Shortly after joining NetApp, I started becoming much more active on Twitter, more specifically following people active in the virtualization and storage spaces. I’ve met a ton of fantastic, intelligent, helpful people, and I’m glad to have become a part of the community. I could go on and on, but that’s another post!
Last year, I saw a tweet for something called Virtual Design Master. It looked super interesting, a ton of fun, and I almost signed up to become a competitor. Almost. I saw they were looking for ideas for their challenges, and the brainstorm began.
I’m responsible for the first challenge, After the Outbreak. How did I come up with this? Good question, I’m not sure, but it happened sitting in a Starbucks before a meeting drinking an Americano. I started with zombies, because, well, they rule. The premise was basically rebuilding an infrastructure using five year old hardware, thanks to the zombie apocalypse. Our competitors came up with some amazing solutions, which you can find here.
I followed the season closely, and got to know our competitors as well as the judges and creators, Angelo Luciani from www.VirtuWise.com and Eric Wright from www.DiscoPosse.com.
When they reached out to me to talk about season two, I was surprised and honored, and didn’t even have to think about taking the position as the Creative Director for Virtual Design Master. They’ve also asked Jonathan Frappier from www.virtxpert.com to join the team as the Production Director.
The four of us make a fantastic team, and are really looking forward to bringing you Season 2 of Virtual Design Master. Stay tuned for updates both here and on VirtualDesignMaster.com!
Melissa is an Independent Technology Analyst & Content Creator, focused on IT infrastructure and information security. She is a VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX-236) and has spent her career focused on the full IT infrastructure stack.
Eric Wright (@DiscoPosse)
Friday 14th of February 2014
Welcome to the team and we are in for a kick-butt Season 2 :)