Introducing EMC Elect

 

One of the things that drove me to social media (Twitter+Blogging+Facebook+Linkedin etc) was a desire to share with the community, good, bad or indifferent, but sharing none-the less.  It’s probably a lot of the same reasons others gravitated towards this medium.  It’s not for everyone, but for those that embrace it, they can certainly get a LOT out of it.  What has been really nice is seeing companies like VMware (vExpert Program) and Microsoft (MVP) recognizing those that contribute to their overall, respective communities. Keep in mind that individuals do this out of a desire to help the overall community and programs like these are a nice touch in recognizing these contributions. 

Take this for what its worth but I always felt that EMC had an outstanding sense of community, and embracing (and encouraging)  EMC’ers, Partners and customers to participate.  The problem is they’ve never had that recognition program that helps drive more community participation and more importantly, acknowledging those that have gone above and beyond to contribute to the greater EMC community.  Well….that has changed as of today!

I’d like to introduce you to the EMC Elect program.  EMC Elect is very much like vExpert and MVP in that it is a community recognition program recognizing an individual for the contributions they’ve made the prior year. This will be an annual award given each year.  Candidates qualify by being ACTIVE and sharing their EMC technical knowledge.  In other words, they are giving back to the overall community.  Usually, the easiest way to do this is via blogging or being active on the EMC Community Forums site like “Everything VMware at EMC” but it’s not just limited to that.  EMC recognizes that people contribute in many different ways.  It could be that you help organize or speak at EMC user Groups and other local events.  So, just because you don’t have a blog doesn’t mean you need to exclude yourself !!

Allow me to point out a few other things.  EMC Elect’s can be customers, partners and employees and the awards will go to the individuals and not to the companies they represent.  An independent judging panel of previous year’s EMC Elect will determine the award winners based on an individual nominee’s contributions throughout the previous calendar year only. 

So, let’s cut to the chase.  What do the EMC Elect’s get for being recognized ? It starts with simpluy being recognized for their contributions publicly as someone that has has gone above and beyond.  It also can include, but is not limited to, some of the other following:

• Award certificate and gift
• Public recognition in the EMC Elect directory
• EMC Elect Logo to display on your website or email signature
• Access to private EMC Elect community with exclusive content
• Access to exclusive online events and other opportunities to participate in activities
• Prioritization in upcoming Beta and external reviews of Roadmaps and user experiences.
• Direct mechanisms for providing feedback into all participating EMC product teams (remember, it’s not WHAT you know, but WHO you know !!)

 

Some of the other potential benefits EMC is working on are things like a VIP treatment at Tier 1 events.  In other words, maybe you can get 2 bottles of water instead of one as well as EMC is working hard on seeing if they can offer educational discounts on EMC Training etc.  You can find a lot more information on the FAQ page located here: https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-19955

Finally, EMC can’t recognize you if they don’t know about you!  So, the process for this is going to be Self-Nomination.  Yes, I know…maybe not the most ideal way, but you have to start somewhere right?  Don’t assume that since you might work for EMC, or you are “Huge on Twitter” that somehow someone will nominate you.  Just suck it up and fill out the form.  If nothing more, the access to some of the internal resources, roadmap access or simply being recognized for your hardwork should be enough motivation to fill out the forum!  Once that is done, the group will get together and the hope is to pick about 150 people (world-wide) for the first wave. 

So, I’m extremely excited to see this roll out and even more excited about being able to play a small part in launching this new program.  I’d like to thank Matthew Brender (@mjbrender) for championing this as well as others I’m probably leaving out!  Also, special shout out to the “founders” group that will help chose the first group of EMC Elects!:

• Matt Davis
• Allen Ward
• Dave “Perky Jerky” Henry
• Sergey “Dynamox” K
• Tommy “vTexan” Trogden
• Rob “RRR” K
• Hrvoje “Hero” C
• Matthew Yeager
• Josh Townsend
• Jorg Krause

 

So with all that said, go out and nominate yourself and spread the word to others! 

@vTexan