Question for readers: ZCM Edu-based Peer Group…?

The Back-Story

I guess I’ve been mentioning Zenworks Configuration Management (ZCM)  — and ZENworks in general — more often in this blog lately than I used to, but in reality I have been writing posts about the product(s) almost since I started this blog.

Interestingly though, in the last month or so, I’ve received a small handful of highly specific (and somewhat private) ZCM design/config help requests from readers;  all of which are from an Acedemic setting.

Also along those lines, most of my professional consulting experience with ZCM has also been in Academia (though also in finance, government, and health).  A few times, customers have asked me about how things are done at other colleges or other schools, so they can get a sense if they are doing things “right”, or at least along the line of a “common practice”, if not exactly “best practice”.

Recently, one particular customer at an Ohio college asked me pointedly, “…We are looking to collaborate with other Colleges that have developed and deployed ZCM in their environments…” and went on to ask if I knew of such a working group or references.

The truth is, I *don’t* know of such a peer-level knowledge-sharing group for ZCM;  well, nothing formalized, anyway.  But it sounded like such a great idea, I volunteered to ask about it here, and see what responses we get.  Of course we all know about the Novell Cool Blogs/Solutions/etc., but that is not quite the level of education-specific interaction that is meant here.

And one of my problems is that I cannot really reveal my customers to each other in such a manner without potentially causing trust issues.  Nor can I necessarily be an un-biased participant in such an effort, since after all, I *am* a consultant in that space…

To The Point

So I toss out the question to my readers:  Do you know of, or participate in, an Education/Academia-based ZCM peer working group?

Feel free to respond privately to me (a few ways are listed on the contact page), or post a comment below semi-anonymously, etc., etc.  Heck, a good handful of the regular readers of this blog actually *are* my customers already, so you already know how to contact me in various direct ways.

Any private answers I get that I am permitted to share will be re-posted here.  Of course, I will honor confidentiality requests, and if required, I will only pass along information to private participants.  I’m good like that.

Thanks in advance!!

🙂

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