Firstly I wanted to publicly congratulate Benjamin Troch (@virtualB_me), Ronald Buder (@str0hhut) and the rest of the Singapore VMUG (@Singapore_VMUG) team on a successful first VMUG all day User Conference.

It was a pleasure to attend this event and be given the opportunity to speak, I really enjoyed meeting the delegates, sponsors and VMUG staff who all help to make the event a success.

For me there’s nothing better than talking with delegates and asking people what they want to get out of these type of events, the discussions always seems to revolve around the current state of the technology industry and the disruption we are all currently experiencing with Cloud, Flash etc.

Career Development Through Community

I think when you contribute to a community it can have a great impact on your career, it’s certainly helped me!  The great thing is that you’re doing something you are passionate about and enjoy doing.   You also get to meet and interact with new people, help other people and ultimately gain new skills in the process.

One of the key benefits of contributing your time to community is that through this independent contribution, you learn what motivates you and how you can tap into that skill and apply it to other activities.  This isn’t like traditional working, where you’re given a task by a manager and expected to complete it within a specific time (not that this is a bad thing), it’s more about developing a range of skills to aid you in your… career.

I was up straight after Simon Seagrave (who provided some great insight into getting started with blogging).  I had a great crowd of people attending my presentation, including some well-known industry experts – Scott Lowe (@scott_lowe),Benjamin Troch (@virtualB_me), Simon Seagrave (@kiwi_si), Michael Webster (@vcdxnz001) and John Arrasjid (@vcdx001).

It was a real experience presenting to this group of people and receiving their acknowledgement/feedback.  After my presentation John gave me this which really made my day… Thanks again John!

Here’s the presentation, let me know if you would like me to present this topic at your next local event?