It’s nearly time for the first #LonVMUG of 2015. As usual, a cracking line-up has been finalised for this all-day event, but for myself and 4 other delegates, this will be an extra special day, cos we get to present!

Long-time LonVMUG stalwart Mike Laverick put together a #Feed4ward initiative in cahoots with
Duncan Epping and Scott Lowe as an attempt to solicit more community content at VMUGs around the world by mentoring would be presenters before their big day in front of an audience. Feed4ward has been so successsful that it is now an offical VMUG supported program. You can read more about that on Mike’s site.

Having seen at first hand how Alex Galbraith had presented a lightning talk and then a full session at LonVMUGs in 2014, I fancied a go at it myself and had chatted with Mike in the summer and secured his agreement for mentoring. I had an idea for a talk and was really just working on material to get it up to a suitable length when the LonVMUG crew came up with this particular bombshell at the UK National VMUG in November. A V-Factor competition! 5 slots for community folks to talk on any VMUG related subject of their choice in a series of lightning talks, with prize support to boot. So instead of having to find content for a 45 minute preso, I now had to bang on for a whole ten minutes if I was one of the  5 “winners” selected. How could I say no?

I signed up as soon as I could and spent a sleepless Christmas and New Year wondering who would be selected. The decision wasn’t made till early January and I was fortunate enough to be one of the chosen speakers. All I had to do then was secure approval from my Marketing and Legal departments and get some guidance about what I can and cannot say and then whittle down my presentation into a ten minute burst. This is proving to be harder than I thought! Now I know how Mr Laverick feels every time he gets up to talk ;-)

On a serious note, chatting with both Mike and Alex when we’ve seen each other over the past few months has been really useful and although I have not presented to Mike this time for proper #feed4ward support, I hope that I can add to what I do this month to create a proper length presentation (the same subject or another) and I will definitely seek Mike’s input for that!

If a whole day of geekery isn’t enough for you, then you can go on to the vBeers at the Pavilion End and after that, vCurry, vSteak, the choice is yours.

So, come and join us in January 22nd at the London Chamer of Commerce and give your support to the vFactor boys;
Philip Coakes – From Nowhere, through NetWare and VMware
Alec Dunn - Distributed vCAC Installs - Why You Shouldn’t Always Follow The instructions
Gareth Edwards - Taming the fruit
Chris Porter - Auto Deploy in Real Life…
Dave Simpson - vSphere 5.5 Migration Gotcha’s

And no Simon Cowell in sight. (Everyone knows he uses Hyper-V)