When there were significant changes in a couple of EUC communities, a group of us reached out to each other to discuss what we could do. Once we stopped and collaborated and listened, we found out that there was something we could do. One of the most complex parts of getting this party started was that we could only invite some people on Day -30 because we had to get some business stuff set up to be a legal entity in the US. We had to make decisions quickly to move things along, but we wanted to reach out to everyone. We also knew we could only make one first impression, so we tried to build things up to get more people to help and grow this community. We didn’t want to leave known EUC leaders out we just wanted to get the car cleaned before we started the drive with everyone else. We are excited to see what happens when people connect and create communities worldwide.
Words from Jarian Gibson – Chairperson
I’m excited to see the World of EUC evolve into a larger broader community. We started with humble beginnings of four of us (Dave Brett, James Kindon, Ryan Revord, and myself) from the community coming together and starting a real time online support community via Slack and then bridging to Discord to have a centralized community. We’ve been fortunate to be able to bring other communities under the World of EUC umbrella and provide another avenue of communication for the Citrix IRC channel. Now we are taking the next step for the World of EUC community.
Over the years I have been fortunate to be present at events such as BriForum, Citrix Synergy, CUGC, Dutch Citrix Users Group, UK Citrix Users Group, Poland Citrix Users Group, E2EVC, and other community events. Presenting at those events has allowed me to travel, make new friends, and experience different community events. Those experiences have made me enjoy and help continue to keep the community going.
I hope we are able to pay things forward in the community and help bring up the next wave of community champions. Be examples, mentors, etc. to them and connect with them just as those before us. I wouldn’t be here today and have the relationships I have without the community. It’s great to see the board and our advisors come together to bring this community forward. I am very excited to see the World of EUC take this next step. Let’s go!
Words from Sean Massey – Vice-Chairperson
A vendor-agnostic EUC community has been needed for a long time, and I’m excited to see World of EUC step up to become this community.
I started with EUC on the VMware side by blogging about VMware Horizon when it was still called View. At the time, I ended up building a View environment for my employer because the VAR we had hired didn’t have the people or expertise, and I wanted to share what I had learned. At the time, there weren’t a lot of blogs talking about architecting and deploying View. Blogging opened up the door to do more by presenting at VMUGs, VMworld, and other events, and I’ve had the pleasure of being a VMware vExpert, a Broadcom EUC Division EUC Expert, an NVIDIA GRID Community Advisor (NGCA), and earn a VMware Certified Design Expert in the End-User Computing track.
The more time I spend in the community, the more I’ve realized that, regardless of the broker or endpoint management tool, we’re all working with the same core technologies and trying to solve the same problems. I’m really excited that World of EUC can be that community that transcends vendor silos so we can all share and learn from each other.
Words from Patrick Coble – Finance Chair
I cannot wait to see what happens with this community. I’m excited to be able to help, but I’m more excited to help other people help this EUC community out. My EUC community journeys started with Citrix Synergy and VMware VMworld but expanded with events like BriForum, where I saw some of my nerd heroes and started thinking about things beyond my job. Then, there were user groups like VMware, especially the Citrix User Group, that needed someone to sign up to help support their local user group initiative. I signed up to be a leader for Nashville, TN and started connecting with those around me in my city and worldwide, learning more about technology and, more importantly, community. I took that community and my nerdy knowledge. I asked one of my heroes, Jarian Gibson if I could present with him on VDI security at a community event in E2EVC Orlando after a Citrix Synergy.
The session went great, but I met many new people then. However, the person who made a significant impact was Stephanie Roper from Citrix, working with the Citrix User Group. She said I should apply to be a CTA, and I got accepted with some help from here and many other EUC friends I had made by then. Then, from a Citrix CTA, I became a Citrix CTP, a VMware vExpert, and a VMware EUC vExpert, and I got to do more and more speeches. I focused on VDI and AD Security, which led me to start my own consulting company, which let me do even more speeches and community work. That gets us to 2024, and this opportunity presented itself after a user group was disbanded to do something. I contacted a couple of people, and we started doing something. We wanted to bring back the local user groups to try to make something similar and make it better and more open because we would need more than one vendor. Still, we would have partnerships that would help us pay the bills to run things and make things possible that were not before. I want to do fantastic things like connecting people, mentoring people to make them experts in this field, and helping the community people live in with service projects. We will have some bumps along the way and some growing pains, but I know the trip will be worth it to help bring this EUC world together.
Words from Stephen Wagner – Director
Community brings people together, whether it’s to share, learn, or just enjoy common passions and hobbies with one another. This is why I’m so excited to be part of The World of EUC, uniting people, groups, communities, and more.
My community journey started with my blog. I started my blog around the same time I started my IT Services company almost 18 years ago. Through my daily practice of IT, I’d write and compose blog posts, covering a wide range of technologies and software products, providing information on them, issue fixes, and how-to guides. Readers would regularly reach out for assistance, leave comments, and not only was I happy to have an audience, but I was ecstatic that I was helping others.
Over time my focus (both professionally and personally as a hobby) shifted to VDI and Virtualization. During this time, I joined a number of community groups such as the VMware vExpert Program, NVIDIA NGCA vGPU Advisor Group, EUC Expert, and also became a local VMUG leader for Calgary, Alberta up in Canada. Fast forward some years and here I am now, working with the amazing team at The World of EUC, trying to unite people and community. All this at a time where there’s major shifts and changes in the industry which are leaving many looking for a new home. We hope to be that home!
Words from Janna White – Director
My first taste of virtualization was with VMware ESXi 4.5 (Wow! I’ve aged myself!) Of course that piqued my interest in all things virtualization which led me to dabble in Citrix XenDesktop and XenApps. This ultimately guided me down the road of VMware Horizon in which I designed and deployed a small Horizon View environment from scratch and then managed an enterprise-level Horizon environment. My EUC journey has directed me recently to the deployment of Azure Virtual Desktop which I’m still kicking the tires on so I’m holding my opinion on that for the time being.
I have been a proud VMware vExpert and VMware EUC vExpert as well as have previously been a Nashville VMUG co-leader and currently on their advisory board. Now I am honored to be alongside on the World of EUC Board with such great names as Patrick Coble, Sean Massey and Stephen Wagner whom I’ve been acquainted with through VMUG and greatly admire and respect for their vast technical expertise and community engagement. I am looking forward to this new journey with the World of EUC and connecting with all of the members of this community at any of the exciting EUC upcoming events!