Intro
VMware Explore Singapore has ended, and while I’m on the plane typing, I can look back to an awesome 4 days. Since recently, I’m finally getting back into my Blogging & GTD mode again. Life has been, well, chaotic for me this last year. Changing continents can bring quite some disturbance into your (family) life 😅, and with that, some good habits also got lost in the process. One of those habits was writing and evaluating on a frequent basis. So while I’m now flying back to Bali on the plane from Singapore, I wanted to take some time to recap my experiences of VMware Explore 2022. Funny enough, the best take aways are not some of the cool new features and releases, but actually some life lessons that reconfirmed something that I almost forgot.
“Change is constant and sometimes, it is easy to get overwhelmed by it”
Let’s come come back to that insight later.
A Different Start Then Expected
For me it was the first time in Singapore and actually, it was for me also the first time on a tech event in Asia. Not knowing what to expect, I just appreciated what came on my path. Now, I do have to say that the arrival didn’t go exactly as I planned. I first made a crucial mistake by not preparing the trip for moving around offline. I stepped out the bus a few bus stops too early and well, I kinda got lost. In the end it took a few hours to get to the place I was supposed to go which normally if done properly, should have taken only 25 min. Once arrived, I learned that booking.com also made a big mistake. I was supposed to have a private room, but arriving at the place, it seems that they didn’t have it. I was not the only one, because 5 more travelers had the exact same issue. Thus, I ended up in a hostel with a shared room. Not really handy if you want to prepare for a business convention. I was kinda annoyed by it, but after accepting that booking.com was not going to do anything and I didn’t want to spend more time and energy on negativity, I accepted it.
Some Gifts Come in Mysterious Ways
Now the beauty of life, is that most of its gifts can come in mysterious ways. I know, I know, it really sound kinda corny, and believe me, in the beginning I didn’t see it that way until I accepted the situation. However, because of the situation, I ended up in a hostel with like minded people and met some really interesting persons with some crazy stories. Business owners, travellers, content creators, business coaches all the way to a NATO contractor who was constantly going to unstable warzones. Where VMware Explore was a great place to be inspired and learn more about tech, the hostel became a great place to be inspired about the different paths in life and learn more about Asia, and the different businesses and industries. It showed me once again how many different perspectives but also all the opportunities there are this day and age. I’m happy that the old traveller and “explorer” in me popped up again to just give it all a chance (you see what I did there again).
VMware Explore 2022
Now that same mindset of embracing just whatever comes, actually was the same mentality I took with me to VMware Explore. On Day 1, I was almost in every session, were on Day 2 it was the total opposite. Instead, I just walked around, talked, socialized and met some amazing people and heard some awesome ideas and stories. My biggest take away, keep moving forward, be flexible and adapt if needed. Keep a beginners mindset, and at the same time make a vision that give you some guidance to move forward. Mistakes are ok, and just accept that nothing stays forever but always keeps changing, and with that also your ideas of the future. This maybe sounds really general, so let me try to put it into context.
How change defines Technology, Life & Business
Almost 20 years ago we started with virtualization. The ability to use compute resources in a more effective way, and at the same time creating a more stable application landscape. Datacenters started to become bigger and bigger, we moved to centralization then decentralization, and sometimes this changed back and forth. Technology moves forward, hardware became better, and with that, more possibilities but also complexity arose. More people, businesses and organizations started to use technology, and with that more apps and demanding features came to be. Security, app modernization, stability, redundancy, disaster recovery, data integrity, privacy, etc., we all know about it. Then every few years, a new trend seems to start and looks like everyone jumps on the train. The last years a lot of people, apps and businesses start to move towards the cloud. Some moved completely, others came back, but most organizations are now in a place where they use a mix of different tools, different platform and technologies. This not only creates chaos, but creating and executing a clear vision also becomes more difficult. What to do about security, do we have to start using containers or how do we manage it? What about blockchain, what about our culture, should we change to agile frameworks? Questions that are understandable and that can also create a lot of uncertainty & stress.
Evaluate & Adapt
However, the most important take away, is not to stress about what technology you should use or which path you should take, but instead focus on where you want to be and constantly (re-)evaluate and adapt if needed. In this day and age, you cannot expect that everything will stay the same as it is today. As I showed before, technologies are constantly changing, and there is no one that could predict 20 years ago that this is the place where we would end up. Not even 10 or 5 years ago. Sure, sometimes you predict it right, but you never know for sure. The only thing you can do is assess the situation, review and adapt. I saw a lot of new, great and innovative ideas, but also a lot of new challenges. Both from an engineering as well a business owner perspective. This can feel overwhelming. However, if you just accept the fact that change will always be a big part of our life instead of controlling it, then changing and adapting yourself will also become much more easy. It is actually quite liberating.
Conclusion
As Darwin said, It is not the strongest that will survive or succeed, but the ones that are able to adapt. If speed is the new currency, then the speed of your ability to evaluate & adapt is definitely the factor of success, not the selection of the right tool, path or technology.
Alright, with that being said I hope you enjoyed this post, and the more general (and spiritual) approach of VMware Explore. Let me know if you agree with this, or if you think otherwise. Thanks for reading and hopefully until next time.
Samir is the author of vSAM.Pro & a Life enthusiast who works as a consultant in the field of IT. With a great passion for Tech & Personal Development, he loves to help people with their problems, but also inspire them with a positive outlook on life.
Besides that, he is also a big Sport & Music junky that loves to spend a big chunk of his time on producing music or physically stretching himself.
