My Interview with Geek Whisperers on Being a Technical Generalist

I had the honor (and fun) of being the guest on the most recent episode of the Geek Whisperers podcast (Episode 129).

I know this will cause my long-time readers to immediately ask two questions:

  1. How is it, exactly, that these folks have managed to do 128 episodes without having you as a guest before now?
  2. Isn’t this episode incredibly timely given your current job search?

I’ll attempt to answer these questions as best I can. Continue reading

Minicast, Season 1, Episode 8: EMC Proven Professional with Kate Hutchinson

On Wednesday at EMC World, I caught up with Kate Hutchinson of EMC Educational Services. In the MiniCast episode with the least background noise so far, we talked about the EMC Proven Professional program and other educational services offered by EMC.

We recorded in a lounge space maybe 50 yards from where the Proven Professional testing center was set up, so I headed over to take a certification test after we wrapped up.

You can hear Kate’s perspective on technical education here:

Minicast, Season 1, Episode 7: EMC TV with Greg McCarthy

On Wednesday at EMC World, I had the opportunity to do something I haven’t seen (or heard) done before:

I appeared on an episode of EMC TV while recording my podcast.

Or EMC TV guest-starred on my podcast while filming a video episode.

Yes, Greg McCarthy and I interviewed each other — while being broadcast live on-screen all around the conference.

It was a lot of fun doing the double-recording. We started the video first, and Greg started out interviewing me. Within the first minute, I started recording, too, live on camera, interviewing Greg. The video ended first, and we continued for the full 15 minutes of the Minicast.

When I can find a link to the video, I’ll post it here, but in the meantime you can listen to the audio here:

As a bonus, I was recording sound when the video started, so you can hear the beginning of the video here:

MiniCast, Season 1, Episode 6: Competitive Intelligence with Natalie Corridan-Gregg

On Monday at EMC World, Natalie Corridan-Gregg, Director of Competitive Intelligence for EMC held a session on Competitive Intelligence and Marketing. I wasn’t able to attend her session, but I was able to catch up with her on Tuesday to talk with her about it.

Full Disclosure: Earlier in my career, I worked in the Competitive Intelligence Group at EMC, and for a while reported directly to Natalie. So, obviously, the topic is one of great interest to me.

Natalie and I were able to take advantage of the EMC Radio space in the EMC Social Media Lounge to record our discussion live at EMC World. You can take a listen here.

 

MiniCast, Season 1, Episode 5: EMC World Data Center with Stephan Voss

Tuesday morning at EMC World, the Solutions Expo was opened up early to allow Media and Analysts some time on the show floor when things would be less crowded. In the middle of the Expo floor, EMC had installed a stand-alone, raised-floor data center.

Stephan Voss, Director of Product Marketing at EMC, and a long-time colleague of mine, took some time to talk with me about that data center set-up and what EMC had on display in there. We recorded this episode about ten feet away from the entrance to the demo data center.

You can listen to our conversation below.

 

MiniCast, Season 1, Episode 4: EMC Isilon OneFS 8.0 with Ed Beauvais

On Monday at EMC World, I had the opportunity to sit down with Ed Beauvais, EMC’s Director of Isilon Product Marketing. Ed was gracious enough to agree to be interviews for the MiniCast. We talked about new features in Isilon OneFS 8.0 and how they fit into EMC’s “Edge to Core to Cloud” message.

At one point in the interview, it appears that Ed and I confused each other about CloudPools functionality. Ed and I chatted about that after the 15-minute time limit and cleared it up pretty quickly. Turns out we were talking about two similar but different things.

Ed was saying that CloudPools does not, at this time, allow you to use an IsilonSD Edge virtual instance running in the Cloud as your remote tier. I neither confirm or deny whether or not that functionality is on the Isilon roadmap. (No, seriously, I can’t. Sometimes I use that phrase to be cute and let folks know that I know something I’m not allowed to talk about yet, but in this case I can’t tell you anything because I really don’t know. Ed gave me nothing on this one at all…)

What I was talking about was using a physical Isilon cluster at another site as your remote CloudPools tier. That is supported, and can be done today.

With that clarification in mind, take a listen to Ed and I talking Isilon.

MiniCast, Season 1, Episode 2: Unboxing the EMC World Backpack

The second Episode of the GeekFluent MiniCast was recorded live at EMC World on Sunday while the show floor was being constructed around us.

For this episode, I wanted to try something new. There are a lot of un-boxing videos out there, but no one seems to do unboxing audio recordings, and since I had just received my EMC World backpack, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it out.

To assist me in this unboxing, I was joined by Mark Browne and Lauren Friedman. It’s the episode that asks — and answers — the question “Why aren’t there more unboxing audios?”

Take a listen below:

Introducing the GeekFluent Mini-Cast

I’ve been thinking about trying podcasting for a while now, and so, with EMC World happening, well, right now, it seemed like the perfect time to just dive in.

That said, I’m pleased to announce Season One, Episode One of the GeekFluent Mini-Cast, recorded today.

The name comes from my decision to limit episodes to 15 minutes maximum length.

For the introductory episode, I’m joined by Mark Browne and Greg McCarthy of EMC. We recorded on the show floor of EMC World 2016, as it was being built around us (you can hear the construction noises quite clearly in the background). In this episode we talk about podcasting itself and its place in social media.

Take a listen below.

I’ll work on getting a presence on iTunes and Stitcher and all that, but for now I wanted to get this first episode live as quickly as possible.

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

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

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.