Once again, free time permits a new episode of Saturday Night Live Deep Dive. This week the topic will be “Becoming a Corporate Sellout” As usual, obligatory alarming headline is being used to generate traffic.
Unless you have lived under a rock for the last month, it’s been impossible not to be inundated with the onslaught of buzz around VMware’s long awaited VSAN launch. By my count alone in my current RSS feed there were over 60 different blog posts or articles related to VSAN. Chris Evans took it a bit further and calculated all the posts by only Duncan Epping, Cormac Hogan, and William Lam on the subject which totaled out to 77 between the three of them.
Now, let me be clear here, I’m not picking on anyone in particular, this is just an example that is currently being used because of its current relevance. For the record, I’m just as guilty as the next guy when it comes to writing about the technology I work with and the company I work for. Still, the underlying question to discuss tonight will be, when you have built up your online following under independent auspices, do you lose credibility if you switch to a nearly full time Evangelist on behalf of your employer and are there further ramifications involved in “Selling Out”? Is there a happy medium that can be reached, and does it matter or should you even care?
As usual, Google+ Hangout Challenges will prevail. Here is the main G+ Event page which will be updated with the Hangout once it goes live.