About the Author
Leon Grassi is a Commercial Account Executive for VMware based out of New Jersey. His near 20-year career spans an array of industries from advertising, media, publishing, digital marketing, accounting, and technology. He hopes to be thought of as a creative, non-traditional, and always focused person with specific specialty in the forgotten art of “common sense”.
COVID Chronicles Series
This blog is in support of COVID Chronicles: a video series by Leon Grassi, VMware Commercial Account Executive, that describes VMware solutions at a high level through the lens of “normal” everyday quarantine activities.
Video 1: Nerf Blasters
For nearly 20 years now I have engineered myself as a dual-threat business professional, with expertise in both sales and marketing. I have long said that one cannot call themselves a salesperson without experience in marketing, and vice versa. I stand by this, and thus far I would argue that I’ve been pretty successful as a result of this specific engineering. It is thanks to this combined skillset that I present to you – COVID Chronicles! These posts are in support of the video series by the same name that I have created on LinkedIn. My goal is simple – to touch upon VMware solutions at a high level for each video while I go about my “normal” quarantine activities…which in this first video happened to be a Nerf Blaster battle with my kids on a much-needed break from emails. I hope you enjoy, and I’m always looking for feedback and engagement so don’t hesitate to comment!
Video 2: Sprinklers
Here’s the thing, most of our clients still only know VMware as a virtualization company and this is a mistake. Our solutions portfolio has evolved and grown to encompass virtually every part of an organization’s IT needs while ultimately solving to its business initiatives. What does this have to do with a water balloon fight with my kids?!?! Well nothing really…but it was crazy hot out and I needed a break from my laptop. In between getting pelted by water balloons (that didn’t seem to want to break) I wanted to discuss the overarching vision for VMware as we move our industry to the future. This was also a great opportunity to remind folks to register for VMworld!
Video 3: Moto
I’ve been a passionate motorcycle enthusiast for as long as I can remember and one of my favorite pastimes – aside from riding the bikes – is wrenching on them. I bought a 1973 Honda CB750 about 9 months ago that came to me in pieces, enough pieces to fill about 5 Rubbermaid containers. After months and months of busting my knuckles and quite a few curse words in the garage…I give you, Lazarus. Seemed a fitting name for a bike that had been essentially resurrected. My junior mechanics helped me get it running and I used some of my test ride time to talk about VMware’s Digital Workspace. We have an employee-first approach to building digital workspace strategies that enable people to access their apps wherever and whenever they need them. I had a blast filming this one and I assure you I always ride as safely as I can…#safetysecond.
Video 4: Mowing the lawn
Not every video can be as cool as a water balloon fight, or a motorcycle ride. Sometimes real life intersects with these quarantine activities and, well…yard work. But of course, nothing I do is ever boring so the kids brought some excitement to an otherwise mundane activity. I always try to draw a witty parallel between these quarantine activities and VMware solutions so I went with security this time around, specifically for our virtual networking solutions known as NSX. Did my kids really hide my phone? No, that was staged…but the backpack blower sword fight was absolutely real and just as dangerous as you’d imagine.
Video 5: The Seat Ski
This one honestly just came to me out of the blue. In the same deal I made to secure my vintage Honda I also picked up this vintage Seat Ski. This thing is just as nutty as it seems, and although surprisingly nimble it’s not exactly as safe as many other boat-towing related activities. But as I am committed to the cause I calculated the risks and put my limbs on the line for the VMware message! LOL. The cloud is a very complex simple solution. If that doesn’t make sense, it’s because it’s true. VMware has once again created a solution that can simplify the complexity by way of VMware Cloud Foundation. Now if they can just simplify the Seat Ski.
Video 6: Bathroom Renovation
What a mess I got myself in this time. For this pandemic project I decided to give everyone a peek behind the curtains of my bathroom renovation project…that I foolishly decided to do myself. And given it’s a stagnant project during the weekdays I figured I would use the backdrop of a gutted bathroom to provide a quick update on VMworld 2020, which was a huge success this year. We had over 150K virtual attendees through the week, 920 unique sessions, and over 50 sponsors. There were some solid tracks throughout the week and some big announcements which can all be found at the VMworld site.
Email Leon for more information or to discuss VMware’s Future-Ready workforce solutions.
