Applications for the 2014 vExpert awards are now being accepted. Most people know what this is but if you don’t it is recognition by VMware for the work people have done within the VMware community. This could be blogging, presenting, training, coming up with new ways to use their technology.
A few people have complained that the award is watered down now that the number of recipients have grown to over 500 and it’s not worth applying for. I disagree with this for multiple reasons. The VMware portfolio has grown and the recipient list should grow with it. Also, a lot of people didn’t even know about the program until recent years, myself included. I had no idea what it was even though I was doing enough to earn the award already. I finally found out what it was once I got more involved with the Kansas City VMware User Group. All of the leaders were vExperts and a couple others who attended were as well. I finally had to ask and decided to apply.
Receiving the award isn’t about the benefits, it’s about what you do for the community. The benefits don’t hurt though, especially if you have a home lab and no “access” to license keys for it. Yeah, there are cool glasses, Raspberry Pi’s, shirts, etc… provided by hardware and software vendors but getting license keys to run the latest releases in my lab is so helpful. You also get the opportunity to see some of what will be released and sometimes even participate in a beta release.
For all of you who think you can’t be a vExpert, you never will if you don’t apply.
Read more about the process and apply here.
vEric: 
Leave a Reply