12 Apr 2008 01:09 AM EDT


Find and meet up with other Citrix Technology Professionals like yourself who are interested in personal collaboration, creating a Citrix Community, or hosting a Citrix User Group.

MeetUp is a site dedicated to getting people to meet. How does it work? You have an interest, Citrix, find a local group, and meet up with people who share in your interest of Citrix. You can either start a meet up or you can find people who have started a meet up in your area or the world if you wish.

You can also go to http://citrix.meetup.com to Find Citrix Users and Citrix MeetUps near you...





Here is a map showing meet up possibilities for Citrix

Here is a list of areas to choose meet up possibilities from by City for Citrix

Here is a user in Bedford, MA, USA who is looking for a Citrix MeetUp

I would love for everyone to be able to attend Citrix Synergy, Citrix Geek Speak, and Citrix BarCamp, but I also know that this is not always possible for many reasons. If you are one who cannot attend, don't think that because you can't go that you can't be a part of it all. It is you and the many other great Citrix Technology Professionals who make this industry the greatest one to be a part of. You can now find other Citrix Technology Professionals wishing to MeetUp and start your own TechTalk, GeekSpeak, or BarCamp in which you and your peers can pick the topics and agenda, and who knows maybe we can grow the Citrix Community in many new directions we never thought possible.

Here is a list of links to some upcoming Citrix Community Events:

Citrix Synergy
Geek Speak at Citrix Synergy
BarCamp at Geek Speak

Here is a list of Citrix Community sites:

Citrix Community
Citrix Community Blogs
Citrix Community Forums
Citrix Developer Forums Citrix Support Forums
Frameworkx Community Blogs




Permalink | Comments (9) |

Comments  (Hide Comments)

Now you've consused me big time. So everyone is a CTP?

I don't belive that's the case, so your title is very confusing to me, it seems like you didn't notice the importance of the CTP Award and its members.

Posted by Anonymous at Apr 12, 2008 08:30 | Reply To This

Well yes, they are.

There is a wide range of people who use Citrix Products and Technologies. We have end users, administrators, engineers, architects, solutionists, and technologists. They are all working in a career, either directly related to Citrix, or Citrix is a solution that enables their career or industry. When these types of people take on an active role in talking about technology and Citrix, which is exactly what they are doing with the MeetUps.

Are the thousands and thousands of people out there who take part in forums, user groups, beta programs, and other feedback mechanisms not Professionals?

If these people who are either experienced professionals or active members of the community are not Citrix Technology Professionals,  then what are they just users?

The title I chose actually emphasizes the role of the Citrix Technology Professional

This quote below is taken right from the Citrix Technology Professional Program website

"The Citrix Technology Professional (CTP) program recognizes and supports the contributions of highly visible, credible and accessible individuals that have invested a tremendous amount of time, resources and expertise in Citrix products and solutions. These individuals have consistently demonstrated their real-world knowledge, industry expertise and technological insights."

I think award programs are valuable for the recognition of members in the community, but to say that someone who is not awarded the "title" Citrix Technology Professional is not one is more damaging to the Citrix Community and the industry.

Microsoft also has an award program, the Microsoft MVP program for being recognized as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional; they call it that for good reason. Because there are millions of Microsoft Professionals and Microsoft Technology Professionals out there, the term or title of Technology Professional is not the award, it is recognized as Valued, because they are not the only Professionals who have the right to call themselves Professionals.

I have the highest level of respect and admiration for Technology Professionals, whether they ae recognized by Citrix or not. I am actually trying to point out that we need to give the Citrix title of recognition a title that recognizes them for who they are and what they have accomplished, but we can not also just step on every other Professional out there, and deny them the right to call themselves Citrix Technology Professionals.

Do you have any thoughts and objective feedback that will help the Citrix Award Recognition Program?

Posted by Rich Crusco at Apr 12, 2008 10:58Updated by Rich Crusco | Reply To This

This looks like a great service , but i agree the post title is confusing with the few CTP's.

Why not just refer to the community for meetups as " Citrix Pro's "

Posted by Anonymous at Apr 12, 2008 17:46 | Reply To This

I tend to agreee. the service looks great but the title is confusing with those actually awarded by Citrix. Citrix Pro's looks more preferable.

Posted by Anonymous at Apr 12, 2008 19:11 | Reply To This

This is just the title of an article its not the name of a service,

Posted by Rich Crusco at Apr 12, 2008 19:30 | Reply To This

This service looks great. I agree with you Rich. Citrix should come up with a new name for the award. Dont they know that CTP stands for Community Techincal Preview.

Posted by Anonymous at Apr 12, 2008 19:25 | Reply To This

right on! power to the professionals =P

i have always hated that they named the award citrix technology professional

why, because i am a technologist who is also a citrix technology professional and a microsoft professional

it bothers me that citrix didnt think of us when they named that award the way they did two years ago

it made me feel like i couldnt call my self a citrix technology professional anymore as i might offend the ctp's

citrix you really should think of a new name for the currrent award!

Posted by Anonymous at Apr 12, 2008 21:51 | Reply To This

The name CTP sucks! CTP can stand for tons of different things! Citrix MVP would be more interesting or correct.

Posted by Anonymous at Apr 13, 2008 07:51 | Reply To This

Entering this discussion is probably just asking for trouble but I'm here just the same.

CTP seems to be wavering lately due to certain members leaving.  It also seems to be suffering from a lack of feedback into the Citrix organization.  It is far easier to get the message through from blogging than from the CTP program.  Perhaps this is not true.  I would love to see a non-anonymous statement about this.

Regardless, CTP is an acronym that apparently can be mistaken for lots of other things.  Citrix Technology Professional is a fairly generic term.  It would be better to accept something like MVP or VIP or such which everyone understands.  Citrix tries so hard to be unique in naming that sometimes it goes a bit overboard. 

Having a monopoly on the term "Citrix Technology Professional" seems a bit heavy handed.  Like I said, it is actually fairly generic in nature.  It does not imply any level of specialness.

Based on recent examples of Rick Mack leaving CTP, it is clear that many things could change to improve the standing of this select group of people.  I would guess that this fledging operation was not prepared to fully embrace the the partnership as strongly as other established programs like Microsoft.

Regardless, this debate about titles and honors is largely rubbish.

A name is a name is a name.  It only has value if someone else respects it.  Whereas CTP does have value as a name, I suspect that it does not have as much as it should.

Instead of fighting for the value of this name, it would be far better to stop arguing over this title and determine what is being fought over.  Obviously if this one issue can stir such sentiment, then something more fundamental is wrong.  In this case, it is a sensed devaluing of the name that drives such ire.

You can guess that a Microsoft MVP would not be so sensitive about informal use of MVP.  Perhaps not.  Anyways, my point is that insecurity tends to lead to stronger reactions.  If you don't feel your title is secure, you are more likely to defend it.  If you are secure, you probably don't care what your titles are.

So what does this all mean?

Well, move on.  Don't be threatened by such a simple blog post.  Reactions like this are quite telling.

I would say that CTP is threatened and the participants that still want it are a bit worried.  I'm not saying this from a Citrix perspective but rather from a more intuitive feel.

If you go back and reread the post (which I'm sure is much shorter than this long winded response) and do not think about CTP at all, you will see that what is being proposed is a very good idea and would help to bring Citrix professionals together across the world.  There is no harm in that at all.  In fact it is a damn good thing to have happen.

Posted by Jeffrey D Muir at Apr 13, 2008 09:11 | Reply To This