I won’t lie to you: when you’ve had a taste of gold, bronze has a peculiar flavor. Last year, I had the immense pride of finishing first in the “Top Bloggers” ranking of the Nutanix Technology Champion (NTC) program.

This year, the verdict is in on the official community blog: I ranked 3rd.

Did I slow down? No. Did I share less? On the contrary. But in tech, just like in sports, staying at the top is often harder than getting there. This 3rd place is, above all, a signal that the competition has intensified. And honestly? It’s exactly what I needed to motivate me to get back in the fight for 2026.

The NTC Program is Not Just a Badge

For those new to the ecosystem, being a Nutanix Technology Champion (NTC) isn’t just about slapping a logo on your LinkedIn profile. It is a commitment. It means being part of a technical vanguard that tests, breaks, fixes, and—above all—documents Nutanix solutions. The “Top Blogger” ranking is the barometer of this activity.

1st in 2024, 3rd in 2025: Analyzing the Logs

So, what happened? I pulled my logs to compare. If my performance had dropped, I would have accepted this 3rd place with a shrug. But the data shows otherwise: my publication volume is equivalent to last year’s. Even better, my strategy was cleaner: instead of doing “bursts” (flurries of articles), I maintained a metronomic consistency, spread evenly over the 12 months.

The conclusion is simple and undeniable: the overall bar has been raised. My peers were absolute beasts this year. They produced more. This is excellent news for the Nutanix community: the ecosystem is alive, dense, and increasingly sharp. But for the competitor in me, it’s a wake-up call. Consistency is no longer enough; just like in cycling, I’m going to have to up the intensity.

Why Publish?

Beyond the rankings and the competition, why continue writing with such discipline? The answer is pragmatic. My blog is primarily my external memory. In our line of work, we don’t remember everything. We test, we configure, we hit a critical error, we resolve it… and six months later, we’ve forgotten how we did it. Blogging is about documenting my own “struggles” so I never have to look for the solution twice. It’s about transforming obscure troubleshooting into a clear tutorial. But make no mistake: every article is born from a real technical need, from a real infra that I built or fixed. No fluffy theory, just experience from the field. The icing on the cake: the feedback from our clients who stumble upon my blog and tell me, “We found a solution on your site.” That is the real reward.

Conclusion: See You at the Finish Line

Bravo to the two peers who finished ahead of me this year. You set the bar very high, and that is exactly what I like. The level of the NTC program is what makes it credible. But the message has been received. The consistency of 2025 was a good foundation, but for 2026, I’m shifting gears. I’m going to chase more specific topics, dig deeper into the guts of Nutanix AOS and AHV, and perhaps explore use cases that no one has documented yet.

The bronze medal is nice. But it will serve primarily as a reminder on my desk: next year, I’m aiming for the yellow jersey.

See you soon for the next technical article.