 Hi, I'm Stu Miniman and this is a special On the Ground here at the B-Tug Summer Slam and happy to welcome to the program a longtime friend, but first time on the program as somebody that's known this community for many years. Luigi Danicos, who's a senior systems engineer in the hyperconverged infrastructure space at VMware. Luigi, great to talk to you on camera. Oh, thank you, Stu. Actually, this has been one of my bucket list items since EMC World 2010 when the cube actually first started. Yeah, so you've been watching since the beginning. You knew me back from you know disclosure. I used to work at EMC and I've been working with VMware for a long time. So you've had a number of jobs, but one of those consistencies out there is I know when I would go to the winter warmer, I would usually see them there. Your wife has helped out at the event here. So give us to start off a little bit. What is this event meant to you, your career and your friendships over the years? Oh man, that's a great question, Stu. Actually, I don't think I would be where I am today without this particular user group. It was my first ever user group and my first ever real major exposure into VMware in January 2010 at the first winter warmer that I attended. So for me, it actually gave me exposure into the technology and then to see the community and the users behind that. And I was already following you on Twitter at the time and you were kind of my mentor into the social space and getting involved in there and to have it all accumulate together. And it was just for me, honestly, it was amazing and it was life changing. Well, Luigi, my apologies for introducing to the quagmire that is currently Twitter, but you know, and also here is right, you know, you got on you've been, you know, a huge proponent of, you know, community activities there. You know, you've now attended, you know, really big shows. You've been at VMworld a number of times, you want to free tip there one, you've been to the, you know, some of the discovers with HP when you were there, you know, what's different about, you know, a regional event like this, compared to some of the big ones? Well, I think the conversations that you have at most of those events are the same. I think where the benefit regionally is, you can meet up with these people afterwards for coffee, for tea, you can continue that conversation in person a lot easier. And also having the same being in the same geographical region kind of helps you relate to some of the, you can, you can laugh about some of the nuances with the weather or just, you know, the local sports and then what's happening there. And you can just, it's more like home, right? And you get that sense of comfort when you go out to a big conference, right? Yes, you're going to know people. Well, you're in a strange environment. You're kind of like, you're a little more reserved. Like when I talk to Chris Colotti here, he says they don't like when we talk about the Patriots, but you're a big Patriots. I am a diar. You're okay talking about the Patriots. All right. The other thing, we really talk about jobs here, you know, something I know over the years, I've loved helping introducing people and helping them get jobs. The S.E. positions are always something that every company is going to walk around this expo floor. They're always going to see people that are hiring and you're going to find people that need jobs. You know, what's your experience in there? Oh, no, I would say that's the biggest thing about the regional area is when you're actually in the market for a new job. I mean, for me, if you look at me, I started out years ago as a CIS admin, then I went to tech marketing, then I went to social media marketing. And now I'm doing S.E. work for VMware, which is still a dream, in my opinion, to be working at VMware. But for me, it's you build those connections and you have those conversations, those real world conversations. I was just speaking with a gentleman earlier who's possibly contemplating a job change. That's not a conversation he would have just normally. He feels comfortable with these users and the experiences that they've had and he wants to learn from that. And I'm happy to share that information with anyone. Yeah. Luigi, what are some of the things that you've seen, you know, changed the industry, how that impacting, you know, you were involved with Matt and Sean helping with the social media aspect of this event, really, you know, being an open tent to embrace not just virtualization, but cloud computing, obviously things like DevOps, you know, the changing the workforce is something that I heavily focused on at this show. Yeah, I would think from, if I look at it, I was actually having this conversation last night with Hans and a friend of his and I was explaining to her about the VTUG and how it came about. And, you know, if you really think about back in 2012, you know, companies weren't talking multi cloud or multi virtualization technologies, and the user group started that. And if you look at where the trend is now in the marketplace, it's cloud, it's this, it's that, you know, so the users started to dictate that back then. So for me, it's really about that, right? And, you know, it allows you to stay abreast with the thing. And I don't even know if I really answered your question, because I may have went off on a tangent with my ADD, but it was more about that watching the technology change and being able to have those conversations with with people on in from a from an SC low perspective. It's, it keeps you in the touch of actually what the users are going through because you listen to them, you know, they start talking, even if you just sit in on some of these sessions, it's like they start posing real challenges to you. All right. So Luigi, you know, want to give you the final word, you know, we talked a little bit about the community, how you participated. It's the end of an error. So, you know, what would your, you know, takeaways here and any final memories that you want to share from these events? Final memories would have to be my very first VTUG, or at the time it was New England VMAG Summerslam. It was my wife's birthday. And I said to her, babe, I'm going to Maine for the day. And she's like, what? It's my birthday. Yeah, but baby, this is going to be important for us in the long run from a career perspective. And here it is nine years later, you know, I came home that day with three lobsters for her, you know, I got a sweet talker. But, you know, nine years later, she works and participates in the user group and gives back. And I now work for the company that we were supporting as a user in the community. So for me, that's, you've got to go full circle. It's pretty surreal if you ask me. And I had a question for you still. Oh, I don't know if we're going to let you turn the mic on me, but go ahead, Luigi. I know that I'm a Die Hard Yankees fan, but which way do you go, Yankees Red Sox? Well, come on, Luigi, you know that like you and like a certain Tom Brady, I am still a Yankee fan born and raised in New Jersey. So just don't talk about it in England too much because my boss is a Die Hard Red Sox fan and New England fans are pretty fanatical. And don't, you know, understand like Patriots fans have become just like Yankee fans. Perennial winners, you know, think that they're always going to drive that and a little bit too arrogant. So looking forward to the banner unveiling for the Patriots on September 9th, you know, number six for, you know, TV 12. Are you going to be in the team? And of course, I will be there. I've been lucky enough to be, it was actually, it was the Giants Connection with the Patriots that got me there, but I do love football. And I'll miss having the VTUG event there. It was fun. You know, got to meet a number of the alumni from there. So, oh, Luigi, you know, sharing my, sharing my allegiance is there. I have not converted to the Red Sox. Fenway's a nice place to go, but I'm more of a football guy. And the Patriots are my number one team, never an Eli Manning fan. So yeah, I think, I think that's the other thing that I respect about you is we're both Patriots and Yankee fans. So that's I had to throw that out here. All right. Well, Luigi, welcome to the Cube alumni. Thanks so much always for your support over the year and your contributions to the community. And be sure to check out thecube.net. We're of course at VMworld. We've got the entire executive team on all the big cloud shows. I'm Stu Miniman as always. Thank you so much for watching the Cube.