staying optimistic in [their] language”, and leadership.

This year there are 72 EMC Elect designees. This number is the lowest of any of the years of the program. You can see the official list of the 2016 EMC Elect here.

Last year, I posted my “by the numbers” breakdown of the 2105 EMC Elect membership. In the space below, I’ll do the same for 2016. Continue reading →

Cisco Announces Champions for 2016

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ciscochampion2016On Friday last week, Cisco started sending out email welcoming those people who have been selected to receive the Cisco Champion designation for 2016.

For those of you not familiar with it, Cisco Champion is Cisco’s community recognition program. Its main goal is to encourage and recognize knowledge-sharing efforts. To quote from the welcome email:

Cisco Champions are a group of highly-influential IT technical experts who enjoy sharing their knowledge, expertise, and thoughts across the social web and with Cisco. The Cisco Champion program encompasses a diverse set of areas such as Data Center, Internet of Things, Enterprise Networks, Collaboration, and Security.

I am simultaneously pleased, honored, and humbled to have been named a Cisco Champion for Data Center for the third year in a row. I look forward to meeting and working with the other Cisco Champions, which, this year includes three of my co-workers at Accunet Solutions.

Tech Bloggers’ Support Group – Beta Test

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Tech Bloggers' Support GroupThis is an idea I’ve been kicking around for a while. I’ve been thinking about how I’d like to be doing more with this blog: posting more often, creating series of posts, improving my writing skills, increasing my readership, etc.

Obviously, the easiest of these for me to affect is the “posting more often”. I’m often well-intentioned about this, but between work, family, and other obligations, writing for my own blog often takes a back seat. Continue reading →

For Your Listening Pleasure: Cisco Champion Radio Season 3, Ep 2 is Live

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Cisco Champion 2015Earlier this week, I got to play the role of a guest-host/panelist on the Cisco Champion Radio podcast, talking about tech predictions for 2016. It was a very lively conversation and a lot of fun.

If you’re interested in hearing it, you can find it:

Or, you could listen to it right here:

If you have any thoughts to add to the conversation, feel free to do so in the comments below.

Guest-Hosting Cisco Champion Radio Next Week

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Cisco Champion 2015I’ve written before about the various community programs I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved in and how I’ve benefited from them. I’ve just been given another unexpected benefit that should be a lot of fun.

The Cisco Champion community records a weekly podcast titled Cisco Champion Radio. Over the past two years, they’ve covered a broad variety of topics — you can see the full list of previous episodes here.

On Tuesday 19 January, I will be helping to guest-host Season Three, Episode 2 of Cisco Champion Radio. We’ll be talking about IT predictions for 2016. Apparently, I unconsciously predicted this topic, so naturally I accepted the invitation to guest-host.

If you’re a Cisco Champion, please join us to share your thoughts on what’s coming. If you’re not, don’t worries — I’ll post a link to the episode as soon as it’s available.

Journey to EMC Elect 2015 (with Bonus Number-Crunching)

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EMC Elect 2015Today, EMC announced the list of names of those people named to the EMC Elect program for 2015.

Now in its third year, the EMC Elect program seeks to recognize engagement with, commitment to, and leadership in the EMC technical community-at-large. EMC has been very active in reaching out to the Elect community, working to involve them in events, and providing access to product information and technical resources.

I am honored and pleased to have been named to the EMC Elect program for the third year in a row. This year a total of 102 people were named, approximately a 27.5% increase over the total named for 2014. You can see the full list of names here.

My involvement with the EMC Elect 2015 goes a little deeper than that. I was one of twelve members of the EMC Elect 2014 who were asked to be on the panel of judges to help select the EMC Elect 2015. Continue reading →