Tag Evangelist

Well, we knew this day would come and lo and behold it is finally here.  For those who don’t know Tech Field Day is an event which brings together Independent Industry Thought Leaders with IT Vendors with interesting, innovative or otherwise compelling products to discuss.   The Delegates are bloggers, speakers, writers, podcasters and otherwise those who have a social presence with great influence on the products and companies as perceived by IT Practitioners.

We never knew if I’d ever make it as a Delegate because one of the ‘rules’ since its inception is simply… You cannot be a vendor.   Well, with the exception of the past two years in Afghanistan (couldn’t get away to delegate, so to speak :)) I was as Vendor as you could get with NetApp and EMC.   So finally, It’s here! I’m not only officially a delegate but I’m officially back into the game of an independent thought leader… The kind who likes to take things to the EXTREME to understand them and ensure I’m providing the most accurate picture of whatever I am talking about!

What are the details for Virtualization Tech Field Day 4?!

This ought to be fun.  January 14th through the 16th in Austin, TX we will be going toe to toe with numerous vendors!

I’ll be honest… the capturing of these company images kind of sucks, but it is what it is. At least they’re clickable! <3

But the best part, next to the vendors themselves honestly, has to be the various Delegates. I mean c’mon these are rockstars in their own right and it’s not a companies product which is as valuable as the insight these Delegates offer.

	Amit Panchal	@AmitPanchal76	Technical IT Manager and blogger at apanchal.com.
	Amy Manley	@WyrdGirl	12 years in IT, vExpert and an automation junkie
	Christopher Kusek	@cxi	CTO at @Xiologix – EVP of Engineering, Technology Evangelist, vExpert, EMC Elect, BDA, CISSP, MCT, Cloud, Ninja, Vegan, Single, Father, Cat, Humorist, Author
	Emad Younis	@Emad_Younis	Emad is a datacenter enthusiast, 2 x vExpert, and blogger @ emadyounis.com.
	James Green	@JDGreen	James is an independent blogger at www.virtadmin.com, a 2014 vExpert, and works as a virtualization consultant in the Midwest.
	Jeff Wilson	@Agnostic_Node1	Passionate yet disciplined virtualization & storage engineer in the SME market.
	Julian Wood	@Julian_Wood	Julian is a London based enterprise infrasstructure architect and blogger.
	Justin Warren	@JPWarren	Justin is a consultant and freelance journalist who enjoys coding in Python and words that are fun to say, like ‘llama’ and ‘shenanigans’.
	Larry Smith	@MrLESmithJr	19 yrs. in IT | 11 yrs. VMware virtualization | VMware NSX Nut
	Marco Broeken	@MBroeken	Dutch Virtualization Admirer and DaaS Lover, Blogger at www.vClouds.nl
	Matt Simmons	@StandaloneSA	Small Infrastructure IT Administrator in Academia
	Mike Preston	@MWPreston	3 x vExpert, blogger @ mwpreston.net and typical Canadian eh!

It will be a pretty busy schedule, but we’ll stay on top of it!

• Wednesday, Jan 14 – 09:30 – 11:30 –SimpliVity Presents at Virtualization Field Day 4
• Wednesday, Jan 14 – 13:00 – 15:00 – Platform9 Systems Presents at Virtualization Field Day 4
• Wednesday, Jan 14 – 15:30 – 17:30 – VMTurbo Presents at Virtualization Field Day 4
• Thursday, Jan 15 – 08:00 – 10:00 – StorMagic Presents at Virtualization Field Day 4
• Thursday, Jan 15 – 10:30 – 12:30 – SolarWinds Presents at Virtualization Field Day 4
• Thursday, Jan 15 – 13:30 – 15:30 – CommVault Presents at Virtualization Field Day 4
• Friday, Jan 16 – 08:00 – 12:00 – Dell Presents at Virtualization Field Day 4
• Friday, Jan 16 – 13:00 – 15:00 – Scale Computing Presents at Virtualization Field Day 4

And of course a hearty thanks go out to the Event Staff who make this possible, the beautiful Stephen Foskett @SFoskett and the dashing Tom Hollingsworth @NetworkingNerd 

So check it out as I know you will, not to mention the deeply grueling and intensive times I know I’ll be giving the vendors because I’ve been one and I know what it’s like ;) And be sure to check out the numerous blogs coming!

We all know how these things go, content creators create content, votes happen whether strictly or arbitrarily and then BAM! You get placed on a list!

It’s kind of interesting, kind of flattering, and well, I’m sharing it here because it happened! Here is the snippet of me, and behind the more there are the 99 other blogs mentioned and referenced! I do wish you the best in finding good content here and without! :)

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How many of you have ever attended a “Lunch and Learn”.  For those of you not familiar it typically will involved a Partner, Vendor or someone with some information to share, and often involves food (Usually Pizza or Sandwiches).

Here are the typical conditions following lunch and learns “Wow, you mean there’ll be free food? Sure I’ll come to the lunch and learn!” or “I’m interested in that topic, but I love free food!”

Yes, those are very true and strong conditions when it comes to lunch and learns.   Now let’s shift the tables a bit, and you become me.  Hi, I’m Christopher and I’m vegan, and I love people and technology.  So what does this mean?

If I am attending a lunch and learn, it is NOT for the food.    When I attend these events it is because I want the “Learn” component of the lunch and learn.  Even when it’s a subject that I know implicitly, it also has it’s value of my ability to ask questions (Both those questions I want to know the answers to, and those which others may not be asking but they really need to know the answers to and it isn’t being covered).   These same guidelines apply to user groups as well, which is to say, whenever I go somewhere it is RARELY if ever for the food.

Just think about that, if you ever see me at a Lunch and Learn, a TechEd Party, User Group meeting or who knows what – I am either there to learn, meet you, or educate in my ever so technical evangelist way, but I’m never there for the food, nor am I ever there to be the ‘know it all ass who wants to show you what I know’.  I’m more interested in what you know and if you have any questions or challenges, I love solving problems!

I did this before I did it for a living, and if I won the lotto tomorrow (Let’s make that Tuesday, for $180million please) I’ll continue to do it, because I care more about the education and growth of our community than I do anything else.   An attitude of growth, sincerity and caring matter far more to me than egos, or free food :)   Think about it the next time you meet a Vegan Technologist, we’re definitely not in it for the food ;)

Alright, they’re not hiring for every position! I did notice some ~256 positions being hired for.

But I did notice that my good friend Scott Hanson @DellServerGeek on Twitter is looking for help filling two specific positions!

So, what are these positions you ask?!

Senior Systems Engineer – Data Center Efficiency Evangelist-090002HT
Senior Systems Engineer – Enterprise Storage Evangelist-090002HV

How do you find out more about them?

You go to this link and type in the code: 090002HT – 090002HV

Wow, that’s sounds pretty straightforward and simple! (Yea I’m sorry I cannot provide a direct link to the exact URL… damn indexing systems and non-qualified URL’s ;))