DFWVMUG User Conference: Community Matters

The Community Matters To Your Career, Damian Karlson (@sixfootdad)

VMware Community:

• VMTN forums
• Twitter
• Podcasts
• Blogs
• VMUGs
• #vBeers
• Conferences

Why should you care?

• Helps you do your job better
• Helps you find a better job
• Helps you grow personally & professionally
• Twitter, in particular, breaks down barriers

Community Benefits:

• Wrote a book
• Promotion
• Spoke at a vendor conference
• Career shift
• Changed jobs
• etc…

Advice:

• Get involved!
• Twitter, blogs, podcasts
• VMUGs, vBeers
• Relationships: help solve problems, find new roles
• Ask for help and give help–pay it forward
• Have fun, be respectful, be professional
• Get insight into new products, people, topics
• Do your certs
• Share your viewpoint

Twitter Tips:

• Egg, bad. Bio, good.
• Disclaim all the things (working for a vendor, etc)
• Leverage lists
• Turn off automated tweets
• Mute those that don’t ^
• Tweet unto others as you would have them tweet unto you
• Be real
• Have integrity

Why Blogging?

• Set yourself apart
• Explore something you’re passionate about
• Learn from others
• Document your successes
• Give back to the community
• Laugh when you google a problem and the top hit is your blog

#vBrownBag

• Hundreds of hours of deep technical content presented by the community
• VMworld Tech Talks
• OpenStack Summits
• Nearly zero marketing
• No BS