Alan Z. talks about software developers at EMC World 2008, EDN.next and other cool new projects.
Cool days
I find myself saying “Cool!” a lot these days. These are extraordinary times for the EDN and our members. The EDN is changing and people are connecting. It seems that most everything coming up, and the people I've been meeting are... just so cool.
Cool is hard to define, but like many things, you know it when you see it. For me it's the feeling I get when I come across a good idea, and it makes me smile.
EMC World
More people attended software developer sessions at this year's EMC World 2008 than have attended previous EMC developer conferences. The event was held in Las Vegas, and it was HOT. The outside temperature reached 107 degrees F for three days in a row. Fortunately the conference center’s air conditioning was working perfectly during the heat wave. The people inside and the activities were very cool.
It was great meeting EDN members at EMC World. The afternoon before the conference began, there was a meet and greet, and lots of people came by the EDN table to say hello. Lots of friendly familiar faces, and lots of opportunities to talk to people learning more about the EDN.
During the conference, I got to talk with people between sessions and at the EDN booth in the solutions pavilion. Some EDN members came by the booth and said “I was looking for EDN… I’m so glad you’re here”. We handed out lots of printed DFS posters and I wonder how many of them survived airline luggage handling.
We put together a little video that shows some of the faces seen during the conference... is your face there?
I spent much of my time at the EDN booth. There was a lot of activity, and we got to demonstrate some pretty cool new things that members of the EMC Developer Programs team have been working on:
There's a growing ecosystem of partner developers working with EMC technologies who have created products others can use in their customers’ solutions. The new Partner Solution Gallery is a great way to find out what’s available. You can search by product, category, industry and regions to find out about the offerings.
I got to meet many of our partners during the event, and when looking at what they've done, I thought (not surprisingly) "Cool!" Though the solutions cover a wide range of EMC products, it was very interesting to see how solution focused some of these tools are. Developers find a need, find a niche, create a solution, and make a business out of it.
EDN Labs
I recently did an audio interview with Naveen Jain, who heads the EDN Labs intiative where he explains its purpose, features and how you can get involved.
At the EDN booth, there was quite a bit of interest in the new collaborative projects, early access programs, community source and sandbox features. So visit labs.emc.com, take a look around, read the FAAQ (Frequently Asked and Anticipated Questions) to see what's new... and cool.
PlaytheCloud! game
A few days before EMC World, we announced that PlaytheCloud! was coming. Yes, it was mysterious… and yes it was great fun! It was the EDN's first experiment with social networking and tagging. The game ran for 4 days during EMC World and invited people to go to PlayTheCloud.com, register and fill out a simple profile. The data in the profile was converted to tags, and people playing the game were challenged to connect with other players. Prizes were awarded for the people with the most connections, and for those with the “Strongest” connections (the latter meaning with those whose tags were closest to your own).
It was pretty cool to watch the number of players and connections grow. So what does this have to do with the EMC Developer Network? Well, it’s the “network” part that needs work. How can we help developers find other members with similar interests? One crucial component is to have metadata about the members. Tagging is the social media way of assigning member-defined terms to content and people. So PlaytheCloud! game was our way of seeing how quickly a request for tag information will spread.
PlaytheCloud! game is now a EDN Labs project where you can discuss the game, how it was developed, and where it’s going.
EDN.next
Before EMC World, we published an audio interview with Randy Ziegler, where he talks about what the EDN team has working on to create a new social media-based EDN platform.
We were able to demonstrate EDN.next to people who stopped by the booth. The feedback was great! They particularly liked the idea that all members become potential publishers and they intend to use the new Wikis to create collaborative documents. They were also excited to see the new features including blogs, content rating and tagging, and integrated code search.
EDN.next will have more rich media content. We recorded many of the EMC World developer sessions, and several audio/video interviews with developers. This is just a start... it's amazing what members can come up with when they have a camera and microphone in their hands.
EDN.next will make it easy to enable new developer communities. I happened to be in the room at the end of Steve Giampa's conference session on the Symmetrix Command Line Interface (CLI), when one of the attendees said "I wish there was a place that I could upload scripts I've written and download scripts from other people". Steve looked at me and to the crowd and I thought "COOL!" A dozen people actually stood in line to give me their business cards... they want to share ASAP.
I kept hearing these two questions: “When can I start using EDN.next?” and “When can I start spreading the word about it?” Well, the answer is "very soon", maybe even by the time you’re reading this. Keep an eye on the EDN home page for more details and news about the transition.
EDN Global Cooling
I'm a pretty calm person. I don't get easily excited, but the fine work that the entire EMC Developer Programs team has been doing behind the scenes is finally coming to light, and I'm psyched.
Now it's your turn. We've laid the groundwork, but these are your communities. Participate by sharing. Let's show the world the cool work you're doing, and how cool the EDN can be.
Alan Z.
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