A Digital VMworld: Mind The Path

Current State Analysis

This year has been different with so many things at so many levels that we’re back into almost 100% discovery mode: “What do we do now?”, “How should we react to this?”, “Is it the best way to do this?”, “Can it be made better?”…and a whole lot more of inquisitive questions, that implies some simple facts that one must adhere to Adaptation and Adoption, and these two terms are key when thinking about the entirety of any decision we make.

While the pandemic is sadly getting the better of us, we still have our wits and grit to not let us dampen our goal and we thrive to succeed and be better.

I’ve been going to VMworld since 2013, and I can keep talking about my experience there day and night. VMworld is amazing, the people at VMworld are amazing, the entire thing is just a momentum of positivity that inspired me through the years and made me always want to come back and treat this conference as a yearly “MUST ATTEND” event.

With our current reality that almost everything now is tagged with “From Home“, in this post, I will show you how you can make the best of VMworld 2020 Digital Edition from the most valuable point of view:

When you look at what VMworld 2020 Digital Edition has to offer, you can easily get overwhelmed by the number of sessions there is, as of this post there are 727 On-Demand sessions in the catalog ready for the taking. But wait! How is someone supposed to attend all these sessions within proper time, this post is here to help you organize, structure, and maximize those sessions.

The WHY

Before the HOWs & WHATs, it is very important to establish and resonate on the WHYs. Why would I need to register for VMworld? Now that VMworld is in its digital format and most of the awesome things in it & around it are for free, this even makes it an even more difficult decision. Well, if you look at it the way I do, you’ll definitely see that its the most reasonable commitment to make ;).

• Throughout the year we’re always trying to catch up with the latest and greatest and most of the time because of the commitments we have, we tend to miss on them.
  • VMworld is the place where all of this can be regained and you’re back on track.

• With the vast number of solutions, products, and features it becomes very easy to lose focus on the trends, shifts, and how technology is evolving (ESPECIALLY NOWADAYS).
  • VMworld is the place where all would be revealed and all information comes together to make the perfect sense.

• Planning for what is next for your business and making critical decisions requires knowledge and demands precise, solid, and unshakable vendor support.
  • VMworld is where you can build that confidence, engage with peers, and get outcome-focused testimonials based on facts, measurable results, and valuable lessons learned from the vast VMware community both internal and external.

Making Things Actionable

First, you must have your registration fulfilled, and if you’ve opted for the paid version I’d be very keen on engaging those Hands-On-Labs (HOL) especially the Odyssey challenges (trust me, they’re that good).

So back to the 700+ sessions, if we do some mathematics and based on the average time each session is about 25 minutes long so that’s almost 5 days worth of content. The only way we’re going to be able to do this is to stick to a humanly-possible schedule and we opt to go for 2 hours daily routine of VMworld sessions then that’s 60 days (60 sessions) of new information to digest, process, and elevate with at all levels.

On the other hand, if you’re more like me with a certain focus on solutions and want to learn about them in a very focused way then we’d go to session hunting and building that flow of sessions, where you can utilize the excellent filters in the catalog to drill down into different categories based on your interest, the level of your interest and ideally you’ll also make good use of the scheduler to keep proper tracking of the sessions and mark the ones you want to watch after VMworld or perhaps re-watch.

After watching the sessions, most likely you’ll have a plethora of questions, I would urge you to engage with the community via all means Forums, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Slack. This is a very engaging community and you’ll definitely find answers there or at the very least someone who can point you to where to get the right answers.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, stay strong, and never hold back when it comes to learning more, and always be vigilant in the pursuit of the next best version of yourself :).

• Pathway Image Source.
• Mountains Landscape Image Source.