This year I was fortunate enough to have reached a wee milestone of a 5th vExpert award so it prompted a post!

Needless to say I am honoured to be still counted among such an awesome community of folk who spend their own free time helping others to understand and consume VMware technology.

Looking back to when I received my first vExpert title in May 2013, it feels like time has just flown by! As well as being part of the awesome community, getting free licenses from VMware, awesome awesome free training from Pluralsight which has helped me loads in my career, and a bunch of vendor other schwaaaag, it’s also opened up a great many opportunities!

For example, I’ve made loads of great friends, gotten to speak at a number of events, and even had the chance to become a Tech Field Day delegate, traveling to the US several times to visit a load of tech companies and startups, whilst learning from some seriously clever people. What I’ve put into the community I have easily received back tenfold, and I am massively grateful to be part of it.

Do it! Do it now!…

If you have the time to put into it, I highly recommend anyone takes the time to share and hopefully become part of the community.

Here are a few examples from my entry this year, which might hopefully give people some ideas as to the kinds of things which you could do too!

Member of a panel at a VMUG

Presented a short 15-minute talk at a VMUG

Ran a “roundtable” session at a VMUG (for around 30 people)

Founded a new website on homelabs (http://openhomelab.org)

Started a new podcast with some other VMUG members and vExperts around homelabbing and tech news (http://opentechcast.com)

Posted a blog a week (in the past I have aimed to do one a month and built it up over time)

The entry bar to becoming a vExpert is not massively high; you certainly don’t have to do all of the above, or even any of the above! That said, if you are not currently a vExpert, and you can achieve just a couple of these kinds of items, you could be well on the way to becoming one too!

Trust me, it’s worth the effort!