EMC Elected
On Wednesday morning, during my morning Starbucks cold-brew run, I received a shocking message from my friend Jon Hildebrand.
“Congrats on EMCElect”
I seriously thought he was kidding.
But then he sent me the link to the announcement, and there was my name, just a couple under Michael Dell. Yes, that Michael Dell.
Looking at the #DellEMCElect list, I feel severely out-Michael’d.
I’m not new to the concept of these influencer marketing programs. I’ve been a member of the VMware vExpert program for five years. In the past, I’ve been a member of the Cisco Champions for Data Center program but missed a deadline to reapply the next year. I’m aware of the numerous other ones that have sort of sprung up in the wake of the vExpert program within the data center infrastructure community. I take a lot of them for what they are, marketing programs, and not necessarily reflective of any pinnacle of particular expertise.
I’ve also known about the EMC Elect program for a while, and I’ve always considered it to be one of the most elite of the many groups, mostly due to the size and the process they go through to determine who gets in. Despite working for one of the largest EMC partners in the Midwest, truthfully, I’ve never considered myself anywhere on the level to be an Elect member, simply based on the contributions of the previous members of the program. I have never nominated myself before. I didn’t nominate myself this time. With the other things going on in my life right now, I didn’t even realize nominations were open. But someone did, and the trustees felt that I belonged, and so I thank you immensely for that.
According to Mark Brown, there were over 600 nominations, trimmed to 300 finalists, and then eventually 153 Elects were selected.
Because of the completion of the Dell and EMC acquisition/merger last year, the new “Dell EMC Elect” program combines the previous “EMC Elect” with the “Dell Tech Centre Rockstar” programs.
Mark elaborated on his blog more about the process, and shared his views on why these programs continue to be important:
From my perspective as the trustee, this was indeed a challenging time, effectively putting together a new influencer and advocate engagement program. It’s a larger world we are in, now with Dell EMC. And things are moving fast technologically in a challenging market and an uncertain world.
That is why we need programs like this. We need communities of trust and skill to sort the signal from the noise in "Tech". We need to establish these communities into innovative networks. Because technology is a tool of the people, not the other way round. That's why I firmly believe this List of Dell EMC Elect of 2017 is a community of people, who are engaged in getting their hands dirty and getting things done for their customers and stakeholders. And it's never been a more important time to have such a community, that is for the people in technology, nominated by the people in technology. It is a marketing program, but it is so much more than that. It’s a community of very skilled peers in technology, who are curious and most of all authentic. And I am very happy to be in their midst and see the world as a slightly brighter place having these people recognized for all they do.
In light of my stresses and anxieties around social media in general, to be recognized in this way, and to really connect with the meaning behind it, was well timed.
With all sincerity, I consider this to be an extraordinary honor. My hope with this program is that I won’t let down those who nominated me, and those who found me worthy of inclusion.