by Sacha Thomet, CTP, Swiss CUGC Leader, Steering Committee Member

My first Citrix Synergy as a CTP is over. It was a very busy time, because I was involved in multiple programs. First, it started with the CTP meetings, two days packed full of information from Citrix about current and future products and their features. More or less, all information was under NDA because it was not yet announced.

We had the chance to give Citrix “first-look” feedback from those of us Citrix experts already dealing daily with Citrix products in real-world situations. For me personally, it was not so easy because I’m not a native English speaker and I always took a little bit longer to translate the information, but the profit from the experience is still enormous.

The CTP meeting was very tough, with long, but well organized days, and after each evening I was very tired but happy. I now know what really happens inside of the CTP program and I like the way that Citrix is listening to the community.

Of course I did attend the Keynote and some breakout sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday, I was in the Geek Speak Tonight SYN501 session which contained two parts: the GeekOvation Award and the Geek Out game show with Brian Madden. The three finalists for GeekOvation, Jan Tytgat together with Roel Schreibers, Warren Simondson and Mads Petersen presented their solution. Mads had the most votes from the crowd and the CTP GeekJudges and won. I had the honor of handing over the Geek crown I won last year.

On Thursday I had no chance to attend any sessions because I was in three Citrix community meetings. As I am new in the Citrix User Group Steering Committee, I attended the morning Steering Committee meeting, where we reviewed the previous year of CUGC’s community growth and what’s ahead for the future. Until now, I just was a local leader of myCUGC in Switzerland and I’m happy to now represent Europe in the Steering Committee. After a very short lunch break, I ran into the CUGC Local Leader Panel where current and future local leaders attended. It was very helpful to hear how other leaders organize their local communities and I’m sure that anyone in the room profited from the discussions.

Next, was the first-ever CTA in-person meeting–EPIC!
CTA stands for Citrix Technology Advocates and is a recognition program for Community Contributors. I have helped to develop this program over some months but I was not allowed to speak about it because it was also a NDA thing that was just announced at Citrix Synergy.

(More about the CTA program in this official Citrix blog post: https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/05/23/expanding-recognition-for-community-contributors-citrix-technology-advocates/ )

First-ever CTA in-person meeting–EPIC!

On Thursday, Citrix Synergy ended with the Final Night party where Fall Out Boy rocked the stage. Great sound, but I was a little bit disappointed that all the food trucks were overloaded and it was not easy to grab food in short time.

Compared to Citrix Synergy of last year, I attended fewer breakout sessions but was able to do much more networking with other geeks. Of course, this is partially an outcome of my activities in the CTP and CTA programs and also the Citrix User Group Community, where I have now a local and a global role. But I’m very happy and I have no regrets.