Just over a month ago I accepted Etherealmind’s “30 Blogs in 30 Days Challenge”, and this Friday I ‘m pleased to say that I completed the challenge without missing a day. It seems appropriate then that I should use today’s Secret Sunday to give a shout out to the man behind the mission, Greg Ferro (aka Etherealmind).
In some ways it feels like cheating to include Greg because he’s unlikely to be a new discovery for anybody reading my blog, but credit is due where it’s due; you can’t argue that Greg does not give back to the networking community. His Etherealmind website has a huge following and a wealth of content written over a number of years. He’s a co-host of the PacketPushers podcasts, generating hundreds of podcasts dedicated to the networking industry. He has written three books that he has published on LeanPub and has a fourth on the way, co-authored with the venerable Brent Salisbury.
Greg is never short of an opinion, and I suspect that one of the reasons for his large following is that he isn’t afraid to go out there and let you know what he thinks, even if “you” are a vendor, and what he thinks is that “your product sucks”. He has helped many others get their own start, and shares his experience and gives advice to help others advance their goals with a selfless attitude. I don’t want to make him sound holier than thou, but so often people who are succeeding don’t want to share the love with others; Greg on the contrary seems willing to share his platform with you, or at the very least to help you build your own platform of an equal height.
That kind of honesty and mentoring is endearing, and when you mix in his wit and his willingness to engage, you get a very powerful mix of authorship and social skills that has propelled Greg to be one of the best known networking ‘personalities’ out there. He also, occasionally, throws out an insane challenge. Right? Anyway Greg – cheers mate, for all you do for the networkers out there.
Follow Greg on Twittter as @etherealmind, at his technical blog (Etherealmind), at PacketPushers and on his personal blog at gregferro.com.
Well done on completing the challenge.
What ever happened to Greg’s book on open flow? I’ve not heard him mention it in a while.
Thanks, Richie! I must do a “lessons learned” post shortly 🙂 Meanwhile I’ll reward myself with a day off or something.
Perhaps Greg can give us the latest status on the OpenFlow book; it’s still mentioned as being in progress at http://etherealmind.com/books/ but I also know that Brent Salisbury has been a tiny bit busy recently, so who knows… Greg?
First, big thanks for being so nice about me. I’m not sure I’m worthy of all the things you say about me but I will try to live up to them.
I put the OpenFlow book on hold during summer because of travel and work. Packet Pushers gets busier and my day jobs has been unrelenting lately. I plan to revive the book writing during winter when things are slower and more peaceful (except we may be moving house and maybe it won’t be this winter…..)
Thanks again.
greg