Early last week I blogged about the sessions I attended at VMworld. I would just like to make a few brief comments about the stuff that goes unnoticed at VMworld.

For me the sessions this year were a small part of the deal – although they took up most of my time – for me the big benefits were the people I met and discussions that the sessions sparked.

RTFM Readers say a big thank you!
So I liked to extend a big thank you to all the people who said hi to me last week – and thanked me for my work on the Forums and here on my own site. It’s so great to know that my contributions to the community are appreciated – and nothing spurs me on more than those sorts of comments.

Putting names to faces from the Forum
On Monday of last week – there was a private get together arranged by the staff of VMTN of the top VIP Forum and Blogs. It was a veritable who’s who of virtualisation from a VMware perspective. It was really great to finally put faces to those odd names on the Forum boards. Outside of this meeting I met lots other people from the Forum – one person of note was Alex Mittell  aka Mittell on the Forum’s).

Alex is a relative new comer to the VMware Forums, but already I know he’s going to be joining myself and the other guys on VIP list. He’s rocketed up the Forum Boards lately – and clocking up his “Master” status in a matter of months, where it took me and others a couple years! This shows a real commitment to the community. We need more people coming into the Forum’s like Alex. People who are driven, motivated and above all community orientated. People who are interested as much in helping others, as help themselves – a rare quality in this day and age.

We need a constant and steady supply of people like Alex to be engaged in the Forums – for the Forums to be continued source of useful information and assistance. I know like myself Alex is going to be successful – and the day will come when people like me and him will simply be too busy to contribute as much as we would like to the Community. In that case it’s imperative that we can hand on the baton, as it were, to the next generation.

VMware Education – Influencing the future
Another big part of this year VMworld was meeting people from VMware Education. You might be surprised to know that as an instructor I rarely get the opportunity to influence the course I teach. The only except is VMware. VMware Education are very keen to gather the opinions of both students and instructors in effort to improve the courses they deliver and improve peoples usage of the products. The nature of these meetings are such that I can’t really tell you that much here. Except to say to expect to see more courses, and more flexible delivery options. But more importantly an improvement in the content and structure of the current course on offer. Just like their products – VMware Education are not going to rest on their laurels!

HP Education Services Meeting
On Tuesday last week I met up with the guys at HP Education at the Cicada Restaurant in downtown LA. In case you don’t know. HP are the biggest supply of training to Community world-wide. Most of their instructors for VMware are actually freelancers – so they are very important customer for a contractor me. Again this was a great “faces-to-names” session (as well as being an exceedingly good meal!) But I also met some new people too – and this opened some exciting opportunities for me. The main one is getting to grips and learning more about HP Education’s “RAIL” system. RAIL stands for “Remote assisted instructional learning”. The best way to describe this – is a virtual classroom. So not is only the equipment access remotely, but the instructor and students are remote as well. Critically, this means less travel for the instructor (and less marriage breakdowns as a consequence!) but more importantly students can learn about VMware (and other products too) from the comfort of their office/home – and companies can save money (hotels, travel) and not have their staff absent for extended periods of time. This is not some rubbish CBT package that sits on your shelf and gathers dust – but real-time training – but remotely delivered. Anyway, I won’t elaborate any further but point you instead to this URL that explains the whole thang:

http://h30210.www3.hp.com/hpeducation/oov/rail.asp?country=in

New Community Initiatives
Whilst at VMworld I had a number of people approach me to look at various aspects of the VMware products – in the hope that I would write a whitepaper on the subject in question. Unfortunately, I neither have the time or physical hardware to do the research on this. So what I am going to try to do is galvanize some forum members together – in the hope that I can persuade them to do this – and offer RTFM Education has a hosting location. The first whitepaper I want to “lead” in this way will be on CPU Masking and VMotion. If you are very technical and have the hardware resources to be involved then please contact me. I won’t take any credit myself for the work you guys will do – all credit will go to the people who actively contribute.

The RTFM Community
I see this as new way forward for my site. So far RTFM Education has been mainly about me creating unique content – and then distributing it for free. This principle I wish to continue. But as my time becomes more limited – I want to allow the site to become as Community driven as VMware’s VMTN site. I’m looking into exciting new ways to deliver this content beyond – the normal guides and white papers I have produced in the past. I want to develop something that is really fit for our times. Something media driven and interactive. Instead of top-down guides that offer little rooms for two-way communication (jesus, I nearly wrote bi-directional exchange!)

Other Cool Stuff
Lastly, VMworld wasn’t just about all this stuff to do with virtualisation. It was about other cool stuff too (not that virtual machines aren’t cool!). I spent sometime with friends in Menlo Park before and after the conference. So I went to a big shindig with the yachting club my friends go to. We also went to a fantastic Indian restaurant in Palo Alto. Forget it’s name now. But really classy Indian fare. Highly recommended

The following weekend – I also got incredibly drunk at the BBC (British Bankers Club) in Menlo Park, and whipped some people asses at pool (I neglected to tell them I used to be a member of the British Pool League! Hee-hee)

The next day I took the plunge and did some gift shopping for my partner and her daughter – and because I had spoilt them – I spoilt myself to new guitar.

On my last day I went to my first every American Football game. I saw the Oakland Raiders (Raaaaiiiddddeerrrs!) play the Denver Bronco’s. You arrive for a spot of tail-gating. This where you park-up – unload your barbeque, crack open some beers – and hangout before the game. The game was terrific – but I think I ask my American pals too many questions about the rules and strategy. But I had a great time, even if the Raiders did loose to the Broncos.

Oh, and forgot to mention I had a great night out on the last night of the conferrence with Alex and Andrew Hald. We went to the Staples Center and saw the LA Kings. I was my first ice-hockey game – and I had really good time. Unfortunately, the LA Kings lost. I see there’s a pattern forming here. So if you have an important sporting event – don’t invite me – I think I am bit of jinxs!

Conclusions
So VMworld was more than just sessions. Much, much more. I will definitely be there next year – and I would recommend it to everyone.

And finally if anyone wants to try their hand at game of pool…. Meet me at the BBC, Menlo Park next September.
 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 at 11:17 am and is filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.