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Aug 28 2013
Management

VMworld 2013: A Social Media Point of View

Attendees at the 10th annual VMworld share the most intriguing moments of their conference experiences on social media.
Ricky Ribeiro
by Google+

Ricky publishes and manages the content on BizTech magazine's website. He's a writer, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all-around digital guy.

When it comes to technology trade shows, there are a few standard things that attendees tend to tweet about: Lack of plugs for notebook/mobile phone charging, bad Wi-Fi and free swag.

But sometimes, the unexpected happens. Like when someone drops their iPad and it shatters before your eyes in the Solutions Exchange.

Oooh. Next time put a case on it, dude.

This year's VMworld is the biggest yet, according to VMworld organizers.

The interest in virtualization has seen a steady rise in recent years and with the ongoing evolution of cloud computing, more people and organizations are hungry to leverage the speed and scalability of virtual infrastructures.

While the technology is impressive, it's important to remember that IT is run and managed by a community of real people. VMware recognizes this, which is why the company decided to uses photos from VMworld attendees to create its "10 Annual" signage.

Pop culture was also alive and well at VMworld as Kit Colbert, a principal engineer, and Carl Eschenbach, VMware president and COO, used a clip from the TV classic "I Love Lucy" to demonstrate the divide between business and IT during a keynote on Tuesday. Matt Kozloski, a VMworld blogger, explained the "Lucy" connection.

Carl introduced Kit Colbert (Principal Engineer, VMware). Together they took us, layer at a time, through the magic of vCloud Automation Center and all the underlying technology. They started with a very classic, well known video clip from “I Love Lucy” – the infamous chocolate factory scene (if you haven’t seen this – stop reading this and watch it now!). Think of Lucy and Ethel as today’s IT staff and the chocolates in need of wrapping like the requests and demands coming from application areas. Eventually at scale, without automation, they run out of hand power. It was a great analogy.

Afterward, there was a Lucille Ball look-a-like handing out chocolates and posing for pictures with conference-goers.

But there were real celebrities present at VMworld too. Well, at least celebrities in tech and business circles, like Tesla Motors CIO Jay Vijayan.

In case you've been living under a rock, Tesla Motors is the hottest car company in the world. The buzz surrounding the company is in part due to the fact that it's an electric car company seeking to revolutionize the auto industry. The other part is because geek hero Elon Musk is the founder and CEO of the company.

Vijayan was at VMworld speaking as part of an executive roundtable. He spoke about how Tesla is building custom applications for its innovative business, according to Constellation Research Analyst Ray Wang, who was also part of the roundtable.

In other VMworld-related news, compliments to the chef are in order as lunch at the Moscone Center turned out quite delicious, much to the surprise of one attendee.

VMworld officially wraps up on Thursday, August 29, so if you're at the show, enjoy the last few hours of virtualization education and transformation. And if you tweet while you're at the show, double check that hashtag before you hit send. Spelling errors will ensure your tweets remain outside of the conversation.

<a href="https://twitter.com/StevenPrentice/status/372496117323165696/photo/1">Steven Prentice</a>

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