My VMworld 2011 Monday Recap

WOW!

I think that about sums up my day today here in Las Vegas.  I would hesitate to say it could not get any busier…..but that may just jinx myself.  I really only got a few hours sleep, not due to nerves about the presentations today, but more about logistics and still thinking of my wife and home that was still without power.  Luckily we got no real damage and the power came back late tonight.  So now that I don’t have to worry about that we can look forward to the rest of the week.

For those that were not here in the morning I had the pleasure of moderating VSP1682 for Duncan Epping and Frank Denneman as one of the very first sessions of the day.  It is always hard to start a session at 08:00, but even harder on the very first day of the conference.  To our surprise…..everyone was awake and ready to roll!  The Q&A went smoothly and the feedback was great.  Duncan, Frank and I really enjoy presenting together so we hoped everyone else noticed that.  We are already discussing a session next year where I even answer some questions.  Personally I liked moderating and keeping them in line.  I forgot to mention that we all had breakfast with Massimo Re Ferre, and MAN can he put away the breakfast food!  I counted two full plates from the buffet!  That is just a story for another day though.

Then it was off to deal with presentation changes for CIM1264 with David Hill at the speaker center.  We had a few minor tweaks, but the deck looks good and ready to go for all three sessions we are delivering.  After the session changes, had a quick 11:00 meeting with Greg Herzog, Mike Dipetrillo, and the vCloud Connector team in the hang space.  Great ideas flowing at that meeting with a lot of great minds.  Nothing like getting smart people together for a design session, I loved it.

Lunch….yes I actually did eat so not to worry, and then off to the ESXi Quiz show.  I could not stay for the whole thing as I had to do one of the coolest thing all day.  I met up in the blogger’s lounge with Mike Foley, Brian Gracely and Aaron Delp, who poorly called me out in v0dgeball I might add.  I have to say that was a total blast!!  I would love to do more of those.  The video is below, and if I do say so myself, I thought I did pretty good for my first time on live TV.  I think we did a great job and now I know why people say I look like someone else, I’m not saying who though.  Thanks to the guys at CloudCast.net for the opportunity to get out there in front of some people.

 

After that I needed some downtime before the solution exchange opened and then had to head to the East Coast party where I caught up with some customers both past and present.  I got to meet the folks from Virtacore who were awesome enough to be one of my first blog sponsors. You have to check out there vCloud Express offering it is pretty cool  Now here I sit on the couch in my hotel room at 9:45 pretty much ready for bed so I can do this all over again.  I did want to point out a few takeaways from today.

• VMworld is the only place you will ever see a line at a Men’s room….seriously not right
• I met more people for the first time today in person having just known their names only than I thought I would.
• Twitter is the nuggets for finding your peeps in a sea of 20,000 people.
• I may not have a voice in another two days.
• The people and company I work for really are/is the best!
• Steve Herrod finally started following the VCDX’s on Twitter…..Long story but was a twitter petition started by me late last night.  WINNING!
• People please log in and fill out your surveys!!  I know the system was down early today but we need your feedback and it is all online this year from a mobile device right in the session rooms.

All kidding aside…..today was awesome.  I did not make it to the conference last year so having this much to do this year really is a blessing and a curse.  Tomorrow I have more sessions including group discussions and expert 1:1’s that are all filled.  This is awesome….no check that…..this is “Wicked Pissa” as we say back in New England.  Now peace out, I need some sleep.