My first year @ VMware
It was dense! That's pretty much it.
Today 3/2/2011 (or 2/3/2011 as the US folks would erroneously write) marks my very first year at VMware.
My switch from IBM (where I worked for 15 years) to VMware was a quick one and among the contacts I have made to make it happen there is a paragraph of an email exchange I had with my fellow Mike Dipetrillo that I'd like to quote:
"...Anyhow, I hear you're talking with Dino soon about possibly coming over to the team to work with our large Service Integrators and Outsourcers. That would be WONDERFUL! Prepare to be really busy though. Like I tell everyone that interviews over here - if you're the type of person that likes to know what you should do every day and likes everything organized then this is not the team for you.....if you like a constantly changing and evolving environment that you have a ton of influence over with more work than you could ever accomplish then this is the perfect environment for you..."
Well I think that Mike nailed it down and couldn't describe it better. He has a gift for being able to capture in a few words any complex situation and this is a good example of that. In fact I smile when I go back home and my wife asks me "How was your day? have you done all you had to do?". And my answer is always "yeah, probably 1% of that". Having this said I still get my bonus at the end of each cycle so that means that someone thinks I am delivering something. The problem of this job (I should really say the part that I enjoy the most) is that we are busy shaping how we think the future of IT should look like. I am not saying I am the only one doing this in the team nor I am saying VMware is the only company doing this. But it is what it is... I am a lucky person (ok, may be with some merits) that ended up working for one of the (few) companies leading this change in a team of people leading (with many other teams) this change.
That's what it's so motivating about this journey of mine here at VMware. There are companies out there on the back-foot trying to defend the status quo (because that's how they built their fortune many years ago) and there are other companies trying to challenge the status quo to create an IT that is more aligned with the new challenges and the new users behaviors (am I too boring if I mention the success of devices such as the iPad and non-Windows laptop in general?).
Saying that I have enjoyed working in the vCloud team for the past year is certainly an understatement. I ended up working in a team where the next wave of technologies is a past thing and you instead get asked feedbacks about what's coming next to that. The only disadvantage to that is that spending that much time working on unannounced future technology doesn't give you too much topics for your public blog. But one could survive that I think.
I have recently read an internal memo from Paul Maritz about his views on the journey we are on and I'd like to quote one of his closing statements: "......Lastly, the opportunity to be part of an industry-changing endeavor is a privileged one - few people get this opportunity".
There are other statements I would have liked to quote but the boundaries between what I could copy&paste and what I shouldn't may be considered a grey area and since I'd rather keep my job at VMware I am not going to paste more of his stuff... but yes, I do feel a privileged one for what it is worth and I hope this will continue for the foreseeable future. It was a dense year indeed but looking at the roadmap we have and at the ambitions of this company the next few years seem to be as dense (at least).
I just wanted to write this brief post to celebrate this little big professional event of mine. I have been thinking about this for a long time and ideally I wanted to write something better but this week was a busy one and I ended up writing this in various lounges waiting to hop onto "the next flight". So take it for what it is.. a few lines that looks more like the answer I'd give you at a pub in front of a beer if you asked me "How do you like VMware?".
Massimo.