Virtualization, Cloud, Infrastructure and all that stuff in-between

My main role in helping to run the UK & London VMware User Group (VMUG) is finding, arranging, press-ganging and cajoling people into giving sessions at one of our quarterly VMUG meetings – I look for primarily for solid, interesting content, especially if it’s “outside of the box” and secondly a professional speaker – I don’t care who you are or if the last presentation you delivered was when you played the carrot in the cub scout christmas play aged 8 (yes, that was me – before you ask!).

You’ll get a lot out of presenting at a VMUG – even if you’re nervous, or new to presenting we can help to coach you through to a successful session and VMUG audiences, even helping you to find a co-presenter to help you out – the #FeedForward initiative is also a massive supporter of YOU and the audience are ALWAYS friendly and like-minded.

You don’t have to be captain of a datacentre the size of the starship enterprise to have something interesting to say, my 1st VMUG presentation 5 years ago was on my 2-host lab environment, and ever since I’ve iterated that vTARDIS presentation and delivered sessions on it at VMworld and VMUGs and other conferences around the world (Melbourne, Copenhagen, Chicago) and it even won the VMworld best of show award –  it’s been a hugely rewarding and enjoyable experience and I would encourage you all – no matter how timid or insignificant you think your experiences are to get in touch with your local VMUG and volunteer to do a presentation – VMUGs are about community and content – and we (the UK/LDN committee) work VERY hard to ensure the right balance between VMware, sponsor and COMMUNITY content.

In recent London VMUG’s we’ve started doing a slot for lightning-talks where you deliver a short, sharp & to-the-point 5-15min presentation on a topic of your choosing, these are a great way to jump-start your presenting career locally, and maybe even globally as they’re much less daunting than a normal 45-60min slot and are an excellent way to dip your toe in the water, there are also panel & round-table discussions that are a good way to get involved.

Being able to present, articulate a point and hold a confident discussion on a topic is a critical career skill if you want to stand out from the crowd, or keep your seat in a world of increasing off-shoring and out-sourcing.

So, in short get in touch (details on about page), present something, go LARGE by submitting your talk for VMworld via the call for papers process –  Let’s be realistic, VMworld sessions are traditionally hard to get accepted for unless you’re a sponsor or a well recognised name and there is a LOT of competition, on the other hand VMUGs sometimes struggle to find people willing to present, a lot of those recognised names started their vSpeaking career by getting involved at a local VMUG first – you do the maths, literally what have you got to lose?

BTW Next London VMUG meeting (#LonVMUG on twitter) is 15th May 2014.