So, I admit it, I am not a big football fan. The Red River Rivalry comes and goes here at SolarWinds and is marked with a flurry of emailed goading, good-natured, of course. The company, for those of you who don’t know, was founded in Oklahoma and moved to Austin about 5 years ago. I could adopt the Longhorns, my son has, but I’m rather glad I didn’t this year. I suppose my nonchalance comes from going to unremarkable football colleges. Kent State is not really known for its prowess on the field, nor do I remember the Ragin’ Cajuns whipping up a frothing crowd… a frothing daiquiri at the drive-through or the tailgate, maybe. Then again, maybe it is just confusion. I was raised by an eastern European who called soccer "football" for most of my younger years. I like soccer. I worked at a company where World Cup matches were the reason we opened our firewall at one point. I get it. I get hockey, rugby, and lacrosse, too.
Anyway, my personal affiliation with any sport isn’t really the point. I’m a fan of the assist. I played left halfback long ago in the youth league of my hometown. The importance of being able to take a defensive position and turn it around, to be able to face an offender and reverse a game, the ability to find your place among the fullbacks when defense is the way to go… this chameleon-like role and personality is a green field for MVPs, in my opinion. You don’t always get to shoot on goal. You don’t always block the shot. You set up other players. You assist.
I have spent a good chunk of time looking for you over the last few weeks, and I think I’ve found some great candidates.
Like the rest of SolarWinds, the community is growing and changing and becoming more faceted. We have a fantastic team of players whose knowledge spans numerous IT management spaces. I am reaching out to community players from across the board to play in a number of positions, both veterans on the pitch and newer members who show great promise at playing for the community.
Something I want to point out about what I just wrote – MVPs play for the community. You provide feedback on betas and release candidates; you help with UI and Ux testing for new features; you provide content in the content exchange; you post solutions; you pose questions; you provide insight from the field and tell us how to better create and update products you want to use. You tell us whether the ball is over inflated or soft. You are on the pitch, rain or shine, and you help keep us all in the game. We trust you.
I am reaching out to a variety of players and have high hopes we’ll get positive responses. Some of these members have been more active as beta testers or respond to UI walk-through requests. They may not be avid posters. I am looking and will continue to look for people that help in every aspect of our community and in every focus area we manage: storage, logs and events, systems and servers, applications, virtualization, and networks. To be sure, we never want to blur the vision and precision found in our network management channels. What we do want to do is provide that same focus and growth and commentary and activity in our other channels.
The next time I’m looking for MVPs, I will be more active in asking the community for recommendations. Heck, by that time, I’ll probably be able to pull a cool survey together with ranking and the whole deal. And, no, surveys will not usurp search in our ongoing platform selection. On a side note, Peyton Hillis didn’t play why?
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