Meet the EMC Elect 2014!

EMC Elect 2014BANG! The members of EMC Elect 2014 are officially announced! This is the second year of the EMC Elect, a recognition program started in 2013 for those people sharing (technical) expertise and evangelizing about EMC products and solutions. Since it’s an annual program, being a member of EMC Elect 2013 does not guarantee membership of the EMC Elect 2014. Read on to learn a bit more about the nomination process, the assessing/judging of the nominees, who can call him/herself EMC Elect for 2014 and what’s on the agenda.

Applying for EMC Elect

Entering the program is pretty straightforward: this is a community program so you need to be nominated! If this puts you off straight away: do not despair, self nominations are accepted! The nomination period ran from EMC World 2013 to the 15th of November 2013, so that gave everyone plenty of opportunity to sign up.

At the end of the nomination period every nominee received a nomination acceptance form. With this form the nominee can supply the judges with the required social media contact information to judge them. This is a social program after all. Four distinct social media were considered:

  • Twitter
  • Blogging
  • ECN (EMC Community Network)
  • Speaking engagements (not necessarily EMC-only events)

A whopping 375 nominations came in which eventually distilled to 152 unique nominees whom also accepted and supplied their information.

Judging the EMC Elect 2014

A member of the EMC Elect is an active member, sharing knowledge and enthousiasm about EMC products and solutions via social media and/or real life engagements. Think blog posts, tweets, helping EMC users with their problems on ECN, speaking about EMC products and solutions during seminars like EMC World or EMC Forum, Cisco Live, VMUG, etc. Both quantity and quality are judged: going on a twitter frenzy with hashtag #EMC doesn’t guarantee entry if you’ve got nothing to add.

From last years EMC Elect 2013 nine members were selected to become judge for the EMC Elect 2014. I am honored to be part of those nine judges, alongside with (in no particular order) Roy Mikes, Lauren Malhoit, Brian Carpenter, Cody Hosterman, Lee Dallas, Alexander Almeida, Nick Fritsch and Shawn Cannon. Elect program oversight was provided by Mark Browne and Sean Thulin.

It was the task of us judges to take the list of 152 nominees and “elect” the 80 new members for EMC Elect 2014. This immediately led to the first problem: how will we as judges ensure that we all assess a nominee in an identical and correct manner? A couple of G+ Hangouts with all judges and the program leads later we ended up with a pretty spreadsheet. Every judge was assigned 16 nominees (Lauren got 17 😉 ) and we got to work. Digging through Twitter and ECN profiles, reading up on blogs, double checking speaking engagements, etc. A lot of work, especially if you want to stay consistent during the entire judging exercise. But definitely rewarding at the same time: I personally discovered a couple of gems of information on the internet, either in the form of good quality blog posts or a hyperactive twitter evangelist.

After the first pass, we did it all again but now we swapped nominees: I did a second pass on the nominees Lauren reviewed and Lee reviewed mine. This serves to balance out the judging: if I score someone a little to high and another judge doesn’t agree, he can downgrade the score (or the other way around).

Put the scores in order, take the top 71 scoring nominees, add the 9 judges and voila: you’ve got the EMC Elect 2014!

So now what?

First of all: the excitement of getting the list of all EMC Elect 2014 out in the open is incredibly rewarding. For posterity’s sake, here’s the full list:

Name Relationship with EMC Twitter Blog
Adam Eckerle Partner @eck79 http://ecktech.me
Alexander Almeida EMC @alxjalmeida http://www.exposingtech.com
Allan Robertson EMC @dba_hba
Allen Ward Customer @AllenFWard https://community.emc.com/people/Allen.Ward/blog
Andre Leibovici Partner @andreleibovici http://Myvirtualcloud.net
Andrew Miller Partner @andriven http://www.thinkmeta.net
Anil Sedha Customer @anilsedha http://www.virtualascetic.com
  Baixin Chen Partner https://community.emc.com/people/born_chen
Bill McGloin Partner @billmcgloin http://computacenterblogs.com/author/billmcgloin/
Bill Schmarzo EMC @schmarzo https://infocus.emc.com/author/william_schmarzo/
Brian Carpenter EMC @inthedc http://inthedc.com
  Chad Sakac EMC @sakacc http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/
Christopher Kusek Independant @cxi http://pkguild.com
Cody Hosterman EMC @codyhosterman http://www.codyhosterman.com
Damian Karlson EMC @sixfootdad http://damiankarlson.com
Dan Frith Partner @penguinpunk http://www.penguinpunk.net/blog
Dave Henry Partner @davemhenry http://geekfluent.com/
Dave Ring Partner @ring_dc http://davering.wordpress.com/
Dave Strebel Partner @vStrebel
  Edward Newman EMC @vCTO https://infocus.emc.com/author/ted_newman/
Eric Hagstrom EMC @erichagstrom http://www.gotdedupe.com/
Erin Banks Partner @banksek http://www.commondenial.com
  Fabian Lee EMC @flee999 https://community.emc.com/blogs/FabianLee-EMC
Fabio Chiodini EMC @FabioChiodini http://emcgeek.blogspot.com
Fred Nix EMC @nixfred http://Nixfred.com
Henrik Wagner EMC @Henrikwagner73 http://henrikwagner.wordpress.com
Howard Marks Analyst @DeepStorageNet http://www.deepstorage.net
Hrvoje Crvelin Customer @hcrvelin https://community.emc.com/people/ble/blog/
Ian Anderson EMC @ionthegeek http://stickybytes.ionisageek.com/
Itzik Reich EMC @itzikr http://itzikr.wordpress.com
Jase McCarty EMC @jasemccarty http://www.jasemccarty.com/blog/
Jason Gaudreau Partner @jagaudreau http://www.jasongaudreau.com
Jason Nash Partner @TheJasonNash http://www.jasonnash.com
Jed Spink Partner @jedspink http://www.capgemini.com/blog/capping-it-off/author/jed-spink-7461
Jeff Browning EMC @OracleHeretic https://community.emc.com/blogs/oracle_heretic
Jeramiah Dooley Independant @jdooley_clt http://blog.vmforsp.com
Jeremy Prioux Partner @JeremyPrioux https://community.emc.com/people/jeremyprioux/blog
Jim Sanzone EMC @thesanzone http://www.projectvirtual.com
Joe Kelly Partner @virtualtacit http://blog.virtualtacit.com
Jon Klaus Partner @JonKlaus http://faststorage.eu
Jonas Rosland EMC @virtualswede http://purevirtual.eu
Jonathan Frappier Customer @jfrappier http://www.virtxpert.com
Josh Townsend Partner @joshuatownsend http://vmtoday.com
Julien Fontaine Partner @julien_fontain
Justin Paul Partner @recklessop http://www.jpaul.me
Karsten Bott EMC @Hyperv_guy http://community.emc.com/blogs/bottk
Keith Townsend Independant @VirtualizedGeek http://virtualizedgeek.com
Kelly Brown EMC @LadyBackup
Lauren Malhoit Partner @malhoit http://adaptingit.com
  Lee Dallas EMC @ldallasBMOC http://bigmenoncontent.com/
Luigi Danakos Independant @NerdBlurt http://www.nerdblurt.com
Mark May Customer @cincystorage http://blog.virtualstoragezone.com/
  Martin Valencia Partner @Ubergiek http://www.valcolabs.com/
Matt Cowger EMC @mcowger http://www.exaforge.com
Matt Davis Customer @da5is http://da5is.com
Matthew Yeager EMC @mpyeager http://blog.mpya.gr
Menno de Liege Partner @mennodeliege http://mennodeliege.nl
Michael Leeper Customer @mleeper
Moin Mansuri Customer @MoinMansuri31 http://learnbackupwithmoin.blogspot.com/
Nick Fritsch Partner @nfritsch http://vmnick.com
Peter Keilty Partner @keiltypeter http://livevirtually.wordpress.com/
Philip George EMC @vPhilGeorge http://thebackupwindow.emc.com/author/phil_george/
Preston de Guise Partner @backupbear http://nsrd.info/blog
Rob Koper Partner @50mu http://www.50mu.net
Rob Peglar EMC @peglarr http://emc.com/isilon/blogs
Rob Steele Partner @RobSteele http://www.RobSteele.co
Roy Mikes Customer @Teovmy http://www.mikes.eu
Sam Lucido EMC @sam_lucido http://www.emc.com/everthingoracle
Sam Marraccini EMC @SamMarraccini http://www.insideflash.com
Scott Roth Partner http://msroth.wordpress.com
Sergey Kamenetskiy Customer @dynamoxxx http://storagemonkey.wordpress.com/
Shawn Cannon Customer @rolltidega http://vtech411.com
Simon Seagrave EMC @Kiwi_Si http://techhead.co
Stephen Foskett Independant @SFoskett http://blog.fosketts.net
Tommy Trogden EMC @vtexan http://www.vTexan.com
Trevor Roberts Jr Partner @VMTrooper http://www.VMTrooper.com
Victor Forde Partner @victorforde
Vipin V.K Partner @vipinvk111 https://vipinvk.wordpress.com
Vishal Kumar Independant @VishalTx http://v1shal.com
Zeeshan Khan EMC @Zeeshan_Khan07

Secondly, all members should receive a bit of swag to congratulate them on a social media job well done in 2013. And of course there will be plenty of opportunities in 2014 to utilize the privileges the EMC Elect badge offers, ranging from something incredibly fun like skipping the Hands on Lab queue at EMC World 🙂 , via early access to information on product launches, to VIP treatment at Tier 1 events and plenty of opportunity to socialize with the other 79 EMC Elect at various events around the world.

Do check out the list of EMC Elect. Add them to your Twitter timeline, subscribe to their blogs and talk to them when you see them in the real world.

Congratulations to all EMC Elect! And keep on being social and awesome; becoming EMC Elect 2015 starts NOW!