As I headed for home after my first VeeamON, my main thought was “wow!” I knew when I joined Veeam that there was something special about the community and culture of this company, but I hadn’t realized how special it really was until now. Three things stand out as I reflect on VeeamON: the passion, the level of engagement and the sense of family.
Over the course of three days in New Orleans, it was evident that the passion and enthusiasm I have witnessed within Veeam over the past five months is equally matched by that of our partners and customers. Nearly 3,000 folks came to the convention center in New Orleans where hallways, walls and even escalator handrails were branded in Veeam green.
I heard dozens of stories from customers and partners who couldn’t wait to tell me how Veeam’s technology saved their business. One person told me how he recovered from two different ransomware events in less than 20 minutes. Another person told me about receiving a promotion after being able to recover a critical email that had been deleted. A partner told me about launching an offering that was now driving his whole cloud business. This same sense of passion was evident in every conversation. Attendees were excited to be there and passionate to share their stories.
The second thing that stood out is the level of engagement during the conference. This wasn’t just a typical conference with the vendor telling the market all the exciting things that were happening (and there were many exciting announcements). Instead, this was a real exchange of ideas at the intersection of customers, partners and market innovation.
I didn’t make it to nearly enough break-out sessions, but of those that I did attend, there was real give and take between presenters and audience members. It’s evident that the success of both VeeamON 2017 and Veeam is largely due to this openness and engagement within the community.
The final thing that really stood out was the sense of family and fun. I personally come from a large family and I know how awesome it is to take trips and have fun together. I got a very similar sense of fun during VeeamON. How many technical conferences have you been to where people are excited to be there, engaged and looking forward to the conversations and events? It was really fun! Beyond the ability to work hard and deliver, the famous Veeam parties have not been dampened by the tremendous growth we’ve experienced in the last years.
I came away from VeeamON excited and invigorated, but also with a sense of purpose to work hard to deliver solutions with our extended family of ProPartners and alliance partners.
See you all at the next VeeamON in Chicago!
