I recently had the honor of joining Scott Delandy and the EMCTV team in the Geek Pit at EMC World to explain the architecture, pricing and packaging of the VMAX All Flash… with chicken wings and beer. It was a lot of fun! Here’s the video:

The concept for the video came from the need to explain the new product simply. Parts of this demonstration could also be used to explain our Unity storage platform as well: appliance-based pricing and packaging, no-compromise snapshots… it’s great! (More on this in a separate blog!)

Behind the scenes the effort to put this all together was interesting. There’s a ton of coordination, planning and talent behind the scenes on a production like this. The EMCTV team put in a lot of effort and consideration into how we could take this demo from good to great on a little info. Being joined by JB and Lara added even more fun to the dynamic. The EMCTV team is stacked with great talent and it was great to join them for this adventure.

So what did I do to prep for the demo? I ran through the basic components of the demo on my own 4 or 5 times that week to make sure I had the main points covered. Scott and I did a run through in the social media lounge at one point earlier in the week. I picked up the liquid props the night before and smuggled them onto the set. I had a session to support and customer meetings all day that required a more serious wardrobe than what I wore for the demo. The meetings were about leveraging the power of the portfolio to enable specific customers to achieve business results. I wrapped those up and hopped a cab to pick up the wings. Getting back proved to be a challenge due to an accident on the strip. I got back, hit the room to change and sprinted down to the set for hair and makeup. Once that was all set, it was a matter of getting the props ready and adjusting the demo in my head to include more than one other person. All of the hard work was done by the EMCTV team, and they really made this demo look and sound awesome!

A special thanks to Matt Dunfee @dunfee16 for letting us invade the Geek Pit for this demo and an SRDF Metro Demo earlier in the week. (Posting soon!) it was a great time sharing our technology with our customers and partners in such a fun atmosphere!