Category Evangelist

I actually wanted to start this blog post (and an entirely different one) off with a completely separate subject.  Yea… I did.   And then I went looking for citing data on what I was going to talk about only to find OMG DID WE NOT ANNOUNCE THAT?! Talk about a major faux paux if I announced something we didn’t even show-case or isn’t even public yet.  #Awkward! That and I’m sure PR/Marketing/OtherScaryFigures would be like WTF CXI and other 3 letter acronyms. ;)

Okay, on to the show! OMG THERE WAS A LOT ANNOUNCED! I know some of you were like ‘How do you follow up that whole Record Breaking thing earlier in the year with 40 some odd announcements. (I forget the exact number… it wasn’t 42, which would have made sense ;))”   Yea, and I’m not looking to basically do a repeat of what was already done and said elsewhere; often quite well in delivery.  No.  This is going to be a very unique perspective on a few things which happened at the show.   For the sake of vanity (Because I’m clearly so vain ;)) I’ll do a little coverage of the most rockingest party #cxiparty, absolute rockstar!   But also, a little message which may have gotten lost in the gist of things, and what I see as an internal AND external direction going forward, citing me to refer to 2011 as OMG YEAR OF THE VCE!

OMFG #CXIPARTY OMFG

Did you attend?   If you did, I’m sure you’re left saying OMFG THE VIEW. or ZOMG THERE WERE SO MANY COOL PEOPLE THERE. or WHY IS CXI TALKING ABOUT SHOES.     Yea baby.  That’s what this was about! Networking, and primarily shoes… :)

So for you naysayers out there who say “Whoa, how can a vegan who doesn’t drink throw quite possibly the BEST PARTY ON THE PLANET”  That’s damn straight! For those of who you could not make it (I received your apologies, due to sickness, other conflicts, etc) and the rest of you; truly missed out on an EPIC and LEGENDARY event.  Relationships were formed which will last forever!   Everyone had a great time and I made some great friends with the exception of the AVNET guy who was BLITZ I think even before he got there! Hey what can you do!    (I guess I could throw a follow-up party at #VMworld ;))

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my sponsors who helped make this possible though!  Nexus IS, Oxygen Cloud, and Storage Staffing!

Between Keith Norbie @keithnorbie from Nexus, Julia Mak @juliamak from Oxygen Cloud and Shelton and Joe from @storagestaffing I was able to provide you with refreshments which made the party that much more enjoyable!  Be sure to check them out, especially if you attended the party!   Oh, as a side note, I’d also like to call out some good friends of mine who helped bring some added cred to the party!

• Rockstar SQL GOD Denny Cherry @mrdenny
• OMG Super Star Chuck Hollis @chuckhollis
• PHD God of FCoE J Metz @jmichelmetz
• NerdHerd Crew – Sean Thulin @sthulin, Luigi Danakos @nerdblurt and Matthew Brender @mjbrender
• The one the only Brian Deloria @storagewtf
• Big Data king Koset Surakomol @koset
• Truth in IT madman W. Curtis Preston @wcpreston

If you are not included in this list, it doesn’t mean you don’t matter; it simply means I finished the list and you still do matter very much! That’s what the ‘who attended’ list looks like in regard!  If you attended and enjoyed it, please provide feedback! I’ve considered doing a surveymonkey on ‘what worked well, what didn’t work well’ etc sort of details.  You let me know either way, as I have complete and total plans of doing the EXACT same thing at VMworld in a few months; so just consider that ;)

OMG VCE!!??!

Okay, at this point if you’re a customer you probably don’t want to read what I’m about to say.  This content is really written to be positioned towards internal sales people, field sales and partners.   I’m not going to STOP you from reading it, but bear in mind you are not my audience! ;)

Hey guys! I think we’re alone.   WOW OMG DID YOU SEE WHAT I DID? In the event that you missed it. Just wow.   The kind of traction, currency, what is available today and what is coming tomorrow (incremental in existing investments) in what VCE is offering.  Wow, just an unequivocal WOW!

I’ve ALWAYS had intimate knowledge of what has been going on; (Past, Present and Future) but what is already public domain knowledge and how things stack up against what I’ll refer to as “competitive converged infrastructure solutions” so as not to call any one out in particular.  Our stack from end to end, from engineering on the floor (I wish I could get you some videos of the actual building process, Sigma whatever all that stuff and the serious hardening and baking it goes through)  and to the point of delivery on your customers floor.  If you are NOT positioning or being able to find a use-case for the VCE – Vblock with it’s magical EMC, Cisco and VMware combo ; you’re doing something fundamentally wrong!   I encourage you then to reach out to me directly (I do NOT work for VCE mind you, or a team which is focused exclusively on Vblocks, but the message is so simple, we can knock it out!)

So the lessons to walk away from this is; 2011 is NOT the year of Converged Infrastructure.   It IS the Year of VCE.    No question, no doubt about it.   You will see things shift, shape, mold and beyond in the coming months; no that doesn’t mean there are more things coming that you need to wait for, quite the opposite.  It’s there.  Start working with the tools available to you today.  I don’t see a reason you shouldn’t be able to grasp that!  Get out there and do whatever it is you do! ;)

Sales, Partners, whoever you can stop reading now! And the rest of my audience feel free to come back!

While that was a little vague, to tell you the truth… I want to get this published, and I should just do a video/audio recording of the whole messaging around this because I don’t want to type it up right now, the OMG passion really comes out when spoken (At least when I speak it ;))  Time to finish this up as I’m in a rocking VPLEX session with a VP! Later guys, and see you at VMworld ;)

“Wow, have a contrived enough hashtag for your party?!?!” Yea, I thought it through and… this is what I thought of a month ago, and I’m sticking with it!   

Okay, so if that wasn’t bad enough… I even created an Eventbrite Invite for this event! Check it out at http://cxiparty.eventbrite.com/

Let’s get the lowdown, the lay of the land, the scoop as it were; I’ll quote from the invite briefly, and then go into the REAL Details! :)

Are you going to be at EMCWorld and always hear about all of these amazing parties which are either full, or you have too many to choose from and not sure where to go?  Well, look no further; in my eyes, you are ALL VIPs and I’m hosting a VIP Party at this years EMCWorld!

Theory has it I may also be having a SWEET VIP Suite for this event, and if I don’t.. I’ll still have a pretty damn sweet suite (say that three times fast!)

I called the hotel.  I HAVE THE ROCKING SWEET ASS SUITE!!!

With that said, YOU ARE INVITED, OMG LETS EXCEED MAXIMUM OCCUPANCY! Yea, that’s the plan.

Sit down, eat, drink or whatever and talk with some of the best and amazing folks of Industry (food/drink will be organized based upon number of attendees)

Oh, Interop folks? Yea you’re invited if you ask ;)

The where and the when?

This will be at the Cosmopolitan hotel – Exact room number to be determined when I get on the groudn and check into the hotel.

MONDAY MAY 9TH 2011 – COSMOPOLITAN HOTEL

Follow #cxiparty hashtag for more details as to the exact WHERE and the WHEN – Please do sign up for ‘tickets’ so I have an idea of what our occupancy looks like.

Feel free to invite a guest, colleague, customer, whatever.

This is a networking event or something to that effect, so come enjoy yourselves! Let’s make the first official day of EMCWORLD a VIP Experience for all to enjoy!

Oh, FYI: If you want to "sponsor" which is a nice way of saying buy drinks, food, or even demo your tech/gear/whatever; let me know and everyone will GLADLY appreciate that, and I’ll be sure to make gracious mentions of you, and who knows… countless video interviews, etc :)

And if you need to reach me, feel free to email, twitter or txt me.

christopher.kusek@pkguild.com
@cxi on twitter
630-362.1320

See you there!

We are going to be partying in this damn nice looking suite which will more than accommodate most of us if not all of us… Yea that’s the ticket! ;)

1200 SQ Foot, with 480 SQ Ft Private Wrap-around Terrace, Panoramic views of Las Vegas Skyline; and the top minds in industry :)

So, if you’re looking to talk to some of the finest of the finest, enjoy yourself in a relaxed yet hectic atmosphere with some absolutely amazing networking, fun and adventure, the party doesn’t stop at 11 but I needed to figure out ‘some’ time claim it ends.  You’ll make connections which will stick with you for your entire life.  So come on down, enjoy yourself and let’s rock this out!

Vendors are highly welcome, customers especially.  #Vendors are also welcome to Sponsor and pay for food/drink and everyone wins ;)

This Monday night is all about YOU the attendee, so come on down, promote, share, so on and so forth and be sure to sign up at #CXIParty so I know who is coming! Guests are allowed!

Sometimes… you ride a really long flight… and sometimes it lands you in Houston Texas!  On this leg of the IT Grand Prix, our Journey did indeed bring us to Houston Texas!    We got some rest after getting in very late in the evening (after midnight!) and then our morning started off to a fairly fast start… a start which lead us to…

Welcome to the Houston Audobon Society!    It took us a bit to find the place as our ‘address’ and ‘map’ as it were, took us a little further away than this place which is located off the beaten path, so to speak.    This location is truly a sanctuary within a sanctuary.

The Houston Audobon Society is a close-knit group which does an amazing job of addressing a lot of the challenges which small businesses typically go through.   They had just gotten through a BPOS migration, moving Email and Sharepoint up in to the cloud; this gave them the opportunity to spread their load around outside of having to host everything internally at the mothership so to speak (which is valuable with Hurricane season starting)

However, the real value of this BPOS migration was even more so important in that the physical server they had been running DIED days prior to us showing up! (Wow, if there was ever a need for a series of IT Pro’s, this was definitely it! :))

What became the ultimate value of the event was the sheer fact that, no matter what kind of challenge or problem as an organization they had (above and beyond our ‘defined challenges’) they had the right audience to pursue and answer any and all questions, and get things rolling to not only get a ‘path’ but also get hard actionable items on board at that moment.  There were problems solved, which every one of us was glad to be a part of, and sincerely glad to be able to help! :)

I’m tired and didn’t get as many photos as I would hope – else I would have contributed some of the other content here :)

Wow, let me say that again.  Wow! Welcome to Day 2!    It’s hard to say where Day 2 begins or ends so for the benefit of solving that particular quandary… I’ll start from the moment I woke up, and I took these photos out of my hotel room window!   Isn’t it an absolutely beautiful day?!

We all gathered down in the main lobby bright and early at 8:15AM (For someone who historically is on Chicago time.. that’s 7:15, WTF right?! :))

There we stood, on Camera to find out the official results of Day 1’s competitions, the battle so to speak as we competed at KIPP DC as our Red team Vs the Blue Team (redvsblue) and the Gold and Green teams duked it out at a training facility ByteBack teaching the folks as part of “Back on my Feet”.    So David Elfassy, standing before us delivers the final word.. Red Team Wins! Green Team Wins! Wow! We won! (I was a little shocked, because I –loved- the Powerpoint template which the blue team used!)  However, now.. what do we do? We need to have a Tie-Breaker! Oh my!

Tie-Breaker Challenge

“Find someone running Windows 7 and ask them what their favorite feature is.”

So, we began our hunt to find someone who met this criteria!   Thinking on our feet.. we thought “Let’s head to the closest starbucks!”  As there was one in the hotel there, but no one seemed to have a Laptop!  Add to that… we had 36 minutes to complete this challenge – The first one to complete it, get a photo and get it uploaded would become the winner!

We walked a few blocks away (as I pulled my laptop out and started staging a blog post… :)) To the next nearest Starbucks only to be presented with the following challenge.

• “I’m sorry I’m running Windows XP”
• “No.  I have a mac.”
• Daniel: “You know you can run Windows 7 on a mac!”
• MacUser: *scorn* *disgust* :)
• “I’m sorry, no” which was more or less the “I don’t know what you’re selling, but I’m not buying!”

So, this was our first set of challenges… at which point… I did a refresh on the IT Grand Prix site only to find that… they had already posted their Photo! – We were done for! (and we headed back)

Focusing on the fact that the post in a ‘technicality’ only had a photo and not any expression of their ‘favorite’ feature, we were still game and looking for that next Windows 7 User – When qualifying this fact, we were happily informed that they not only got that.. They got it on film! (Go Scott the Videographer! :))

• Do you run Windows 7 on your laptop? New Yorkers Do!
• I’m a PC and Windows 7 is My Idea
• Code Monkey Say: Green Team Wins Washington, DC Ground Challenge

So, taking our lumps so to speak, we offered to castrate ourselves at their feet in respect of their utter domination of the circumstances :)

At this point, we began our Challenge for the day, which involved another puzzle to sort out.  We were given a contact we needed to find, and an obscure formulae to figure out, simple enough!   Well, after careful calculation and rigorous battle (and using the power of LinkedIn instead of solving an actual puzzle…) we were able to find our next destination to go to!

Welcome to NPower NY! They had this program called TSC or Technology Service Corps!

TSC offers a free, 18-week intensive IT training program to low-income youth and young adults (ages 18-25), and then places graduates in full-time employment throughout New York City’s nonprofit, business and public sectors. Participants practice their new skills and give back to their communities by performing service internships and volunteer work for area nonprofits.

The program has experienced steady growth since it began, and consistent high (80%) graduation and placement rates. Because of its success, TSC has grown to serve as many as 111 students/year, in a dedicated Brooklyn-based training facility. As part of this evolution, TSC introduced a Microsoft professional certification component for each student. Finally, NPower will soon launch a new three-year plan to begin TSC chapters at other NPower affiliates.

We were fortunate to meet 30 individuals who were graduates of this program, who went on to serve in Internships, and careers in technology.    The enthusiasm and passion these folks brought brought a great smile to all of our faces as we’ve been in the seat they’re sitting in, and it’s nice to help share our experiences as to how we got to where we are today!

We started off our time here with introducing ourselves and then lead into an “Ask the Experts” panel so they could ask any questions as well as so we could share our stories and history with everyone.     The range of our technical and business history ranged with a number of us having started back as far as 1992, and even some epic success stories of excelling to stardom in as few as 5 years!   We ended up learning a lot about each other and ourselves in this little time together, which was one of the most honest and infinitely valuable moments on the trip thus far.

(Because frankly, I’m writing this blog… I’ll share one of my stories :)  I didn’t get the chance to share this full story to the group, bits and pieces sure.. and I also shared some one-on-one or in a one-to-many session with the graduates, so here goes! )

<begin story>

Every one of us on this trip are MCT’s, many of which have been MCT’s for years (a lot of them have been an MCT 11+ years) which is similar to my own experience on the matter.    Back in the 90’s Microsoft had this ‘offer’, whereby if you got your MCSE you would receive the benefit of a TechNet subscription and a number of support incidents FREE for one year!   Okay… I was younger back then… but I wasn’t any less geeky.   The prospect of a TechNet subscription to me was HUGE! MASSIVE! OMFG AMAZING!   So I did it.  In 11 days, I passed 7 Exams from Microsoft and earned myself the MCSE NT 4.0.   Sure, I knew it might do something for my career in the long-term, but in the short term.. I’d be getting me some software+support! (Booyah! :))

Certainly… this isn’t the type of story you hear from other MCSE’s, MCT’s and otherwise.   Although like almost everything in my life… my situation is drastically different.   I had been investing in myself and my knowledge of Microsoft Technologies going back 10 years prior to that point.   This was huge to me, and meant a lot to me; did I know that my initiative, drive and passion would turn around quickly into a rocketing career (which is STILL ROCKETING UPWARD) from doing that? No..   It was all about giving me access to more tools to play with. :)

What happened next though, was my pursuit of the MCT! It was 1998, I thought, wow I would –love- to teach, share and endow those I worked with and consulted in order to help train them and bring them forward, and wanted to become an MCT.    However, I am very literal to the point of fault sometimes (and especially then).  The guidelines for the MCT at the time required a Premium Certification (MCSE/etc) which I HAD! But it also required me to work for a Trainer/training company, something I was not exactly in the capacity to take on board at that time; thus my plan to become an MCT was put on hold.    —————–> FAST FORWARD to 2009!   While spending my time on the Get On The Bus Tour – First tour of Americas… I got to know the entire MSLearning team, and when I raised this legacy 10+ year old concern around becoming an MCT (something I wanted so to do) I was informed… “Yea, we got rid of that requirement ‘x’ years ago”.

There it was… Becoming an MCT was in my grasp!  In fact, more than just being in my grasp, I actually reached out and took hold and subsequently I’ve been an MCT Officially since 2009!

Now, for those of you who know me… you know that personally certification doesn’t mean a whole lot to myself, because I collect certifications like some people collect fine art.    And that analogy is king here, as they are indeed fine art in a manner of speaking; So much effort goes into their creation, and once you acquire them and hold them in your repository you have the experience and knowledge and are able to keep them forever!    However, not all certifications are created equal; and this distinction is important because frankly I don’t have room for EVERY one of my certifications on my business card or signature line.     If you do see my signature or business card you will see two certifications standing Prominent.  MCT and CISSP.

CISSP

Hey, I’m a security guy, I invested a lot of myself in this… both in the test and the years of required experience to sit this exam, so this means a lot to me.

As a caveat to this, 3-6 months after completing my CISSP which I studied for 6-9 months and read 57 books to prepare for, I finally sat my GED getting the 99th percentile and thus successfully having documentation stating ‘I have a equivalent to a high school diploma’   Yea… That’s right, right after I completed something which people dedicate decades to :)

MCT

I think I pretty much explained that here.   Holding the MCT means a real lot to me, it means decades of dedication, education and pursuit; and I am proud to hold it today as I will to hold it for years to come.    It may not be for every one, but for me, it means a real lot, and I hope you are able to make a story for yourself like my very own above. :)

</end story>

So, while my story ended there… the stories of these individuals at NPower in the TSC Program is just going to continue going forward.    It was a great honor to have these fine people take time out of their day in order to come talk with us, listen to us speak, but more importantly to engage our minds and theirs in unison discussing things which we have such a passionate discourse for.    If you’re curious to what extent this was so passionately driven? :) The Red Team was assigned “Virtualization” as the topic of discussion to cover with them.   Just think about it.. Daniel Nerenberg, MVP of Application Virtualization, and me… the poster child for Virtualization ;)   Talk about the Perfecta!

While there were four teams that day, Red, Blue, Gold and Green all “competing” to win the challenge, we all ended up winners that day.   The opportunity to share with the students, and their attention and passion to join us and enable us to talk with them; All of these challenges are in their own right challenging because any single one of us would give our time to help these folks in an instant.   So, thank you so much NPower and Graduates of the TSC Program.   You made our time in NYC not only a productive one, but an amazing one we’re so happy to have been able to share with you!

Hey Chicago! Hey Girls! (Hey Girls In Tech in Chicago?! :)) Okay, that’s a bit trite… :)

It was a beautiful Tuesday evening this December 1st of 2009 – For the opening event of the Chicago chapter of Girls In Tech!    There was an almost equal pairing of women and men at this launch event! It’s great to see the number of men who want to see women thrive in technology and are willing to come out to show it!   

I took a photo which didn’t really come out, but I did take a short 5min video of the introduction, kick off and overview of the organization (with banter from the crowd as well ;)

So, I encourage you men and women alike to not only keep an eye on Girls In Tech, but take an active role in promoting this to others as well!  This is a great organization reaching out to the masses who don’t need to stand alone, there is a solid community and support network out there! Embrace it.  Join and you won’t regret it!

I want to extend special thanks to Managing Director Dawn Kuczwara @digitaldawn for organizing this whole event and Microsoft Technology Evangelist Angela Dugan @oakparkgirl for presenting at this first event!