Countdown to VMworld T-10 - Social Networking

It is almost here, 10 days until VMware’s biggest event of the year, the biggest virtualization event of the year.
The number of reasons to be at this event are countless, so I decided to create a daily post counting down (in no particular order) to the event, each day with a great reason to be at VMworld - and here is number one.

Reason #1 – Social Networking

Imagine, 20,000 people – geeks just like us, interested in the same silly things, that have their hearts miss a beat when they see a script creating 100 VM’s with a single command. That is the essence of VMworld.
I do admit that these are not the only people there, also press, vendors, analysts, they are all there but the majority are geeks just like you and me.

I interact with a great number of people on Twitter, email, Instant messaging throughout the day (mostly Twitter though). But this is an exchange of 140 characters back and forth – mostly a sporadic – albeit almost immediate conversation. The saying goes “A picture is worth a thousand words” and I would go further and say, “Meeting face-to-face is better than a a thousand email threads or video conferences”.

With the majority of the activity situated in the U.S. I do not get to come across very often, it is a damn long flight I must tell you.

The shaking of someone’s hand, having a beer (or diet coke) together, the informal conversations with the people that I have made connections over the past few years – is priceless. It builds connections that last throughout the year(s) and are beneficial to us all.