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In those days there were some interesting threads directly or indirectly about the vCommunity, the value of it, the credibility and also the criteria of “election” in it for the Top  Blog (but also for the vExpert).

They have started independently one from (The “vCommunity”) and one from Rene Van Den Bedem (#TopvBlog2015 Analysis Part 2) but in both there are some interesting topics (although I don’t agree with all of them).

Let’s start from the second one that seems more simple and the funny aspect is that has started simple as an analysis (right or wrong doesn’t matter, everybody can try do his analysis of some data) of the recent Top Blog 2015 results.

Rene try to find some patterns and criteria on how make valuable (or valuable for a Top Blog criteria selection) one blogger. Using the top 25 list he build found some characteristics of the typical Top25 blogger:

  • Minimum of 5,000 blog views per month
  • Minimum of 6 posts per year
  • Minimum of 1,600 followers on Twitter
  • May have published a book on virtualisation
  • May be a VCDX
  • May be a regular VMworld Presenter
  • May advertise to earn income

Some people has just stop here because some criteria in his table may not be so much relevant (for example, the number of posts are not so much important like the quality of them) or are just wrong (like the total income), but the most interesting part of his post is in the second part (ok, seems a recursion because it a second part of a second part :) ).

The suggestions that he propose to improve the Top Blog content (but you can apply also for the vExpert program or other type of “selection” or “election”) are the valuable part, again you may not agree on all of them, but the idea to weight the popularity scoring (because actually its most a popularity scoring) with some kind of metric (but NOT only the number of posts) could help to improve the program. And there are several other idea and criteria that can be considered and discussed.

And Eric has seens this post and started a discussion here: Here’s your chance to help improve Top vBlog.

Christian’s post is different but it’s still focused on the vCommunity and how he see it (or at least a part of it)… but IMHO is more about some blogger rather the vCommunity itself. The vCommunity is make by different type of people and not all of them are blogger, evangelist, speakers or direct influences… The best reply come from Sam McGeown in his post In response to @h0bbel: The “vCommunity” by giving as a good example of community that work well the local VMUG.

Although Christian points some aspect that are true (or where true sometimes), Sam reply to each single point by giving a more realistic (or more general) context.

This brings also another point that can join with Rene’s post: how value the thrully independed state of a blogger or a community memeber? In this way the FUD problem pointed by Chistian could be avoid (or at least reduces). It’s not so easy just say that somebody is independed because does not work for a vendor… also a partner’s employee is (indirectly) working for one or more vendors. One criteria could be work only for a customer, but it’s not enough. About this aspect there is an interesting post of one year ago from Hans De Leenheer (The price of Independence).

And in any case there are a lot of good blogger that are working for a vendor (and maybe are also evangelists) that are totally unbiased. Maybe a “credibility” list could be useful, but how build it? And truly most people cannot recognize a FUD from somebody who has demonstrate in the years to be trustworthy?

For sure there was, some years ago, a big shift from one vCommunity (that was mainly and only the VMTN) that was a “closed” (in the right meaning of the term) circle to something more big dictated (initially) by the grow of the social media and then by the growing of lot of different vCommunities (VMUG, vExpert, VCDX, …). In this way become more difficult know each others, or match the different identities in the different context also because somebody may not partecipate or contribuite to all of them (and honestly is not so simple). Some years ago I’ve put some idea, about this aspect, in the post “VMTN Community and Social Media“, and I think that some of them are still valid also today.

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Virtualization, Cloud and Storage Architect. Tech Field delegate. VMUG IT Co-Founder and board member. VMware VMTN Moderator and vExpert 2010-24. Dell TechCenter Rockstar 2014-15. Microsoft MVP 2014-16. Veeam Vanguard 2015-23. Nutanix NTC 2014-20. Several certifications including: VCDX-DCV, VCP-DCV/DT/Cloud, VCAP-DCA/DCD/CIA/CID/DTA/DTD, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, CCA, NPP.