Page 6 - COMPASS, Q1 2017

ceo connection
CONNECT. LEARN. LEAD.
VMUG is a vibrant community with so many active and passionate contributors. It’s what makes VMUG so special. But how did we get here? Why does this community continue to thrive year over year? It’s all because of the connect, learn, lead cycle.
CONNECT. Connect is getting involved. This might be just signing up as a new member. Or reaching out to a new community member. Maybe attending an event for the first time. There are many ways, big and small, to connect. The main thing is to start doing it!
LEARN. Once connected, you realize what you can learn from the community. Then, the magic starts to happen! You see this vast group of individuals hold a huge amount of knowledge they are willing to share. All you must do is ask. Your learning, skill- set and career start to go in a positive direction. You realize the community plays a part in this journey. You get out what you put in, so effort must be made, but the community helps their own.
LEAD. Finally, you get to leading. Leading can take many forms. The obvious is being a VMUG leader. To be a leader you must go through our leader training—a formal process that provides you with the information and tools you need to be effective in a local leadership role.
Leading can also be done without the official leader tag. You know these folks. They attend meetings, share their knowledge and are always willing to help. You know them because they are top of mind when you need assistance or advice. Some are past leaders that selflessly stepped down and not only opened up an opportunity for someone new, but helped them take over the position. VMUG has many leaders and not all have the official leader designation.
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What I find most fascinating about the con- nect, learn, lead cycle is it isn’t linear. We don’t necessarily go from connect directly to learn directly to lead. It’s more fluid than that. We can bounce around a bit. We also have multi- ple cycles going on. For many NSX might be in the learn cycle, while with vSphere you are leading the conversation. For first-time leaders, you might find that you start over again, connecting with leaders, learning from them and working toward leading the leaders.
Recently, the 2017 vExperts were announced. Congratulations to all who have achieved this designation. If you are unfamiliar with the program, I encourage you to check it out. Many VMUG members are vExperts.
VMUG is a community where you can con- nect, learn, and lead. I encourage everyone to take advantage of this on many levels. I also encourage everyone to do this for other communities—local, tech, hobbies and so on. We are all part of many communities and we get out what we put in. When you put in all you can, it helps you and the community— and the cycle continues.
Brad Tompkins
VMUG CEO