What happens in Vegas, doesn’t stay in Vegas anymore…

What happens in Vegas,  doesn’t stay in Vegas anymore…
A brilliant tag line for what Social Meida has become and quite literal when it comes to what I'll be doing in Vegas with EMC :)

So work is at warp speed. Frenetic planning for EMC World.
As well as the Solutions Pavillion, manning our Support Forums booth, we have other major events that are going on and kind of cool. I'm sharing this one now, and keeping the others for later. Rationing my blog material so I don't burn out.

So as you can see above  on the right, Social City is happening at EMC World. Part of Social City will be the informal meetups.

Wednesday, May 11th, 10:30 - 11:30 am (PDT): Our Support Forums Competition winners for the Most Valuable Players of 2010, will take part in a panel discussion with the competition judges. They will discuss and take questions about their highlighted experiences on the Support Forums and the overall EMC Community Network. This will be a live video broadcast event , including a Live Q+A session, so those not attending EMC World can participate.

It'll be a fun event and a chance for our Support Forums Community members to network in a live discussion. I'll be sure to share the details of the URL to see the video and live Q+A.
This is going to be awesome and something I've been chomping at the bit to do since last years conference. I''m so happy it's coming altogether. I just had to share. More later ...

Oh and here is a link to the list of meetups happening at Social City: http://bit.ly/inIcZX

Opening up, Why I'm loving my job in the here and now

This week saw me posting an announcement in the EMC Support Forums that I never thought would happen.
In summary the EMC Support Forums will very soon be opening up for public read-only access and search from Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

This is really exciting news for me as a community member of the EMC Support Forums and an employee of EMC.

It's a big step for EMC's Support organization, and I firmly believe it's a big jewel in EMC's Support arsenal.
It's great for the Community too, because it makes an awesome Support Community publicly visible and is bound to garner a lot more members. We know that registrations in ECN  approximately trebled when the Support Forums migrated there from Powerlink back in 2009.  I firmly believe the number of new registrants will be a lot more than that once we go public.

I'm really excited about this development and no doubt I'll be posting more about it in the coming weeks.  It's been a long slog to get to this point, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's going to be a great and busy next few weeks. Good times! :)

Why I'm delighted to be going to EMC World 2011

Well it's official, my registration is through and I will be attending EMC World in Las Vegas, from May 9th to 12th.

It will be my second time attending this event, and if the last year is anything to go by it will be an intense few days. While I will be leaving my wife to look after our 2 children while I'm away (that part I hate) it will be another opportunity to meet Customers, Partners and EMC'ers who rock in their expertise.
It's particularly good this year as the Support Forums / Community will be highlighted prominently. More on that in the coming weeks. What I can tell you specifically is that we are again highlighting the Most Valuable Players of the EMC Support Forums at a luncheon in their honor.  https://community.emc.com/message/539276#539276

For those of you reading this and not registered Powerlink users the following explains the Program:: 
"The MVP Program recognizes outstanding members of the EMC Support Forums based on their contributions, collaboration and innovative ideas.  The Program is designed BY and FOR forum users and is sponsored by EMC Corporation." Winners of the MVP award will receive a conference pass to EMC World, with travel and accommodation expense.  What's really cool about this is that it allows people who would not normally attend EMC World to go.

Last year at EMC World, I attended as last minute replacement for my boss who left, but did not go far thankfully :) It was an intense experience and was a baptism of fire in networking, meeting people, collaborating on ideas.
I really got steeped in Social Media, and had many firsts in that setting. My first tweet up, my first meeting with a person I followed on Twitter! My first foray in Four Square and getting badges. It was a great experience. It brought me face to face with EMC Support Forums contributors. People I had worked with on the Forums for the last nine months were greeting me in person. The freaky thing was that had already had our preamble on the Forums, so our first meeting was like catching up with a friend I'd seen last week :) Instantaneous conversation. I also made many new friends and colleagues. It was all new to me. I loved it, and id it really ignited my passion in advocating our Support Forums and Social Media engagement in a Support context.

I look forward to this year's  event, I will be attending with my new boss, although he's been my boss for almost a year now so not so new. I also look forward to seeing Vegas. I've never been, all I've seen is what's on TV. A long way from West Cork. It should be blast!

See you there, if you're going :)