Application for: Carlos Rodriguez
I began working with Sitecore by working for Sitecore about 5 years ago. I worked as a Sitecore trainer delivering training covering a wide range of topics for Sitecore customers for two years, particularly development, marketing, administration and tools usage. Through that period of time I have developed relationships with developers, marketers and other Sitecore customers through out the country which is great. Many of them moved on to become MVPs and it is always great to greet them at symposiums or other Sitecore events. For the past two to three years I have worked as a Sitecore Engineer. During that time, I have participated in a couple of SUG meetings, in Atlanta when I am able to visit the Atlanta office while working for Arke. I am still working on participating in the Florida SUG team who is trying to make a comeback. Have expressed interest in presenting at the local SUG level so I plan to continue to work with local SUGs to make that happen both in FL and GA. I have presented at the symposium previously when I worked for Sitecore giving me another opportunity to meet more Sitecore community individuals. I am looking to do so again in the future. I have applied for a couple already, my goal for next year is to make it a reality because I do enjoy sharing what I know with others. During the time I have been involved with Sitecore development, I have had the opportunity to network with many of the architects on the front line and continue to have a relationship with which is maintained through Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack and Twitter. I have taken to writing many blogs in that three year period, roughly 50 blogs in all, covering day to day challenges and tasks I have learned as I worked as a Sitecore developer and advocate. I have then used Twitter to publish out my blogs to the entire Sitecore community and to promote others. I am actually humbled by the number of people who read my blogs and have enjoyed them. In addition, I have created a number of videos, particularly focused on analytical topics like personalization and A/B testing to help spread the benefits of those notions to the Sitecore community. I am going to continue to work on creating scenarios where I can present Sitecore topics in public, whether it be at a local SUG, or maybe an international one. I certainly want to make my next goal to create a presentation worthy of presenting at a symposium level. In the meantime, I enjoy having informal discussions with the Sitecore community whenever the possibility arises. Particularly as a person with a training background, I see the benefit of being active in the Sitecore community and sharing what I learn as I continue to grow in my knowledge of Sitecore. I am happy to say that my readership on my blog site is on course to be over double what I had last year in both visitors and visits from previous year. I have also worked with Sitecore employees directly to assist in content development to help get the word out about what is new with the Sitecore platform and to support the training organization with the blogs I write. I continue to record videos to highlight topics like personalization.