System administrator resources you’ll actually use

Brian Kirsch: One of the first channels is always company reps, but at the end of the day, they want additional or continued sales. That doesn’t mean this is a bad avenue, but it does have a clear and alternative purpose other than simple education.

People often use social media — which includes Slack, Facebook and Twitter — as a news source. These great tools let you know what has been released, what is coming and critical details that you might need to know. Although they are good at giving you alerts and even answering questions, they are not the ideal learning platform. They often provide links to additional materials, but they lack in overall substance Blogs, feature articles and other more in-depth materials often are the most ideal platforms because they provide enough materials for many to get a deeper understanding of what it’s trying to deliver. Now, blogs can be hot and cold depending on the publisher. Featured pieces tend be a bit more regular.

How do you know when something is new and worthy of your attention? For me, Twitter with the character limit helps to provide a snapshot of the material in question and, from there, you can make the decision to investigate further or pass on it. You don’t have to be an expert at Twitter or have thousands of followers. Use it as a news collector to help you filter out what you need and don’t.

Some of my favorites are the vExpert and VMware channels for both Slack and Twitter. I tend to look at more reading materials over video channels because I can go through the materials faster than a video. That being said, Twitter accounts from the vendors and engineer teams are critical, such as specific accounts like @vmwarensx, @vmwarevsan and @vmwarecloudonaws. Find the main channels and then look for the product-specific channels that you own, these can give you the ideal news and informational feeds. I don’t personally follow blogs. Even though they have ideal information, it’s often not at a consistent level for most topics.