Lukas Botha

All, This is a message that I don't write lightly and with a ton of emotion. In 2023, it was a very tough year professionally for me. Despite many things, I wrote 43 blog articles all focused on #EUC and #neurodiversity. I also ran my own VMUG SIG for the Digital Workspace, spoke multiple times on neurodiversity, and VMware products. I even paid on my own dime to bring those discussions to Europe. Today, people like myself and the amazing @_POPPELGAARD I'm sure many others were rejected to be part of the new VMware EUC community despite the fact that I am widely known as the top evangelist for @WorkspaceONE, a Microsoft MVP, Top 100 @VMware Influencer, etc. People of Thomas' stature shouldn't be rejected via a canned response, nor do we deserve to be character assassinated on the way out the door (passive aggressive or otherwise). As someone who has written 220+ articles on AirWatch/Workspace ONE, mentored dozens, and given everything to VMware, I am at a loss. I'm incredibly self-aware and an acquired taste, but that is who I am as a neurodiverse and complicated individual. For those of us who have #ADHD or #Autism we deserve more understanding, love, and compassion. For all the complexity in neurodiversity, we are people who are not malicious. We're easily misunderstood, and almost always have good intentions. Without going too deeply into it, I learned a ton about how big tech views, treats, and behaves around other #neurodiverse people. We are treated very poorly at their events, they do not make things more #accessible for us, do not protect us, and it made me decide last month to no longer attend some tech conferences. I will talk more about that in the next month or so. Today's situation reminds me much of high school where loyalty constantly comes into question and people are made to feel less than, are excluded, and inferior. All I can say in closing is, always do what is right for you. Be good to yourself and be a good human. We must always remember the loyalty we show to others isn't necessarily going to be repaid in the end. P.S. I want to thank all of the amazing people who have left @VMware and made my life better just by being around them and helping me to become who I am today as a technologist. Most of all, I want to thank my dear friend @vhojan who I credit most to making me want to elevate myself and be even 50% as well-rounded of a person and technologist as he is. --Mobile Jon @StephenWagner7 @SaasyEngineer @gstrouth @josh_odgers @TheBrianGraf @askaresh @mattheldstab