If you had said to me in January 2019 that by December 2020 that I would have spoken publicly at 2 events, have this blog site up and running, and became a VMware vExpert, I would not have believed you. In fact, I probably would have laughed at you!
Well in January 2019, I persuaded my employer to pay for membership for VMUG Advantage for myself and a colleague, giving us benefits like 365 evaluation licenses, etc. etc. By the second VMUG meeting I attended, I decided to give speaking a go.
Whilst at vBeers after London VMUG, I was talking to David Simpson (and Alaric Davies). After a few drinks (for Dutch Courage) I volunteered myself for a vFactor talk at the next London BMUG meeting. But, there were not enough speakers for vFactor so it was decided it would be moved to UK Usercon for July. More drinks followed and again after a few vBeers talking with Chris Porter and Dave Simpson I decided I would do my presentation on VoIP on VMware. I currently support a large VoIP environment and thought it would be good to talk to community about.
London VMUG leaders (Simon Gallagher and Chris Dearden) organised weekly meetings to help us prepare for our presentations. I have never presented in a small meeting! Let alone at a UK UserCon in front of 60 people. There were four presenters: Me, Rick Tyler, Gavin Stephens and Tim Alexander. As a vFactor first time speaker I won a prize. Go me!
In April 2020 I decided to start blogging (CloudITBlog.com). It was a domain which I had bought a while ago but done nothing with it. Having never created a website or blogged in my life, I thought I would give it a go. The idea being to document how I have resolved issues I have faced in my day job and how I resolved them. Putting them on the internet gives others a chance to get helped, and is also a record for me if the same issue popped up again.
In May 2020 I reached out to vExpert Pros regarding becoming a vExpert, and was contacted by Andrew Hancock. We arranged a Zoom call where Andy went through what I had typed up so far and advised where I needed make changes. Andy helped me with my overall application as well. In July I got an email advising I was now a vExpert. I couldn’t believe it.
In November I get a message from Paul Donnachie at Runecast on LinkedIn regarding Runecast call for papers for presenting at Uptime 2020. Had a chat with Paul and I did a fireside chat with Kev Johnson at Runecast titled Stable Systems, Stable Services Keeping Critical NHS Services Delivering In Covid Crisis.
We are now in December 2020 and my journey this last year has been fun. I have pushed myself to do the things that I have never done before and have found I have enjoyed doing all of them some more so then others.
What have you achieved in the last 2 years?
