{"id":1336,"date":"2016-03-22T08:34:32","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T12:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/?p=1336"},"modified":"2016-03-22T00:52:37","modified_gmt":"2016-03-22T04:52:37","slug":"advocating-for-engineers-and-customers-alike-with-william-lam-ep-107","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/2016\/03\/advocating-for-engineers-and-customers-alike-with-william-lam-ep-107\/","title":{"rendered":"Advocating for Engineers and Customers Alike with William Lam &#8211; Ep 107"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/william-lam-vmworld.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1343\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1343 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/william-lam-vmworld.jpg\" alt=\"william-lam-vmworld\" width=\"273\" height=\"273\" srcset=\"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/william-lam-vmworld.jpg 634w, http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/william-lam-vmworld-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/william-lam-vmworld-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/william-lam-vmworld-349x350.jpg 349w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 273px) 100vw, 273px\" \/><\/a>We&#8217;re pleased to bring you a conversation with <strong>William Lam<\/strong>,\u00a0Staff Engineer II working within the VMware R&amp;D organization and creator of the ever-popular <a href=\"http:\/\/www.virtuallyghetto.com\" target=\"_blank\">VirtuallyGhetto.com<\/a>. The Whisperers spoke with William back at VMworld, and due to a number of lost files and a miraculous backup copy, we now deliver it to you.<\/p>\n<p>We discuss:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Joining R&amp;D\u00a0from the customer side of the story<\/li>\n<li>The transition from TME to R&amp;D Engineering<\/li>\n<li>Filtering content and serving it up to the customer<\/li>\n<li>Feeling closer to the customer by playing with the software<\/li>\n<li>His role is diverse: &#8220;today could be VSAN, tomorrow could be NSX&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Starting early in blogging<\/li>\n<li>Doubting the value of his blog (he didn&#8217;t\u00a0believe people would read his blog)<\/li>\n<li>The naming of Virtually Ghetto and its humble beginnings<\/li>\n<li>Advocating for the customer within the company<\/li>\n<li>Not worrying about politics or swim lanes, but doing the best work for the customer<\/li>\n<li>Having engineers who wrote the code troubleshoot using your blog<\/li>\n<li>Answering the questions: what are the use cases, how is it getting used, how do you fix it?<\/li>\n<li>Providing feedback from customer back into engineering as well<\/li>\n<li>Working for the enterprise versus playing in the startup lands<\/li>\n<li>How&#8217;d you get here? Honestly no clue<\/li>\n<li>Safe is a relative idea that doesn&#8217;t always make good or bad<\/li>\n<li>We all have non-linear paths to the roles we get to<\/li>\n<li>Do the work and share it publicly<\/li>\n<li>Career planning is not his favorite thing &#8211; keep up with the passion<\/li>\n<li>One takeaway: <strong>persevere<\/strong>. It will show<\/li>\n<li>Gut versus metrics? He&#8217;s a gut guy<\/li>\n<li>Fulfill the commitment and keep going forward<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t run away from the fear &#8211; there&#8217;s good from it<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can follow William on Twitter <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/lamw\" target=\"_blank\">@lamw<\/a> and on his incredible blog, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.virtuallyghetto.com\" target=\"_blank\">Virtually Ghetto<\/a>. Thanks for this episode and thanks for the backup copy <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DathBrun\" target=\"_blank\">Mark<\/a>!<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_8993\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-1336-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/geek_whisperers\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Advocating-for-Engineers-and-Customers-Alike-William-Lam-Ep-107.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/geek_whisperers\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Advocating-for-Engineers-and-Customers-Alike-William-Lam-Ep-107.mp3\">http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/geek_whisperers\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Advocating-for-Engineers-and-Customers-Alike-William-Lam-Ep-107.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Podcast: <a href=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/geek_whisperers\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Advocating-for-Engineers-and-Customers-Alike-William-Lam-Ep-107.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/?powerpress_pinw=1336-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/geek_whisperers\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Advocating-for-Engineers-and-Customers-Alike-William-Lam-Ep-107.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"Advocating-for-Engineers-and-Customers-Alike-William-Lam-Ep-107.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/feed\/podcast\/\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re pleased to bring you a conversation with William Lam,\u00a0Staff Engineer II working within the VMware R&amp;D organization and creator of the ever-popular VirtuallyGhetto.com. The Whisperers spoke with William back at VMworld, and due to a number of lost files and a miraculous backup copy, we now deliver it to&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/2016\/03\/advocating-for-engineers-and-customers-alike-with-william-lam-ep-107\/\">Read All Show Notes<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Advocating for Engineers and Customers Alike with William Lam &#8211; Ep 107<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_8994\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-1336-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/geek_whisperers\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Advocating-for-Engineers-and-Customers-Alike-William-Lam-Ep-107.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/geek_whisperers\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Advocating-for-Engineers-and-Customers-Alike-William-Lam-Ep-107.mp3\">http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/geek_whisperers\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Advocating-for-Engineers-and-Customers-Alike-William-Lam-Ep-107.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\">Podcast: <a href=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/geek_whisperers\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Advocating-for-Engineers-and-Customers-Alike-William-Lam-Ep-107.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/?powerpress_pinw=1336-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/geek_whisperers\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Advocating-for-Engineers-and-Customers-Alike-William-Lam-Ep-107.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"Advocating-for-Engineers-and-Customers-Alike-William-Lam-Ep-107.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/feed\/podcast\/\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1336"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1344,"href":"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336\/revisions\/1344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/geek-whisperers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}