Alistair Sutherland is a highly sought-after subject matter expert (SME) for his thorough and patient style of classroom training, expert partner enablement, comprehensive training development, and most recently – his expertise in delivering online Exam Prep video courses for the VMware Learning Zone (VLZ). Alistair has been on camera for some of our most popular exam prep courses, including courses for vSphere and NSX certification. You can also catch him live at one of our many Live Online Events, where he often shares great technical insights, tips and techniques, as well as answering Live student questions during our scheduled Live Instructor Hours. Thank you, Alistair!
What is your background? How did you come to work in IT?
I’ve worked in IT for 26 years. I studied IT and Electronics at university and then completed a Masters in Software Engineering. However, at that point I didn’t really want to code, I wanted to get my hands on IT equipment, find out how it worked, and how to fix it. So I ended up in a tech support role in a publishing house covering desktop, server and networking. After a while, I needed to stretch myself more, so I joined a consulting company which developed custom software for a variety of industries and also delivered Microsoft official training. This was my introduction to the vendor training world. Whilst providing tech support to the developers (who were a tough crowd to keep happy!) I underwent instructor training and became a Microsoft Certified Trainer and found out that I absolutely loved teaching. There was no better sense of completion and feeling I had made a difference when you had a student happy at the end of a course and able to ask questions you can’t answer! I moved on from Microsoft teaching to consulting projects, taking a break from the classroom for a few years. But when VMware arrived, I just loved the technology and wanted to spread the word! So I was back teaching again, with tech that was transformational and it led me to teach from Singapore to Sydney to Sao Paulo! Fast forward a few years and I’m now teaching VMware and AWS, which go together perfectly for helping customers.
What do you think makes for a great online learning experience?
Having come from a background of teaching face to face in a classroom for typically 5 days at a time, I was initially skeptical of micro-learning, where learning objectives are broken down into small bite-size chunks for video. However, once I started consuming this for myself when learning Docker and Python–I embraced it fully! When I create videos for the VMware Learning Zone, I’m aiming at 8 minutes max. Keep it short and to the point and just have more videos to cover all objectives. This enables the learner to jump to what they need and skip what they don’t. In a world of massive information overload, micro-learning is the only way you can keep up!
Why did you become involved in the VMware Education Contributor program?
I wanted to bring my perspective on what works in terms of knowledge retention. In learning IT, I think that understanding the use case, the technical concept and any implementation and break/fix methods are way more important than learning every menu or every command line syntax option. I wanted to help influence that.
What is the most desirable facet of the Education Contributor program?
The best thing is the program embraces all contributors, not just those staff in VMware Education. It’s excellent to get different viewpoints and experiences to ensure you are not working in a bubble.
How have you benefited from the program?
I’ve met some great people at VMware working in this program which in turn has prompted me to push myself further and take myself out my comfort zone and really challenge myself.
Fun Fact
Making videos in IT has re-ignited my passion for TV/video work which I thought would be a dream job when I was at school. So now I shoot wedding videos as a hobby!
Check out Alistair’s catalog in the VMware Learning Zone
Connect with Alistair on Twitter
Join VMware’s Education Contributor Program
