One of my passions is sharing knowledge, especially about VMware tech. Blogging, creating videos, podcasting, writing books, and especially being on stage and presenting a cool topic, is what seriously drives me. I had the honor of presenting various sessions at all VMworlds since 2017, VMUGs in Manchester, Prague, Paris, London, Belgium, Budapest, Sofia, Copenhagen, E2EVC, and many other great events. The first time I got the opportunity to speak at a community event, was at the NLVMUG in 2016. Believe it or not, I didn’t sleep for 10 days straight because of all the nerves and anxiety! As you might guess, a lot has happened ever since. Heck, I even got the opportunity to make presenting part of my job at ITQ!
Because of my passion for VMware tech and sharing knowledge about the tech, I always had a strong bond with the VMUG. The bond only got stronger since my employment at ITQ. The main reason is that my colleague Dennis Hoegen Dijkhof and former colleague Arjan Timmerman, together with Joep Piscaer have successfully led the NLVMUG community for many years with tons of great successes:
- The Dutch VMUG organized the largest VMUG event for 3 consecutive years (with over 1000 attendees).
- It was the first VMUG where Pat Gelsinger presented the keynote (with only 2 other VMUG events following).
- It’s one of only a handful of VMUG events to actually organize a multi-day event (with an awesome hackathon and VCDX Bootcamp during the pre-con).
- It has a long list of friends who presented at the Netherlands UserCon such as Frank Denneman, Duncan Epping, Niels Hagoort, Amy Lewis, Emad Younis, Mark and Kat Brookfield, Jad El-Zein, Kit Kolbert, Joe Baguley, and many, many more!
As you may know, earlier this year an email was sent out by the international VMUG to search for a new leadership team for the Dutch VMUG. After multiple conversations with other VMUG leaders, my peers at ITQ, Joris Adriaanse, and others from the community, I decided to go for it!
The first time I attended the NLVMUG was in 2014. I wasn’t an ITQer yet (although I already had a first conversation with Paul Geerlings), but was working at a global healthcare IT company as a VMware engineer for our hosted server-based computing service. As it was yesterday, I still remember Dennis Hoegen Dijkhof and Christiaan Roeleveld presenting about the datacenter in a shoebox, which perfectly showed what knowledge sharing at the NLVMUG was all about. Passionate nerds, who like to share their knowledge on such a big platform, through a presentation that really stands out. This inspired me to become an ITQer and chase my dream of sharing knowledge myself.
I’m not new to leading a community. In 2016, I founded the vEUC TechCon, together with Rob Beekmans and Sven Huisman (who left and got replaced by Dennis Sigmond and Joris Adriaanse). During my time in the vEUC TechCon, I learned a lot about organizing events, building a community, working with sponsors, etc. From a personal perspective, I always have ambitions to improve the things I do. Improvement could be an increase in quality, It could mean a greater reach, but in this case, it could also mean growth in terms of building a bigger community and organizing a larger event. This is why I think that becoming a VMUG leader is another great new step in my career. By the way, I’m not the only new leader, Joris Adriaanse will join me in the leadership team!
Although I know that we have some really big shoes to fill (as Dennis and Joep have raised the bar), I look forward to seeing where my personal touch could take the Dutch VMUG to.
By the way, if you like to follow what we are doing, be sure to check @VMUGNL on twitter!
- VMware Explore 2023: Back to Vegas Baby! - July 11, 2023
- My session picks for VMware Explore 2022 in Barcelona - September 27, 2022
- VMware Explore 2022 EUC Recap - September 26, 2022
