vCommunity
Many people put a lot of effort in empowering people who are not active in the vCommunity or aren’t even aware of it. I am myself quite new to this network of people sharing interest in virtualization and cloud technology and what is possible with it, but can already say the support both virtually (mostly on Twitter, Slack) and in person (e.g. at VMUGs and conferences) is amazing.
One of such people is Yadin Porter de Leon who founded the Level Up Project. The project’s goal is to make it easier to “newbies” to join the vCommunity and make the most of this network, be it learning, network or to advance careers.
The Level Up Project’s contributers provided a guide with tons of information called the “vTrail Map” which was distributed during last year’s VMworld conferences in the US.
This year a couple of volunteers, called ambassadors, were invited to do bring the vTrail Map to VMworld 2019 Europe in Barcelona, which is about to start Monday. The ambassadors were instructed how to distribute the map in various areas of VMworld (recording online) so it reaches everybody.
It also is available online.
News & Resources
A good place to start reading about VMworld is the official blog page.
VMware Champions is an app which features gamification (collection of points) to distributed news and gather feedback. There are currently several “challenges” online to inform about VMworld.
For specific and up-to-date news follow the official twitter account and the hashtags, #VMworld2019, #VMworld or #VMworldEU.
At the end of next week there will be a collection of articles written by a couple of vExperts who were selected for a so called Blogger pass. A preview of this with articles from VMworld US 2019 can be found here.
Parties & Events
There are plenty of events happening before and during VMworld, but must of them are invite only.
Here is an inofficial VMworld 2019 EMEA Parties and Events list giving an overview about everything which happens.
Andreas Lesslhumer and Manfred Hofer already wrote about this extensivly. (Big thank you!)
Swag
On top of the complimentary VMworld backpack (this year co-sponsored by Rubrik) every visitor with a full pass receives after checking in, there are plenty of ways to get free promotional items. At the booths in the hall crawl you have good chances to get free stuff from sponsors and exhibitors of the VMware ecosystem if you engage in talks, attend mini presentations or enter raffles.
Also the VMworld blog lists some more ways to win or obtain interesting giveaways, e.g. a Oculus Quest VR set.