Hi, y’all - Chad here. Happy first week of May! If you didn’t know, this is National Gardening Week (in the UK, at least) and since I’ve been sitting here for forty minutes fishing for a decent analogy - like an old man with a cane pole in a rowboat with no oars - I’m using it so you can help me nurture and grow the below posts! Whew…long way to go just to say:
Last month, we had more great contests, some great conversations, and even some fun. Check out the wrap-up below, and as always, tag/link any posts you think we missed/should’ve shared/want to mention.
Some Top-Performing Posts by Brand Reps
These are some* posts from brand reps with the most engagement/best stats. Doesn’t matter the topic or category, this is just good-old-fashioned communication. In no particular order, here are some of their most-engaged-with posts:
Contests
In contests last month, @bill-malwarebytes gave the community a shot at what it truly craves: SWAG! By grabbing their 2023 State of Malware Report , community members are able to land a pretty sweet little prize, which I refuse to spoil here. Go see for yourself!
@tamara-for-goto dropped another philosophical gauntlet in our laps: “ What would you do with an extra $100? ” For what it’s worth, I didn’t comment because my sentiments were already shared by @Felix Felix Felix and @The-IT-Guru in their replies. #GEARRRRR
^^^ This contest is still going on by the way! You have until May 18th to participate to potentially win $100 Amazon Gift Card - Huzzah!
Data Centers/Music
In what I assume is probably the only combination of those two topics/forums this year, @mikedecamp managed to get a ton of engagement with a fun concept: Songs for a data center playlist . I certainly dropped my favorite tune in the comments; you should do the same!
General IT Security
As a longtime remote worker and a former “network security expert”, I liked the question asked by @juwan-for-hp : “ How does your organization keep work devices secure at home? ” I personally don’t have to use VPN anymore, but I think it’s a conversation that will likely continue on forever, starting three years ago.
General Hardware/Training & Development
Are you a cable guy? That’s just a bad joke to remind everyone of Jim Carrey’s best movie, and to segue into this question from @justin-for-legrand : “ How do you get training regarding cables? ” As a techie and a musician/producer, I personally could use a couple of semesters on cable management alone, but that’s a different topic.
The Voice of IT
One of my favorite convos last month happened courtesy of @supaplex-starwind , asking “ Is it OK to use AI-generated replies on Spiceworks Community? ” For the record, our Sr. Community Manager, Suzanne/”Z”, posted our official stance and got a Best Answer for her efforts!
Top How-To Guides
Another great How-To from @gopal-bdrsuite , this time focusing on AWS for Beginners: “ How to add a secondary IP to EC2 Instance using Elastic Network Interfaces (ENI): Part 16 ”. For all you folks who just jumped into (or were tossed into) the EC2 ecosystem, this is a really handy guide he’s put together for Amazon’s ENI.
@adom-aryson-technologies also dropped a handy how-to regarding Office365 and how to export emails from Roundcube to Gmail . Very handy and well-written!
In a post that absolutely sings the song of my much-maligned Apple-based IT people, @priyal-stellar-info-tech gave us a really good how-to for converting OLM to PST. Those two acronyms have haunted me for quite some time, and I’m ready to embrace your “feedback” about being an Apple guy in the IT world. 
And since we’re posting on a Friday…
Water Cooler
It’s no surprise that I’m a bit nerdy about tech. I feel like a few of you may just be like me. I absolutely love “dumb” tech. Spoofs, jokes, whatever they’re called - I’m a fan. I even once gave a family member a “USB toaster” for Christmas. She was politely confused, so SUCCESS! @tiffany-for-hpe decided to just ask for your “ Most absurd examples of modern tech ”, so go share!
@violetc-domotz may have asked my favorite question of the month, though: “ Best Networking/SysAdmin jokes ?” My favorite of all-time: “I would tell you a joke about UDP, but you probably wouldn’t get it.”
Let us know anything that we missed in the comments! Have you seen any awesome contributions from Brand Reps recently?
