vmworld

I saw an interesting tweet on my way to the conference, someone said "why is the VMworld conference not virtual ?"  At first thought that seems to make sense. With everyone focused on cost savings, why not hold the entire conference from the VMworld.com location ?

After spending the afternoon at the exhibitor booths this thought was still running through my head ... would I have been able to meet as many people and have as many meaningful discussions ?  I think not.

Then came time for the tweetup at the VMware communities lounge and put some faces to all the names I've seen online.  It was great to see people's faces light up as they made the connections with online names to real names.

The real reason I feel this conference would not be as effective virtually is when we started having the "real" conversations later into the night.  When you remove the "My Boss/HR/Press/Competitors" might be watching factor that you get with online conversations, you really get to hear what is on people's minds. They say what they really think about a particular technology and solution.  Those conversations are priceless and I thank many of the people I have met for being frank and honest. 

Social media and the internet may have made it easier to connect online, but there are still times when you have to "press the flesh".  Looking forward to having many more of these conversations with all of you this week !

But wait, maybe if the run across the Golden Gate bridge had been virtual, I might have been able to join and finish it without a sweat ! :-)

What a day.  I conceded victory to the alarm clock and kick started the coffee pot at 3:30 AM.  After I managed to convince my eyelids to at least remain half-way open, I began my journey to San Francisco for VMworld 2009.  I made it to the airport, through security and on into the great blue yonder.  I initially planned to get a few winks on the way... but wouldn't you know it -they were playing this summer's blockbuster, Star Trek, for the in flight movie.  ARGH!  There was no sleep to be had when you can watch the original bromance of Kirk & Spock on the 4" drop down screen.  Nemoy got me all choked up again, but I fake-coughed and successfully fooled any would-be onlookers in my aisle.

After an on-time arrival, Kong Yang (who was was on the same flight) and I rode the BART all the way to the Montgomery station. Checked into the hotel, which as luck would have it had a room available at 9:00 AM. (SCORE!)   Now granted, said room shares a wall with the hotel elevators, but hey, I had a place to store my bag!  I generally sleep through those sorts of things anyway.

I grabbed some much needed breakfast (well, more like lunch for me in this timezone) and walked to the Moscone convention center which is only 1 1/2 blocks from the hotel. (SCORE again!)

Considering the general session doesn't start till Tuesday, there were a TON of people already here!  I registered and then wandered around and watched fellow geeks angling for power outlets, web terminals, and of course LOTS of Coffee. The line to get into the self paced lab was really really long and I saw a few not-so-happy tweets on that subject.  Other than that, everyone seems quite excited to be here.  I can't wait till reception tonight and to get into some sessions tomorrow!

Here's a short video testing out the camera and giving an update of what I saw today.... more to come!

It's only a few weeks until VMworld.  All of us in the Dell TechCenter, Jeff, Kong, and myself are getting excited as this is one of the best conferences of the year. 

We have decked out the VMworld Dell Virtual Exhibitor booth in preparation for the trip.  Be sure to stop by for the latest information on our offerings and potential booth give-a-ways.

If you can't make the show, keep up with us on Twitter.

If you can make the show, we'd love to meet up with you.  We are evolving the Dell TechCenter and would love to hear from you what we can do to make it a valuable one-stop resource for virtualization, storage, power, systems management, and of course servers.

The plan is to pick your brains for an hour on Wednesday Sept 2nd from 4-5pm then get some refreshments and head on over to the VMworld party.  We've got limited room, so respond quick.  Send me an email (scott_hanson@dell.com) with your contact details and I'll get together a list and contact you with the exact details. 

Don't worry, if we get more responses than we have room ... you are still invited for refreshments afterwards.  Be sure to follow us on Twitter and I'll announce the location to meetup for the tweetup.

Looking forward to meeting up with you all !