Cisco Live 2019: Now Cisco Livelier!
I spent a week at Cisco Live US recently, or, as Denise Fishburne calls it, the “Summer Camp for Geeks”. It’s amazing to see how much can change in one year.
One year ago, I was an Network Consulting Engineer with Cisco’s Advanced Services team (now renamed to CX, or Customer Experience). I had just recently passed my CCIE Route/Switch exam, and was on a well-deserved family vacation when Katherine McNamara let me know that the RouterGods crew had put together a GoFundMe page to help me get to CLUS in Orlando. I won’t rehash that experience, it was absolutely amazing (and I discuss it in previous posts).
So what changed in a year?
Well, for one, I changed jobs within Cisco. I now work for the Demonstrations team (dCloud/CPOC) with a focus on EN technologies, especially SD-WAN. I also was given the opportunity to present the Introduction to IP Multicast breakout at CLUS 2019, which made this particular Cisco Live very special.
I also got to reconnect with a ton of old friends…
As well as make some new ones.
This Cisco Live was certainly different than last year’s. This time I came not as Explorer, but as a Speaker. I spent a fair bit of time helping customers talk about SD-WAN in their own environments, and I partied far less.
I did get addicted to those little electric scooters though.
I never thought I’d be zooming around on one of these deathtraps but they are surprisingly fun and addictive.
I also got a chance to hang out with a lot of my fellow RouterGods, though not nearly as much as I would have liked. I was supposed to fly out to San Diego on Saturday, but due to issues with Delta closing ATL over and over, I didn’t make it until Sunday and missed the chance to party.
On Sunday I did get a chance to eat some delicious ramen though, at Tajima Ramen East Village
Their spicy ramen was delicious, and I introduced some new people to what real ramen is like!
Introduction to IP Multicast (BRKIPM-1261)
This year I was given the opportunity to present a technical breakout at Cisco Live! I spent a long time preparing ahead of the convention, and it paid off. I wasn’t very nervous presenting, although I did go a bit fast. If you’d like to view the presentation and/or download the presentation PDF, click here.
When this breakout was delivered, and the attendees clapped, I felt an immense amount of relief. I also got pretty good scores, which was a nice surprise . It was an honor to present at Cisco Live and I hope to be able to do it again in the future.
The CCIE Party
In the same vein that Fish calls Cisco Live the Summer Camp for geeks, I like to call the CCIE Party “Nerd Prom”, because CCIEs can bring a +1. This year it was at the San Diego Air and Space Museum and was Top Gun themed. The CCIE Program was originally called Top Gun, and this was the 30th anniversary. It was a lot of fun! I got to see some people I had otherwise missed, eat some really good food, drink and socialize for a few short hours.
The Customer Appreciation Event
On Wednesday, my entire day was taken up by Meet the Expert meetings. If you’re unfamiliar with what these are, this is a chance for Cisco customers to request one on one meetings with Cisco experts to discuss some challenge, problem or design in their own network. They are 45 minutes in length. On the speaker side, we simply flag what technologies we consider ourselves expert enough in to have this conversation, and customers choose the engineer based on technology and availability.
Every one of the eight I did were SD-WAN, and I’m pleased to say every customer left happy.
When it was about 5:30PM, I asked a Cisco Live Ambassador if they were still handing out wristbands for the CAE, which was at the nearby stadium and would be a Foo Fighters/Weezer concert. He told me they stopped handing them out already, and so I scootered back to the hotel. I had a couple beers at the bar and then decided to go gdet some dinner, so I strated walking across the street, when who scootered up but the SVP of DevNet, Susie Wee!
I’m a huge DevNet fan, I know several of the people over in that organization and have even helped a little with it, and so I introduced myself. Susie is amazingly nice and personable, and we chatted for a few minutes about my position at Cisco and DevNet in general. Then I went to excuse myself, and she asked, “Aren’t you going to the CAE?” I explained my situation and then she reached into her bag and pulled out a wristband for me.
I was dumbstruck. It’s not every day an SVP you just met just does something so nice and all I could say was, “Are you sure?”
She was sure and I had to take a selfie with her before heading off to the concert.
The CAE was awesome. I ran into some friends from DevNet and partied with them the whole night through. Weezer did a really great set including covers of “Take on Me” by A-Ha! and of course “Africa” by Toto.
Foo Fighters played a really good set also, including a cover of “Under Pressure” by Freddie Mercury/David Bowie that had me full on losing my voice. It was a great time.
RouterGods Assemble!
Unfortunately because I missed all of Saturday due to the ATL Delta problems, I didn’t get to hang out with my crew that much. I met a few for breakfast on Sunday, I missed most of our dinner on Monday night, and it wasn’t until Thursday that I really got to spend some quality time. I met a lot of our newer members, and for many of them it was their first Cisco Live. I’m hopeful that next time I get more free time to hang out but I did get a few good photos.
Seriously looking forward to next year! Also, one of the Ambassadors loaned me some awesome fashion glasses. I need to get these!
