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Welcome to bonus episode 1 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solutions Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss our recent experiences at VMware’s user conference (VMworld 2018), reasons to pay attention to  vendor announcements at major conferences, and our observations of how the VMware community was executing professional networking at VMworld.

Original recording date: 2018-09-07

Topics

2:10 VMworld 2018 Experiences

• Customer experience vs Employee experience
  • Structure
  • You don’t own your schedule
  • Focus on customer time
• John wrote a blog on packing for VMworld
  • http://vjourneyman.com/vmworld-prep-part-1
  • Forgot to mention sunglasses and lip balm
• Nick’s sessions
  • Troubleshooting Your Horizon 7 Deployment (WIN3523BU)
  • Advanced NSX Services in VMware Cloud on AWS: Use Cases and Best Practices (NET2409BU)
• Video Library is up and free
  • https://videos.vmworld.com/searchsite/2018
• John’s sessions
  • Amanda Blevins – Achieving Happiness: Building Your Brand and Your Career (LDT1907BU)
    • @AmandaBlev
  • John is bad at networking with the nerd-famous
    • Michael White (@mwVme), accidental
    • John Arrasjid (@vcdx001), Michael White callout
    • Rebecca Fitzhugh (@RebeccaFitzhugh), just didn’t do it
• Nick’s experience as a #vAllStar
• Conflicting customer dinners
• Prime Rib Loft @ The Orleans Casino, John and Nick’s Tradition
• Solutions Exchange, the vendor showcase
  • Finding the vendors you’ve never heard of
  • Finding out the problems on the horizon
    • John in 2017, SD-WAN
    • Nick in 2018, Blockchain

17:10 Tracking Announcements at Vendor Conferences – Why do you care?

• My problems vs. all the problems that vendors see
• See what the vendors see in industry trends
• Pay attention to vendor vision statements
  • Example: Virtual Desktop vs. Digital Workspace
• Staying relevant for future direction of technology for your current and next job
• General industry conferences instead of IT conferences
• Investigating where your training plan adjacencies might be
  • Nerd Journey 007: Professional Networking and Training Revisited

27:25 Observing How Others Leverage Conferences for Networking

• Professional Networking Lists
  • Al Rasheed (@al_rasheed), 100 people on his list?!
    • @DCVMUG
    • https://alarasheedblog.wordpress.com
  • John and Nick originally met at a conference!
• Tony Gonzalez’s (@vGonzilla) last-minute ticket story
  • @DenverVMUG
• VMUnderground Opening Acts
  • • Non-standard topics
    • Beating IT Burnout – https://youtu.be/D2CMVJQPZio
    • Tips for Multi-Cloud Success – https://youtu.be/oGMiCPTccvg