The New England VTUG – A view from the other side

For the past few years I have attended several New England VTUG/VMUG events as an independent blogger / technologist.  This year, I attended the 10th annual Summer Slam as a sponsor through my employer and it has given me a little bit different a perspective on things.  My goal this event was to promote awareness of the EMC Community Network and the EMC Elect programs and have a conversation about it.  I do believe that I achieved my goal, but I also came away with a few big takeaways for next time.

Know your environment

NE_VTUG 005For those of you who haven’t attended the New England VTUG, it is held in the high school of Brunswick, Maine.  The main vendor hall is in the gymnasium, a room with no wired internet and shared power cords.  One must be prepared because this remote location also does not lend itself very well to cellular signals (probably good for keeping the kids focused on schoolwork). The result of this is that both vendors and attendees would heavily rely on the wifi network, and after it hit full saturation, performance problems would occur.  This also meant that there was no fall back for hotspots and mifi units.  It became quite apparent that I had miscalculated when I was the only one trying to do live demos that required internet connectivity.

BRING A FAN!!!!!

NE_VTUG 018I cannot stress this enough.  It is very hot, and in the summer the AC is not on in the school (with the exception of the theater), so a fan will be your best friend.  Vendors can use this to their advantage too.  If you want to get everyone to come to your booth, give your patrons a way to cool off.  The two most popular booths were giving away smoothies for attendees (competitors too) to drink and it was much appreciated.

 

All these fans however caused another issue … with the power.  When you run several fans (and a blender) off the same circuit, you may overload it.  And we did … twice!  The NEVTUG staff was very attentive to get extra power cables run and reset the circuit breakers so that downtime was minimal.

Be Happy! Be Social!

NE_VTUG 021To be honest, the majority of the attendees I spoke with had never heard of ECN or the EMC Elect.  However when I spoke to them, many were very receptive and enthusiastic about the idea.  One of the moments that really stood out to me was when a customer indicated that he was the goto person in his organization for everything, and he often did not know the answer.  After I explained to him about the support forums on ECN, he lit up and responded “This is where I can get the answers!”  Its genuine engagement like this that makes these user group meetings worth while.

Lets do it again

I had a blast talking to customers, partners, and even a few competitors at the NEVTUG.  With news coming of a new VTUG chapter forming in Silicon Valley (and more in the works across the united states) I urge all my readers to attend one and have a great conversation.

Introducing EMC Ask The Expert

AskTheExpertLogoA few months ago Mark Browne approached Matt Brender and I with a new idea for the EMC Community Network.  Mark is very big on ECN and if you’ve visited the site, you’ve probably interacted with things Mark has had a hand in.  So Mark pitched us the idea of starting an “Ask the Expert” section on the support forums.  In this space, we would gather a couple of subject matter experts to answer questions on a related topic for about two weeks at a time and maybe follow up with a video recap.

 

Matt and I both thought this was a great idea and over the next few months we helped Mark flesh out the idea in preparation to present to the approving management structure.  With the help of our friend Michael Chelotti, we recorded a teaser video.  This video will be very similar to a video recap idea where we will talk about some of the topics during the discussion.  You can watch our video below:

 

I’m proud to report that this idea was well received and Ask the Expert is a go.  Starting today, we launch our first event!   Matt will be joined by Henri Hamalianen and they will talk about configuring and troubleshooting the VNXe front end connections with VMware.  These two weeks are open for anyone to ask Matt and Henri about using their VNXe in a VMware environment this post on ECN.  I urge everyone to checkout the discussion and get involved.  Keep an eye on the schedule for a discussion on the VNX that may be hosted by yours truly.

EMC World 2011 #nerdherd: Lights, Camera, Action!

So EMC World 2011 has come and gone.  Now is the time that we can look back and remember.  For those of you who were unable to make it live (or watch the webcast), a video of our #nerdherd has been posted on the EMC Community Network website.  I want to thank Alan Zenreich for filming and posting the video.  If you are one of the many people who prefer a more static image, EMC’s own David Elmes did most of the photography (including the photos of our meetup you see below).  To see the rest of his work and other’s, check out the EMC World 2011 flickr stream.  Once again, thanks to everyone that made this happen and enjoy the pictures and video.