Is IT Community really valuable? Is it just a huge ploy from marketing groups to advertise their products or is there real value for all involved? I certainly have my opinions on the topic, but this week I was really curious about what you (the collective IT Community) get from community. This prompted me to send a quick survey on the benefits of IT Community, and then invite some community leaders to discuss with us.
This week on the Virtually Speaking Podcast John and I bring in community leaders John Mark Troyer and Amy Lewis to discuss the difference between advocacy and influencer communities and the benefits of each.
John Mark Troyer is the founder of TechReckoning, an independent community of enterprise technology professionals. He spends his days working together with people in the IT Community to make IT better and to make IT marketing better. In past lives he was the social media and community guy at VMware, an entrepreneur, and a scientist. You can follow John on Twitter @jtroyer.
Amy Lewis (aside from being a self proclaimed lover of bacon) is an Old-School Open Community Evangelist, host of the @Geek_Whisperers podcast, creator of @PopUpTechTalks and Director of Influence Marketing @SolidFire. Follow Amy on Twitter @CommsNinja.
We also invited Jonathan Frappier and Corey Romero but had some scheduling conflicts. We will definitely be bringing these guys in on a future episode.
Show Related Links
- VMware Communities Roundtable Podcast
- Geek Whisperers Podcast
- VMware vExpert Program
- VMware User Groups (VMUG)
- EMC Elect Program
- Veeam Vanguard Program
- NetApp A-Team
- Cisco Champions
- vBrownBag
- What the Village People can teach IT
Survey Results
As promised below are the results to the survey on the value of IT Community. Thanks to all who took the time to share your input.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-LX3S53NR/
- To the response “I love Cheese” I say me too my friend.
- To the response “I listen to no podcasts because they all suck” I say you should probably check out Geek Whisperers 🙂
The Virtually Speaking Podcast
The Virtually Speaking Podcast is a weekly technical podcast dedicated to discussing VMware topics related to storage and availability. Each week Pete Flecha (@vPedroArrow) and John Nicholson (@Lost_Signal) bring in various subject matter experts from VMware and within the industry to discuss their respective areas of expertise. If you’re new to the Virtually Speaking Podcast check out all episodes on vSpeakingPodcast.com. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and Soundcloud.
