BTomTech

Lindy Grady is one of our female leaders from Indianapolis. She attended VMworld in Las Vegas and participated in the annual Leader Lunch, a time where leaders get to recognize peers, spend time with VMware executives and talk about progressing VMUG. Lindy took this opportunity to address the lack of women involved in VMUG. This discussion got me thinking. This is something we can all work on to improve; diversifying VMUG. If we put a bit of effort throughout the year to encourage our female co-workers to participate with us, I bet we could see a noticeable change at next year’s VMworld. It starts at a local level. Ask your attendees to invite females to a meeting. Encourage females to get involved in the leadership team. Incorporate diversity as a part of your succession planning. These things will add up and continue to build month over month and year over year. I have been to conferences where they have a “Women in Technology” panel. While I appreciate women-in-tech focused programm

Working at the VMware User Group is a very interesting job. You are not employed by VMware, but you are very close to the company and have a vested interest in their success. The success of the company has an impact on the user group. This is the case for any OEM/user group relationship. I have no extra insight or information on VMware. I watch them closely and read what others are saying about the company. There is plenty of press out there discussing VMware, and my opinion of VMware is bullish. What I like the most is the message that VMware believes in partnership. Former foes are now partnering with VMware. That doesn’t mean they don’t compete in some areas, but both parties understand we live in a multi-vendor world. This is a win for the consumer. Partnerships with AWS, Google, Azure… the list goes on. Pat Gelsinger said, “I don’t want VMware to be the 501st company offering some kind of AI solution. I want it to be the company that enables the other 500.” VMware did amazing thin

Our worlds are filled with content. In my household, we have cable delivering channels I have never watched, and I’d guess I’m not alone. We have multiple streaming providers delivering hundreds of hours of content, the vast majority of which we will never consume. We have endless timeline updates on social media delivered to our TV, computers, and phones. If that isn’t enough, we can ask our AI devices to give us more content. Content isn’t the problem; valuable content is. With all of this content, I find myself making a quick value judgment. I prefer written content over video content. I like to scan the article and pull out the bits I find interesting. A video takes a commitment, and you can’t control the speed of the consumption. If I am following a feed, I expect there to be snackable content. I’m looking for quick hits meant to entertain or provide one solid point. If there is a link to an article, I am only clicking through if it’s super compelling. If it’s a video, I look fo

It seems to me that members are very interested in learning about the cloud – hybrid, on-premises, public, private – the options go on. What’s exciting is that members are now deploying their cloud strategy and carefully moving to a new compute platform. If you’re not that far along, there’s no need to be concerned. Making this move is something businesses need to evaluate on an individual basis. Here are some thoughts to consider as you move to the cloud. For this blog, I am defining the cloud as utilizing someone’s else compute. I’ll assume we’ve all deployed on-premises cloud with your own equipment utilizing VMware, regardless of whether that’s in your data center or colocation services. First, you should evaluate your current situation. Start with equipment. If your equipment is aging or you need more capacity, this will speed up your move to the cloud. Next, look at the software versions you currently have. Being behind in software may be a double-edged sword. On one ha

Matt Heldstab is one of VMUG’s most active leaders. He has been instrumental in many VMUG projects such as EUC Explore, leading the v0dgeball team to a bronze medal in the 2017 VMworld tournament, and now Blogtober . So when Matt asked me to participate, I couldn’t say no. Many VMUG members blog, and it is a fantastic way to share your thoughts and ideas with the community. The community responds and produces conversation which leads to ideas which leads to action. This is tapping into the community. If you have heard me speak, you know I encourage everyone to tap into the community. You get out what you put in, and blogging is one way to give back. There are many reasons I believe in the power of the community. First, it disciplines you to formalize and organize your thoughts and opinions. This will not only make you think about your position but also your reasoning. When you address the community, you need to be prepared to back up your thoughts with facts or experiences. We are a g