We are officially 5-ish weeks away from VMware Explore. The content catalog dropped today, which I was waiting for to put this article out there. I’m also the very lucky winner of the People’s Choice Awards, thus will get to toot my own horn in this article. What better thing could there be?!
In this article. I am going to feature my top 6 sessions at VMware Explore that are Workspace ONE-focused and actually feature speakers who know what they’re talking about. I think sometimes we get really great content, but not the right people. These sessions have some great peeps involved! Let’s get into it!
Riding a Cloud to Elevate the User Experience with Workspace ONE [EUSB1580US]
Well, OBVIOUSLY I was going to be first on this list. It has been SO hard to get the opportunity to speak at these fine VMware events. This year I will be coming to VMware Explore. I’m going to be covering a really interesting session, which has been covered in parts over the last two EUC Days.
My session is all about how me and my wife’s company, which I covered a bit in my last article took a cloud-hosted boutique CRO and made them robust, automated, and enterprise-grade through creative engineering.
The biggest deal about this whole thing is how I’m a huge hypocrite now. I famously flamed Okta and said people don’t need it, but I have a freaking 5 minute Okta video in this session. Yes, I really did #1 buy Okta and #2 now will do an Okta demo that is all about how we used Okta Workflows to elevate our organization’s onboarding experience. So, Hi, my name is Mobile Jon and I’m a hypocrite!
One last thing that I really want to highlight is my co-presenter. He’s such a great success story. He’s probably one of the youngest people to present this year. Alex Olinger, who worked for me at Talbots as a College Intern, converted to a FTE, and then came over to our company to be one of the most dynamic API engineers and overall technologists at such a young age. He’s a very charismatic young man and a true success story for anyone starting out. We all just need the right people supporting our climb up the perilous mountains of IT.
See the Value of a Complete Anywhere Workspace at the EUC Nerdfest 2022 [EUSB2289US]
Sadly, I will not be presenting with this guy in back-to-back years. Johan Van Amersfoort (The Real Thor of VMware Explore), sorry Joel. He’s a super impressive guy who really knows how to nerd out on fun technology like VR, NVIDIA GPUs, Horizon, etc. If you don’t think he’s Thor, watch this freaking video!
Anyways, moving on. Johan is going to be covering some very cool technologies after spending a few years working on the art of the possible, he’s now working on the art of the GTFO. He’s going to be covering Intelligent Hub with AI, security solutions like SASE, Zero Trust, and potentially MTD. Sure, it’s not freaking Dinosaurs like we wanted to do, but this is some really cool shit.
The thing that frustrates me most about this session is they unfairly put him against a few other cool sessions that I refuse to give too much airtime to because it’s not fair. I really wish that they would stop doing this and making us compete for airtime. We ALL lose when this happens. All because of that, I am going to miss out on a great session with the incomparable Brian Link discussing Freestyle Orchestrator and a really interesting session about moving away from legacy VPNs with Martin Kniffin. No, I will NOT link to those sessions because we came for the Mobile Jon sessions and stayed for Johan’s Nerdfest 2022!
Setting the North Star for a Hybrid Work World [EUSK2299US]
Of course, I have to bring up your standard “Hybrid Work” keynote. You really can’t miss session with Shankar Iyer and Shawn Bass. They’re both great and do a solid job. Let’s be honest since Shawn Bass lost his tag team partner Brian Madden in 2022 he could REALLY use our support. Let’s show up for Shawn!
As a reminder, this is what it was like before Brian Madden slammed VMware and was working there still:
Anyways, these keynotes are always a ton of fun. We will get an idea into where they are looking to take the hybrid model. Their plans for using the technology to improve employee experience, couple security and automation, and do fancy things. I would expect maybe a customer spotlight in there and your typical EUC stuff. They’re touting that Carbon Black Cloud, Horizon, SASE, and WS1 will all make appearance. Should be fun!
Modern Identity Solutions [EUSB2261US]
I make it a point to attend things with Rahul Parwani. I’ve known Rahul for a few years now back when he was supporting WS1 Core and he has always been very helpful. Smart people like him get tested and take on new experience as he has traversed things like Hub and now Workspace ONE’s identity platform.
I think this session is particularly intriguing this year with the amalgamation of identity in the marketplace. It “seems” like Microsoft may also be featured in this session for a broad conversation about the future of identity and how it will impact the hybrid work environment. I think it also helps that this session is at a good time and misses out on the post-lunch food coma when we’re just starting to get our second wind.
I didn’t really have anything fun to share about Rahul so I will feature this amusing tweet from him hating Instagram back in 2017!
Tear Down the Wall with Unified Endpoint Security [EUSB2249US]
I recently wrote a few articles about Workspace ONE MTD powered by Lookout, while annoying people because their small market UEM products were overlooked. So that was fun hearing people cry on a weekend. This session which features the great Evan Hurst along with the VP of Product from Lookout and Cile Montgomery in Product Marketing (Sorry, don’t know her but she’s new!)
Evan I have known for almost 10-ish years now going back to the AirWatch days when he was a lowly PM for the AirWatch Inbox has always been a great supporter of Mobile Jon and has helped me with many of my Boxer, Intelligence, and other exploits. Evan does a solid job in sessions even though this is going to be a low tech session it should be fun.
The WS1 integration with Lookout is a super appealing session. We get to hopefully see some demos of security-ish stuff like MITM attacks, tagging, policy stuff etc. My fun fact for this one is how Evan’s Twitter has like 11 tweets ever and 20 followers. That is REALLY impressive. We need to get Evan more followers because he has had some major impact on the portfolio. Being honest though, Evan is a great supporter of customers and I really strongly suggest this session if you’re still around come Thursday.
How EUC Aligns With and Helps Achieve ESG Goals [EUSB2282US]
The final VMware Explore session I want to recommend is based on ESG, which is huge. ESG is a huge focal point for a number of companies today. Jack Madden (yes, that is Brian’s brother for those keeping track at home), Johan (yeah I’m getting sick of this guy too), and Benjamin Jones (who I do not know) will be covering ESG.
We could all stand to dedicate a hour of our week on hearing about how people are committing themselves to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. EUC can really make a substantial impact there, which I know as my company Synterex is a certified Green Business Bureau Gold organization:
The overarching concept that EUC makes a major difference is solid especially in our COVID world that has thrust BYOD and remote work more to the forefront. That has a major impact on emissions not to mention how we use energy and conserve. They should be covering asset management, VDI, reducing hardware consumption, and much more. It’s really important that we all do our parts.
Closing Thoughts
In closing, I strongly implore everyone to attend these session especially MINE. If anything, I am a bit of a circus. It’s always fun to attend my sessions because you never know what my ADHD will project from my mouth!
Overall, I really believe that you will enjoy all of these sessions. There are very limited opportunities to learn about how you can use your UEM infrastructure to make a lasting impact on your organization. These choices matter and hopefully one of these sessions that I recommended will make a lasting impact on your conference if you are lucky enough to attend. I really hope you enjoy VMware Explore!
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