Today John Troyer (@jtroyer) – Social Media Chief and Community Evangelist @VMware opened the gates for a new round of vExpert Nominations. To apply you need to nominate yourself and describe all the hard work you have put into the VMware community last year. This itself is not that easy to do… try to remember what you  did last year…

The past couple of years we have seen the number of vExperts increase from 252 back in 2009, 326 in 2011, 434 in 2012 to 531 in 2013

vExperts who participate in the program have access to private betas, free licenses, early access briefings, exclusive events, free access to VMworld conference materials online, and other opportunities to interact with VMware product teams. They also get access to a private community and networking opportunities.

As with last year, there are three paths to being designated a vExpert. Each path takes into account the accomplishments and activities over the last year.

Evangelist Path

The Evangelist Path includes book authors, bloggers, tool builders, public speakers, VMTN contributors, and other IT professionals who share their knowledge and passion with others with the leverage of a personal public platform to reach many people. Employees of VMware can also apply via the Evangelist path. A VMware employee reference is recommended if your activities weren’t all in public or were in a language other than English.

Customer Path

The Customer Path is for leaders from VMware customer organizations. They have been internal champions in their organizations, or worked with VMware to build success stories, act as customer references, given public interviews, spoken at conferences, or were VMUG leaders. A VMware employee reference is recommended if your activities weren’t all in public.

VPN (VMware Partner Network) Path

The VPN Path is for employees of our partner companies who lead with passion and by example, who are committed to continuous learning through accreditations and certifications and to making their technical knowledge and expertise available to many. This can take shape of event participation, video, IP generation, as well as public speaking engagements. A VMware employee reference is required for VPN Path candidates.

Information on vExpert 2014: http://bit.ly/MtDKff

Current 2013 vExperts use the 2014 vExpert Fast Track application at http://bit.ly/1ikZ8hi

2014 vExpert application: http://bit.ly/LMJqB5

Recommend someone apply to become a 2014 vExpert: http://bit.ly/1bobFfF