In this vBrownBag/VMTN session I was joined by Matt Crape and Jim Millard to discuss the realities of joining a influencer program such as vExpert or Veeam Vanguard.

In 2017 I was allowed not one but two slots at for vBrownBag at VMworld 2017 which was a big deal to me. The first of these was a solo presentation by me about how to be an active member of the vCommunity while living in a rural area without easy access to things like VMUGs and such.

I was honored to be selected to present at VeeamON again in 2015 with the same general concept of session but really highlighting some of the work I’d been doing with Windows Server deduplication and Veeam SureBackup. This was a much nice crowd, with 50 or so people, and I felt it went much better. Again there is no video this time around but as an aside watching the replay at the time this is when I first realized just how much of an accent I have, literally had never realized it before.

So this was immediately following the vBrownBag session. Again, now second shot at “public speaking” but this time I’m in a room for 200, in the hangover slot at a tech conference (8 am the morning after the party), there were a total of 3 people in the session. Probably not the worst thing but one thing I’ve found over the years is that crowds are good, they loosen you up. Just goes to show that we definitely all start somewhere.

Unfortunately I don’t have the video of these early session so you are just going to have to trust me that it was rough.

Slidedeck: https://www.slideshare.net/JimJones147/veeamon-2014-vbrownbag-physical-server-backup-strategies

This was actually my first public speaking presentation ever. Supposed to be a 15 minute time slot I believe I finished in under 8 minutes. What aided to my discomfort was that the whole purpose of this was to show a method I was using to backup physical servers in a Veeam world, something there was no answer to at the time. That morning it leaked that Veeam was announcing what is now known as Veeam Agent for Windows and my friend Rick Vanover was following me on the same stage to announce it. Talk about your topic becoming irrelevant in record time…