Hey vExperts, Non-vExperts, Technologists, people in IT, those who work in Virtualization, Storage, Cloud, Security, Containers, Kubernetes, Kitchenettes, Kittenettes and a whole slew of other technobabble-bibble!
I’m glad you made it here, because there was a question I posed to myself, “Hey, I wonder how many vExperts we have, where they’re located, what kind of %’s there are” and so forth! And figured… I like data, and excel, so why not work this all out and share it!
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE! Also, it’s September right now (Hey, it’s my birthday this month!) that’s unrelated. But it IS September, which means we have 4 full months for people to start preparing for their own vExpert Applications! So whether you’re renewing your application for another year, applying to join for the first time (or the multiple times) or this is something you’ve absolutely been interested in, this is also a great place to learn, and find some folks who can help you prepare for that application… A full 4 months ahead of time, instead of trying to rush it all in at the last minute in January!
2007
No, that isn’t a year (Okay, yes, 2007 WAS a year) but no, according to the Official VMware vExpert Directory, as of today, Monday 1 September, there are 2007 vExperts. That is a fair amount of vExperts, but in the same breath it’s also a very small number when you consider the fact this is a worldwide number. So let’s break down a few facts and figures to put into perspective! Also feel free to play along at home with my vExperts Around the World spreadsheet I put together documenting all of these figures!
- There are 2007 vExperts in 2H of 2020!
- There are vExperts in 81 countries out of the represented 233 countries
- The United States has the most vExperts with 659, followed by the United Kingdom with 176, India with 116 and Netherlands with 110
- By Worldwide Percentage the Top 3 Countries with vExperts are Vatican City State (1), Gibraltar (2), and Iceland (3)
- The Top 20 countries by vExpert account for 1718 vExperts or 85% of the worlds vExperts!
- The Top 20 countries by Population account for 1268 vExperts or 63% of the worlds vExperts!
- Mainland China only accounts for a total of 4 vExperts at this time (Look for my article on vExperts on the Mainland coming soon!)
- Latin America has a huge number of vExperts and a massive following and great community and support there
So that was a bunch of information, a bunch of facts, if some of that is news to you or a shock, it’s okay, it was for me too! Not shared in that list, is we have vExperts (1) located in Iran! The Democratic Republic of Congo, and even Iceland!
Wait! How do I become a vExpert for next year?!
That’s a great question, I’m glad that you asked! 🙂 If you read my post, “My lessons learned through 12 years in the VMware #vExpert Program” I mentioned a little bit about the vExpert program as well as some of the sub-programs that once you’ve become a vExpert you can apply to be a part of. Those Sub-Programs are mentioned here below. The reason I bring them up explicitly now, it these are other areas of influence that you can be writing about, involved in, engaged in, and so forth.
There are a LOT of vExperts who focus solely on the Datacenter, and especially so if that may be their bread and butter, but that’s not the only area you need to be involved in order to participate in the vExpert community and the community in general. Some particular areas that can be quite compelling and interesting are:
- Application Modernization – Whether through Code, Container or Traditional
- Cloud Management and Cloud Providers – Private, Public, Hybrid or various other iterations like that
- Cloud Management and Automation – That’s a special kind of awesome, get your automation on!
- End User Compute (EUC) and Mobility – I call out mobility explicitly because EUC is not only VDI and VMware has a HUGE Mobility Offering
- Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) – This is frankly needed now more than ever especially with the availability of MORE Cloud solutions
- Software Defined Networking, SD-WAN, NSX – This is a whole lot of things, with VeloCloud, NSX, VRNI and more in the Networking Portfolio
- Security – This is an amorphous concept foreign to the Virtualization community. Oh sorry I was kidding. (No, I wasn’t) This is NEEDED!
- Oracle, Google, Amazon, Azure – Yea I said cloud… But seriously, VMware Cloud on * is in itself a whole playground on its own
- More more more more more and more – Twice references aside, Any and all areas involving Tech, Cloud, Virtualization and more matter
How do I get started? How do I prepare?!
As of this writing, the vExpert Program is essentially broken up into three (5) categories
Evangelist, Customer, Partner – Seems pretty simple and straight forward. Wait, but why did I say 5? Because there’s kind of two other categories that fall into that, and that would be VMware Certified Design Experts (VCDX) and [Involved] VMUG Leaders. There’s a decent breakdown in the early 2020 vExpert Application blog post so I’ll include that information here so you can refer to it.
Evangelist Path
The Evangelist Path includes book authors, bloggers, tool builders, public speakers, VMTN contributors, and other IT professionals who share their knowledge and passion with others with the leverage of a personal public platform to reach many people. Employees of VMware can also apply via the Evangelist path. A VMware employee reference is recommended if your activities weren’t all in public or were in a language other than English.Customer Path
The Customer Path is for leaders from VMware customer organizations. They have been internal champions in their organizations or worked with VMware to build success stories, act as customer references, given public interviews, spoken at conferences, or were VMUG leaders. A VMware employee reference is recommended if your activities weren’t all in public.VPN (VMware Partner Network) Path
The VPN Path is for employees of our partner companies who lead with passion and by example, who are committed to continuous learning through accreditations and certifications and to making their technical knowledge and expertise available to many. This can take shape of event participation, video, IP generation, as well as public speaking engagements. A VMware employee reference is required for VPN Path candidates.VCDX Path
The VCDX path is for VCDX holders only. If you hold the VCDX title you will still need to apply for vExpert each year. We verify all VCDX applications via the VCDX Directory.VMUG Leaders
VMUG leaders dedicate a lot of personal time to the community. We want to recognize these efforts for the time spent helping and contributing to the community by awarding VMUG leaders with the vExpert Award. If you are a VMUG leader, you will need to apply to receive the award.
Some of you may be heavily involved in your community filling any number of kinds of roles, be it attending, planning and coordinating matters at your local VMUGs. Planning your OWN events in places where a VMUG does not exist or does not occur in enough of a cadence as you feel your particular community requires. You could be like one vExpert who translated all of the educational material for the VM Curriculum from English into French to better serve his community to spread the joy and love that is Virtualization to the masses! Documenting and sharing your challenges, lessons learned, or explorations in the working with the whole Virtual stack, sub-stack and even virtual pancake stack!
The point is, your engagement, involvement and interaction is paramount to your success in the program, in your geography and region and most of all your community. It is said that if all of your contributions and submissions to participate in the vExpert program are things that you do ONLY as an indication of your job and outside of a professional interest you do not participate or partake in the community, then this program likely is not for you. But there are many who are involved and engage and interact either through altruism, community, friendships, relationships or other reasons. It is not to say that you cannot have this apply from a professional context, as we are all professionals; But that should not be the only and sole driver.
The typical areas you’ll be asked to submit a record of engagement and involvement are listed below. Note; If there are areas identified that you are not currently engaged in, interacting in, or operating within today, it could give you some good encouragement of additional areas to grow your investment and working with others in the community, so be sure to take note!
- Blog URL – Do you have a blog? Excellent! Don’t have one? Start one! Start writing, need help? Ask, I can give you suggestions!
- Content Creation – Are you creating other content on LinkedIn, Medium, Infographics, Vlogs, Authoring Books and Papers or whatever…
- Events and Speaking – Here in COVID times getting to in-person events can be more difficult, but there’s lots of Online events to participate in
- Involved with Programs – Are you in a TAP Program, participate or run a VMUG or other group, anything “Formal” as a program
- Community – Whether formal community or informal, what are some ways you’ve engaged your tech community directly
- Other Activities – Whatever those may be that don’t seem to fit those above, could be participation in many parallel industry things…\
That’s not even a full and comprehensive list but frankly, I couldn’t find a copy of this past years application, so I extracted that from what’s typically been asked of in the past. Some direct advice from that above though; Merely tweeting about Virtualization (other) is not enough, especially if what you’re doing is just re-tweeting about virtualization. The same applies for sharing links off of the VMware Social Media Advocacy site, creating content and sharing it on the Advocacy site on the other hand is much more tangible and applicable. Sharing links on LinkedIn is less favorable to you creating original content and sharing it on LinkedIn. Universally that tends to be the case across the board. Even though engaging the community in its various forms by sharing information you’ve read elsewhere is encouraged, the designation and driver behind a VMware vExpert tends to fall on being a creator of that content, sharing your perspective, your expertise and knowledge in these areas. Some of you may be doing this, creating content regularly and not realize just how much of an impact it has on the community, and the same is true for the opposite.
Unsure about whether what you did in the 2020 Calendar Year would qualify you for a 2021 submission? Don’t hesitate to ask me directly and I’d be glad to look things over with you and make some suggestions there as well. Also I’m a huge fan of promoting up-and-comers as well as already well fortified members of the community, because we are strongest when we work together! I’ll reiterate what I just said below with something from that formal post I shared earlier (also including additional verbiage at the tail-end :))
Need Help with your vExpert Applications?
If you need help with your application or want to know the criteria in detail for you area of interest you can reach out to a vExpert PRO in your region. We have vExpert PROs in lots of different countries around the world. The vExpert Pros will be able to help you with your vExpert application and also be your mentor for all things related to community. Find the vExpert PRO near you and get in touch, and if you’re not sure how to reach out or just unsure in general, just comment here or reach out to me (Christopher Kusek – @cxi) and I will be happy to help you with your application or introduce you to another vExpert Pro who will be able to help you and assist!
So do not hesitate to reach out, to ask questions, to understand your community better and engage and interact with them. If English is not your first language, check out the Official VMware vExpert Directory as you may find someone who’s already blogging, creating videos and otherwise in your native language! Also if Mandarin is your native language, stay-tuned for my vExpert for the Mainland post coming soon! 🙂
Also one last plug – If you have NOT registered for VMworld 2020 yet, be sure to get your FREE Registration lined up! It is 29 October to 1 September and it is a MUST attend event! Your Free Pass to VMworld 2020: The Details
Links and References:
Population data mostly sourced from Worldometer “Countries in the world by population (2020)“
(Some countries were NOT present or not reflected that were added, either due to disputes, name changes or otherwise)
The complete vExpert Directory so you can search for yourself! “Official VMware vExpert Directory“
The spreadsheet I used to validate thees figures, “vExperts Around the World spreadsheet”