Nine in a row!
Friday I got “the news”: I’ve been nominated #vExpert again and today, like in the first year (2015), it’s an honor to be a part of this program and a part of the #vCommunity: one of the widest worldwide IT communities.
vExpert is a VMware global evangelism and advocacy program focused on VMware technologies and was born to reward and engage people that demonstrate knowledge (VCDX) and involvement in communities. Today this program has also sub-programs focused on recognition of people that show a brilliant ability to present and share their knowledge in App Modernization, Cloud, Network virtualization, etc (for further info see: https://vexpert.vmware.com/my/subprograms ).
The complete vExpert directory is available here: https://vexpert.vmware.com/directory and it counts more or less 1300 people. But what means being vExpert? What really changed for me since my first nomination? And as vExpert, what challenges we are going to face today?
The community protagonist!
Yet I remember my first meeting with the Italian VMware Users Group! Then, during the VMUG meeting in front of the wonderful Garda lake, I asked to join the Italian VMUG board with the promise to help to organize meetings and conferences and contribute as I can to the community. So in 2015, I got my first vExpert award for my involvement and during my first User Conference as a board member, I got the chance to meet some important #vRockstars like Duncan Epping, Cormac Hogan, etc… and VMware Users group headquarter
2016 was my year of change! I become a blogger and community contributor (joining also TechFieldDay community), I participate in my first VMworld and I joined also VMware {code} program!
Years after years and contribution after contribution, a lot of important events happened in my life: joined an important Italian company as Cloud Architect focused on DevOps and Infrastructure automation, become a professor at one of the most important Italian universities, become a VMware top 100 influencer, VMware {code} Coach and (most important)… I grow my network reaching the most distant people in the world (from Silicon Valley (CA) to Japan) sharing knowledge and a lot of funny moments!
So next to the ability to share knowledge, the vExpert program evolved my life!
Thanks to… and what’s next
Seems that the Broadcom acquisition is not interfering with VMware communities and hearing from people involved in some vCommunity programs they really believe in what they do every day… so with this “fuel” the contribution from the community will continue… and we’ll see a lot of interesting events and moments to share knowledge and have fun!
In the meantime I’ll “reboot” my blog with some changes: I and my good friend Manuel are starting a new blog https://thepipelineguys.live with some content that comes up from our Italian podcast ThePipelineGuys.
Like every year I’d like to thank all people that are mainly involved in the community program (Corey Romero, Eric Nielsen, Julia Klaus, Matt Langguth, and all VMTN staff ), VMware Users Group leaders, and headquarters people, the VMUG.it and the VMware Italian division, old and new vExperts and people from vCommunity (with them I feel like being in the family), working colleagues and ex-colleagues and my family for supporting me every day with this adventure!