Riverbed community growing fast

My evangelist role at Riverbed could not be more fulfilling. Moving out of product management, I was excited at the opportunity to be Riverbed's go-to customer advocate, reaching out to users around the globe to assist them with their technical needs, provide best practices for using their Riverbed products, or simply field feature requests ensuring that their voice is heard when it comes to determining what products and capabilities we decide to build. Being an evangelist isn't as easy as it seems.

People seem to think that all I do is fly around the world and speak to people about Riverbed. While this is 50% of what I do, the other 50% is spent on putting together and supporting programs that will allow our community to come together as customers, prospects, and anyone following our company and market. I would like to share some of these community outlets.

Riverbed-sponsored online user community
www.wdsforum.org
The WDS Forum is a public-facing discussion forum covering the wide area data services market. While most of the users are Riverbed customers, anyone is welcome to join in on discussions. Registration is required if you want to post, but casual viewing of discussions requires no login. We launched the WDS Forum 18 months ago and there are just under 2000 registered users. Discussions range from sharing application performance results for a particular application to trying to get tips on deploying in an MPLS network with QoS.

Regional User Groups
We launched our Riverbed User Group (RVUG) program earlier this year and it has been a tremendous success with events in Silicon Valley, Toronto, London, Calabasas, Irvine, Orlando, Atlanta, and other various locations. The user group meetings provide a win-win situation for both Riverbed and our customers. For Riverbed, we get product feedback from our user community and in turn, or user community get access to top-notch technical content. The best value for the users is when they share best practices with other Riverbed users. These meetings typically have between 15 to 25 users and are hosted by a customer. Riverbed provides catering and tech support. If you are interested in hosting an RVUG event, please contact me at bgilbert@riverbed.com.

Social Media Venues
Very recently, Riverbed has been active in the world of social media. In addition to this blog, we have a Fan page on Facebook and a Riverbed Technology group on LinkedIn. These venues provide an informal way to discuss topics with fellow Riverbed community members. Visit anytime!