As I wrote in a post after VMworld last year, it is the army of VCPs and VMUG volunteers around the globe that are helping to drive the adoption of virtualization technologies. Joe Onisick, the first recipient of Wikibon’s PosDev award, nominated the second winner: Christopher Wells. Christopher Wells’ Twitter handle is @WYGTYA, which comes from his father telling him ”Wherever you go, there you are”, is especially fitting for an American from NY that is helping to spread knowledge of virtualization in Japan. Asia is one of the largest opportunities for the growth of virtualization, but there are cultural challenges that make it different from other areas.

Christopher started using VMware products in 2002 when he was a systems administrator in Arizona. When he moved to Japan in 2004, he introduced VMware technology to his company. Last year (after the encouragement of some friends) he started his blog vSamurai, which is focused on virtualization and includes content in both English and Japanese. Christopher shares his own insight on virtualization theory and has translated (with permission) content into Japanese from some of the top virtualization bloggers, including Duncan Epping, Frank Dennemen, Jason Boche, and Scott Drummonds. He is also leading the official Tokyo VMUG. Most VMUGs have a significant amount of social media users who can help spread the word and often volunteer to help with logistics. These users are not prevalent in Japan, where the culture is geared towards teams; social tools such as blogging and Twitter highlight the name and face of the individual. Christopher believes that the collaborative nature of Japanese teams will work well with virtualization once companies get past the initial hurdle of learning to trust a virtual environment rather than a physical one.

It is a core piece of Wikibon’s goal to promote the free sharing of information and support those in the community that are willing to put their own time and effort into the advancement of this goal. Christopher has chosen the book, The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World’s Toughest Problems by Richard Pascale, as his award for being a PosDev recipient. On behalf of the Wikibon community, I want to thank Christopher for his contributions to spreading knowledge and look forward to the global insights that he will continue to share.

[Cross-posted at Wikibon Blog]