Community

The VMware VMUG UserCon has been my favourite local (Australian) event since attending my first one in 2017. It is one of the standout events for community sessions and networking and one I personally look forward to every year. The teams involved with VMUG and especially the local VMUG members in Sydney and Melbourne do a fantastic job every year of bringing everyone together and handling the logistics. Things will of course be different this year with the event going virtual, but I’m still looking forward to it on Thursday the 30th of July, 2020. ...

This approached very quickly, and next week one of the hottest VMware events in ANZ will be held in Sydney and Melbourne - the VMUG UserCon events! VMUG UserCons are a free one day event held once a year featuring a small vendor expo area, lots of educational sessions throughout the day, excellent opening and closing keynotes and of course the opportunity to mingle with industry peers, catch up with old friends and make a few new friends. Sydney Usercon will be on March 19th, and Melbourne UserCon will follow on March 21st. ...

Next week the “ANZ” vForum event will be held once again in Sydney, Australia. The conference is returning to Sydney’s Luna Park where is was held 4 years ago in 2014 (from memory to celebrate a 10 year milestone of sorts), and that event was also my first vForum. vForum is also returning as a two day event after the format was changed last year to a one day event. I’m honestly not sure what the feedback was around it being a one day event, but VMware adjusting it back to two days speaks for itself. ...

Back in March, I attended the Melbourne VMUG UserCon. This is the first UserCon I attended, and damn was I impressed! From what I’ve heard via peers, VMUG hasn’t been having the best run lately, world wide. Needless to say, the team behind both the Sydney and the Melbourne events did a fantastic job. This year consisted of a rockstar lineup of speakers not only from VMware, but also from partners and affiliates who presented fantastic breakout sessions during the day. As usual, Alastair and Brett were in full swing with the vBrownBag recordings at the event, unfortunately I left it too late to be able to submit a small talk for vBrownBag. ...

[toc] Introduction Well, another vForum Australia event has come and gone this week and I thought I’d take a few moments to reflect on my few busy days spent in Sydney attending this event. This was my third time attending vForum, and this roughly reflects how long I’ve seriously been working in the VMware ecosystem. While the last two years were OK, this year was my favourite by far, most likely due to not being afraid to meet new people and get involved in some events. Earlier this year I had a career change, and when that happened I had some moments of clarity which also resulted in me wanting to achieve some personal goals as well, and a big part of that is around community involvement. Although it is early in my own personal journey, having a glimpse into the great communities that are involved in different pockets of the IT world has been an eye opener and is an area I will personally be trying to put a lot of focus into, all while trying to manage that work / life / family balance thing! ...