Dear blog reader,
Some two months back I was asked to join and present a VMUG session with the world’s largest VMware User Group, the VMUGNL Usercon 2024. I must admit that I was surprised to be asked, but also moved and honoured at the same time; I did not expect this, and to present neither. My internal processes were not hesitant at all, so I quickly said they would be able to count on me. However, I did say I just wanted to think about it a little while by myself, before giving my formal confirmation!
The CFP, Call for Paper, was submitted by Vladimir Velikov through Papercall, and after the initial proposal was sent, the VMUG leaders approved the session on February 29th! Richard van Dantzig, Wouter Kursten, Vladimir Velikov and myself would collaborate during this VMUG’s personal development session. Vladimir held a similar type of session for the VMUG-BE.
This year VMUGNL was held in Den Bosch in the wonderful 1931 Congress Center; it is great to be back again!
We defined the session name as vCommunity, and what’s in it for you! and planned it to be panel session. This meant a host will be asking the panelists questions. Interaction with the audience would also be possible, stimulated even. It sounded wonderful. Besides hosting the session, I just needed to be curious.
The LinkedIn VMUG banner (by ITQ) can be found below.
The panel session planning itself did not take too much of time: we had an online meeting to introduce ourselves and discussed the ins-and-outs. We decided on the type of questions, and decided we did not want too much of preparation, to make sure t0 have some honest interaction.
I created a small deck of PowerPoint slides, even though we would not really use these slides to guide us through the panel session.
On the day itself, Tuesday, March 26th, I was somewhat stressed, but nothing out of the ordinary; I’m always quite relaxed. And also, I like the idea to be on-stage.
The first -delayed- keynote by Chris Wolf, but also the afternoon keynote by Brian Madden, were the highlights of my day. And I enjoy being among colleagues and tech enthusiasts 😀
Just before our own session, I took some time to sit back and relax. Our session started straight after lunch and had the Frank Denneman’s AI session in the same time window. Thankfully, as expected, the room was not fully packed; enough participants were attending to have a nice discussion with. Which we obviously did. 45 Minutes of time flies by really fast, I can tell you! It was mentioned the four of us were complementing each other, which was a nice compliment.
And of course the rest of the day was just wonderful. Having a nice time with colleagues, joining other sessions was the way I spent the remainder of the day. Did I forget to mention the bitterballen?
VMUGNL, until we meet again next year?