Wednesday, February 22, 2012

4 years of Community Collaboration

Sometimes things happen for a reason and they do so un expectedly . It was the same for me almost 4 years ago on this day when I found a community portal without a proper  reason in my mind. How things have turned up ever since have had quite a bit of impact on me from a technological perspective. I was just one  of the thousands of graduate students who would go to the college to pursue my studies and come back home to tinker with the favorite pass time of mine - To tinker with a desktop PC I've got.

[caption id="attachment_1285" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Old recovery media and Linux cd's dating back to 2002"][/caption]

This tinkering was not always done in the right way and sometimes, I would screw up a lot of things in the process.I had to be very careful when experimenting on new things since I shared the PC with my twin brother. This lead me to do these experiments in the night times mostly from Midnight to wee hours in the morning. Initially It was my sister's Compaq pc which was my test bed and then later on a Lenovo desktop.Among other things,I was introduced to the world of Unix in my college and it was sort of enigmatic experience for me. I wanted to learn everything about the open source stuff  out there and I would patiently wait for a popular magazine to release a cd with the latest Linux distro.One these  experiments on my newer desktops in 2008  led me to the Lenovo community portal.

[caption id="attachment_1292" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Knowledge base for the broader set of audience"][/caption]

As with anyone who were searching for answers,I was a ranting customer.I was a bit frustrated about somethings which were not to be found in my PC when compared to other models from the same company.As time progressed, I was drawn to the place as it seemed to be a hub of knowledge sharing.By that time I used to help out people on other social sites with their PC issues.But this portal seemed to be more intriguing.I never knew that companies maintained their own portal or community hubs to interact and collaborate with their customers till that time.I couldn't think of any other place where there were people from many backgrounds and countries who would come together with the same zeal and passion to help out their fellow customers.

[caption id="attachment_1295" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="I learned about  ThinkPad ecosystem  at the Lenovo forums "][/caption]

Till date,I am just amazed by the sheer diversity of the people with whom I interact during times.They include Philosophers,Industry leading Malware experts and people who are dexterous with everything related to creative and graphics. Sometimes I really think that - had I not tinkered with the system I've got,I wouldn't have found such a platform to find interact with like-minded people as I. Initially I supposed it to be Stockholm syndrome .But now it is no longer the case.

4 comments:

  1. And we love having you here, Vijay. :)

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  2. Heheh Yea those initial days were filled with curiosity ;-D

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  3. Hey, somehow I missed this earlier! As Serene says, we really appreciate you Vijay and your story of rant to raves sounds like that of some of our best members. Thanks for all your pioneering!

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  4. ha ha I don't know whom to thank - Should it be that University professor who insisted that take a lenovo when I actually had IBM think center in my mind,or my mom who immediately brought me the desktop without any second thought or Google which led me to the forums! Strange events happening at random but certainly everything seems to have a purpose ;)

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