Fusion 5 is here!

Before I get swept up in all of the VMworld madness, I’d better not forget to let you know that Fusion 5 has been released!  I’ve been dogfooding it for awhile, and ’tis awesome.  It works well with both Mountain Lion and Windows 8, not to mention the Retina display on the new MacBook Pro.

The thing that I’ve noticed the most is that Fusion 5 has made some great strides in performance.  I used to have to be careful with running Fusion if I wasn’t going to be near a power outlet soon, but now I don’t worry about it.

More details are over on the Fusion blog‘s announcement.

BYOD for the VMworld Hands-on Labs

I know that the Hands-on Labs are one of the most popular parts of VMworld, including bragging rights if you finish all of them.  So one way to work on those bragging rights is the new BYOD for the VMworld Hands-on Labs.  We’ll still have the traditional workstations set up, but you can also use your own device.

My awesome team made a video about it, which you absolutely need to watch:

VMworld! next week!

Next week is VMworld, and I’ll be there.  Want to meet up?  Ping me (honestly, reaching me via twitter is probably going to be best, since my mail is going to get pretty backed up next week) and we’ll meet up for coffee or cocktails.

on watching user studies

This week, I’m conducting some user research.  Just after I had wrapped up a session with one of the participants in this research, I saw a tweet:

Have you ever wondered what it feels to be an engineer watching research studies on your product? http://i.imgur.com/1Hheq.gif  via @iamnirav

Have you ever wondered what it feels to be an engineer watching research studies on your product?

virtual infrastructure architects and senior admins needed for user research

I’m conducting some user research in the coming months, and I need virtual infrastructure architects and senior admins to participate in it.  At a high level, I’m looking for virtual infrastructure architects and senior admins who do tasks such as manage and monitor virtual infrastructure, plan capacity, create VMs, migrate VMs, or deal with virtual infrastructure help tickets.  If you’re local to Palo Alto, then you can come to my usability lab and participate in person; if you’re outside of Palo Alto (including outside of the US), then we’ll conduct the studies remotely via WebEx.

This user research is a little different than usual: I’m going to be doing a lot of research on a related group of topics in the coming months, and so I’m putting together a small pool of people who will participate in multiple studies over that amount of time.  Every 6-8 weeks, I’ll run another usability study, and I’ll pull from this small pool of participants for it.  You don’t need to participate in each study, but you do need to commit to participating in at least one study.  The first study begins on Monday, August 13.  You will be compensated for participating in each study, and your level of compensation grows with each study you participate in.

If you’re interested in participating, then fill out this survey to tell me a bit more about what you do and what your virtual environment looks like.  And if you’ve got any questions, feel free to ping me.

on our new CEO …

Silicon Angle writes this about incoming CEO Pat Gelsinger:

Believe me; Maritz wasn’t pushed out the door and Pat Gelsinger he was not passed over for CEO job at EMC.  So to say that Gelsinger is marrying the ugly step sister because he wasn’t wanted by Cinderella is complete nonsense.  I’d say that he actually has the best job at EMC.  VMware is 60%+ of EMCs market cap, its where all the change and innovation will take place at the company.  EMC is the infrastructure play and VMware is the application play.  VMware an application focused company is where Pat Gelsinger will shine.  New apps, new platforms, new management paradigms, new partnerships & alliances this is the dream job for any serious IT executive and Pat Gelsinger will be in product heaven over there.

Read the rest: Industry Analysts Got It Wrong on VMware CEO Transition From Paul Maritz to Pat Gelsinger.

from the “not getting it” files …

Recently, I got recruited.  Badly.

Nadyne,

I am a recruiter at [somewhere] and am searching for an experienced User Experience Researcher to work at our corporate headquarters in [the Bay Area]. I saw your profile on LinkedIn and thought you might be interested or might know someone who is.

We are looking for someone with 5+ years experience and

• Mastery of user experience research methodologies
• Successful track record conducting Qualitative and Quantitative research studies
• The ability to drive the creation and adoption of new research methods and tools, including reporting tools and
• Extensive knowledge of usability methods

If you are interested or know anyone who is I can be reached at [somewhere]

I look forward to hearing from you.
[recruiter]

I gave the email the response it deserved:

[recruiter],

http://www.nadynerichmond.com/blog/2012/06/07/the-flip-side-of-unsolicited-resumes/

Regards,
Nadyne.

It probably took me longer to write my email than the recruiter spent on their mail, since it took me a couple of minutes to find the blog post.

There’s nothing in the recruiter’s post about me.  I mean, I suppose I could give him points for spelling my name properly, but given that the rest of the mail is cut-and-paste1, I’ll assume that he’s capable of cutting-and-pasting my name too.   It just correctly identifies that I’ve got more than five years of experience as a user researcher.  There’s nothing in that mail that does anything to sell me on why I would want to work at that company or in that role.  It’s lazy recruiting, and I’m not going to invest my time in talking to a recruiter that can’t be bothered to do the most basic part of recruiting.

Amusingly, I got the following response:

Nadyne,

This is a great article.

Thank you.

[recruiter]

It is, isn’t it?  Except either (a) you didn’t read it, or (b) you read it but didn’t actually comprehend how it applies to you and your lazy recruiting.

  1. Although you might have noticed that the bullet point about “ability to drive creation …” is cut off.  That’s not actually in the job ad that’s listed on the company’s website, so apparently he’s not even that great at cutting and pasting.