Yesterday I attended an internal training course on social networking. The class was targeted toward the 100 level, but like most classes had at least 1 new thing for everyone to take away. The big takeaway for me was that I must disclose that I am employed by CDW when participating in social networks.

The requirement to disclose seemed odd to me at first but as it was explained, even if I believe I am an unbiased member of the community it will never appear so. If I were to say something negative about a competitor without disclosing that I work for CDW only to have it subsequently disclosed for me it would make both myself and my employer look bad. I imagine such a scenario would end with me being invited to continue my career with another employer.

Hopefully this post also answers a lot of questions about some of the crazy hardware I am able to run. The building I work in is attached to a 1/2 million square foot warehouse of all the latest and greatest IT products. More than once I have asked a system engineer to “go out to the warehouse and drag in the biggest one they can find” when spec’ing a server. Yes, I smile a lot.