As many of you know, I’m a recently certified CCIE.  As many of these things happen, it has take a while for my current employer to talk to me about what this means to them and to me moving forward.  I’ve heard many stories about CCIEs that have attained their lab only to find themselves out of a job quickly because their employer either doesn’t see the advantage of having a Cisco Expert on staff, or they feel that having a CCIE around will cost too much in the long run and they decide to part ways before the expenses grow too great.  In my case, I’m graced with an employer that wants to keep me around for the foreseeable future.  However, I’m now tasked with a different challenge.

After some conversations, I’ve been asked to come up with a way to sell myself.  No, not like that.  Or that.  Okay, maybe like that.  I’m supposed to find a way to put my skill set front and center and bring in new customers based on things that I can provide that no one else can.  This is a somewhat interesting proposition for me.  Despite what I might say or do around my Twitter friends, I’m usually a shy and reserved person.  I have a hard time being anything other than modest, and I don’t take compliments very well.  Now, I have to turn that on its head and find a way to put myself out there for all the world to see.

When I’m in a group of people, such as at Cisco Live, it’s easy for me to put on a fun act.  Tattoos nonwithstanding, I get to be funny and entertaining for my friends.  I feel comfortable calling attention to myself and generally being goofy.  However, in front of people that don’t know me very well, I find myself much more reserved.  The hardest job interview I’ve ever had involved the interviewer telling me, “Son, I don’t know anything about you.  If you don’t tell me more about yourself, you aren’t going to do very well.”  I tend to hang back and speak only when spoken to.  I don’t interrupt conversation, even when I see someone is wrong and needs to be corrected.  Many times, it’s easy for me to take this role as the silent partner because the people I’m meeting with do the majority of the discussing.

Now, however, I think I’m going to have to be more forward.  That doesn’t sit well with me.  I’ve tried my hand at sales-type activities before and found they weren’t for me.  I’m good at presenting information and answering questions.  I suck at closing people.  I don’t have the patience or desire to endlessly ask someone to buy something.  I tend to take the approach that I’ve presented you with all the information that you need to make up your mind.  It’s up to you to buy this widget or not.  I think I’m going to need to start finding ways to “close the deal”, even if only from the aspect that I have to convince the people I’m “selling” to that I’m capable of doing the job they want me to do.

This is just a little peak into what happens after you spend years of your life chasing something that identifies you as one of the best in your field.  It tends to change your standing in ways you couldn’t possibly understand when you start out on the path.  I’m going to be spending a lot of time in the immediate future figuring out exactly how I can sell myself more effectively than I have been.  And suggestions would be warmly appreciated.

A year and a half ago, social media was the furthest thing from my mind.  Twitter was for people that shared way too much information in way too few characters.  Facebook was a wasteland littered with Mafia Wars invites.  And Google+ wasn’t yet a gleam in the eye of some Mountain View programmers.  Flash forward to today and social media is a huge part of my day-to-day interaction with the world.  However, in order to keep my sanity when it comes to my online services, it might help to recognize how each of them are used and what their places really are.

Facebook for me is used as a place where my family and real life friends can read about things like my college football commentary and pictures of my kids and their pets.  Most of the people I went to high school with don’t know the true depths of my nerdity.  They would probably unfriend me just as fast if I start blabbering on about MPLS or LISP.  Facebook is where the boring details of my existence go for now.

Twitter is my geek outlet.  Until I signed up, I had to restrain my thoughts about networking and voice and virtualization. No one really wanted to hear about it on Facebook, and my wife’s eyes roll back in her head once I get on a good rant about EIGRP.  Once I realized that I could start expressing my repressed nerdy side, I realized that I had to be equally as cautious about what I put on Twitter.  Just as my nerd side really doesn’t fit in with Facebook, so too does my ‘normal’ side not really jive on Twitter.  I try to consciously avoid things like 4square checkins or useless contest invites cluttering my stream and the feeds of my followers.  I really attempt to avoid talking about things like sporting events or politics or any number of hot button subjects that can set people off without warning.  Those kinds of things can go into Facebook where only those that are interested can see them.

Google+, the latest invention in the Google Skunk Works, presents an altogether different proposition for social media interaction.  The idea that I can separate my social circles into different collections that don’t need to share information is very intriguing.  My family and real life friends can see a stream unpolluted with rants about Apple devices.  My nerd followers don’t need to be bothered by pictures of my terribly built attempts at woodworking.  People can be moved across different lines without much effort and no need to log in and out of five different clients to sync everything up.  It’s not without limitations, though.  Getting my mom and dad on Facebook took and act of Congress that I’d rather not repeat again.  Getting them to join Google+ may be a task of Herculean proportions.  Right now, Google+ is a social media service without much to the “social” part.  There aren’t enough people invited to expand circles much beyond tech people that “get” the idea behind Google+.  Right now, I have a lot of people in my Tech circle and hardly anyone in my other circles.  I’m sure time will win out as the service moves out of preview mode and opens up to a wider audience.  There’s a ton of potential in Google+ and I can’t wait to use it to offload some of my Twitter stream, Facebook status updates, and maybe even blogging topics.

Tom’s Take

I use social media to a large extent every day to gather information, learn about new things, and interact with a group of peers that I might not otherwise have been able to speak to.  At the same time, I realize the importance of compartmentalizing information.  My security background has taught me that much.  When it comes to deciding how to divide up those compartments, I think the Google+ model works rather well.  Using the symbolism of circles allows the users to visualize where their connections are placed in relation to each other.  At least it easily allows me to segregate everyone rather than mashing them all together in one big conflagration.  Because TweetPlusBook is a mouthful.

A story broke today that the rumor mill has Cisco is considering spinning off the Linksys brand and perhaps even Webex as well.  The majority of response that I’ve seen from my peers ranged from pleasure to downright cheering.  It seems that people have pinned a lot of the ills that have affected Cisco recently on Acquisition Fever.  The fingers are firmly pointed at Flip and Linksys, and with Flip going the way of the dodo last month, Linksys remains as the demon of Cisco’s lack of focus.

I happen to agree with people that say that Linksys has caused Cisco to lose it’s way.  The Linksys acquisition was the point of the spear in Cisco’s drive to launch itself down into the consumer market.  John Chambers has always said that if Cisco can’t move into a market and be the best, they’ll buy someone and make them the best.  So it was with Linksys.  By snapping up a major player in the consumer market, Cisco could bring its guns to bear on a large base of potential customers.  I think that Cisco felt they had the enterprise market wrapped up tight and that those customers would see the Cisco name on a router in their local big box retailer and, just like Pavlov, they’d rush right out and buy it.  Two years ago, I remember seeing a news piece stating that Chambers was even going to retire the Linksys name and instead put the vaunted Cisco badge on all their products.  That never came to pass, and I think that shows what truly is behind the problems with a large company like Cisco playing down to the consumer.

When I walk into my local retailer, I see lots of boxes on the shelves with names like D-Link, Netgear, and Linksys.  I even see a lot of rebranded generic devices built from the cheapest parts available and graced with names like Rocketfish or CompUSA.  These are the products that consumers look for when they go to Best Buy or OfficeMAX.  They buy whatever is on sale or whatever the guy in the solid colored shirt recommends.  There isn’t any brand loyalty at the bottom of the totem pole.  I bought a very cheap CompUSA wireless router once upon a time just so my laptop could connect from the living room.  It lasted me about a year.  Once it died, I didn’t dig out my support contract and get a replacement unit from San Jose.  I just went down to Walmart and bought a replacement.  I think it’s much the same for customers the world over.  Consumer technology is mostly disposable to them.  There’s not much mission-critical equipment in the average house, so when something dies, it’s usually easier to replace it with a new gadget than it is shipping it off and waiting to get the same one back.  Customers don’t want maintenance contracts and next-business day support.  It’s dog-eat-dog down at the bottom and every penny you can squeeze out of your product is a penny you can put in your piggy bank.  No R&D, no investment in the future.  Just cheap circuit boards and minimal packaging with crappy instructions.

When Cisco finally found this out sometime late last year, it only made sense that they needed to start moving away from the consumer market.  The first to go was the ümi, Cisco’s failed foray into consumer Telepresence.  The average consumer doesn’t want to spend $500 for a video conferencing unit only to have to turn around and pay $50/month to make it work.  Flip was next to go, as Cisco never truly found a way to integrate it into their business model.  Other companies started doing it cheaper and better than Flip, and when the headsman’s axe fell, there were no survivors.  Linksys being spun off would give Cisco some breathing room in the low end of the market.  This would be key, since HP and Juniper are starting to take big bites out of the enterprise space Cisco has been so dominant in for years.  They need to leave the unprofitable consumer space to make up ground in their core business, and they’ve said as much recently.

Webex is an interesting challenge.  Most people that use it love it.  It’s much better than Cisco’s own MeetingPlace offerings, so much so that Cisco dumped their licensing deal with Adobe and now uses Webex for everything from product launches to TAC support calls.  It would seem the Webex integrates very tightly into the collaboration offerings that Cisco is touting.  I’ve heard from some insiders though that the the Webex acquisition was a nightmare that never seemed to end.  Cisco touted the fact that it took them months to close the Scientific Atlanta purchase (one that still baffles me to this day) and closed on Webex in a matter of weeks.  However, I’ve been told that the Webex people never really integrated well with Cisco corporate.  There was a lot of infighting amongst the teams, and in fact several pipeline deals were being closed with nary a mention of Cisco.  It was almost as if the Webex people forgot who was purchasing whom, and the antagonism was palpable.  It wasn’t until a senior VP came into the Webex team and started canning the unruly people left and right that the message came across crystal clear – Webex is now a part of Cisco, not the other way around.

If the idea that Webex is still an autonomous unit under the Cisco umbrella is still pervasive among the Webex team, it might make sense for Cisco to spin off its problem child and just license the technology for its collaboration efforts going forward.  It almost seems that way today, with the Webex platforms being offered in a totally different manner from Cisco’s other product lines.  There have been some false starts in trying to leverage the cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) opportunites the Webex could offer, like Webex Mail.  I think Cisco isn’t for sure how to make Webex work outside of their web meeting product and rather than let that technology wither and die on the vine, it might be better to release it back into the wild and let it find it’s own way.

Tom’s Take

Cisco has already said that they are getting back to basics and concentrating on their core strategies.  They also said to expect some job cuts and the reduction of product lines.  People were shocked when Flip was shut down, but I think that’s the tip of the iceberg here.  Spinning Linksys into a separate company that can be more agile and focus in on the consumer and small business markets is an outstanding idea.  It gives the Linksys team the ability to stay competitive in their primary area of business without feeling the pressure from their corporate overlords to make money hand over fist.  At the same time, the rumor to spin off Webex is shocking to most, as the service is beloved by all of its users and no doubt will flourish in any form.  I think this is more of a culture clash between old-guard Cisco and the Webex team.  The only real way to sort this mess out is to let them go their separate ways and maybe one day they can hang out again as just friends.  Cost cutting and retrenching of your product lines is never a fun task, and it usually calls out the wolves ready to decry your fall from grace.  However, in the case of Cisco I think that spinning off these clunkers is just what the doctor ordered.

Innovation is key in our lives.  It allows us to go from adding on our fingers to having a calculator capable of solving quadratic equations.  It shows that we can graduate from playing checkers all the way up to tossing disaffecting fowl at inferior porcine construction workers.  Innovation, however, is hard work.  It requires significant time and investment to realize anything good.  Helen Hanson said, “Inspiration is the windfall from hard work and focus.”  However, in the tech arena, innovation doesn’t always seem to come from hard work.  I always like to think of the source of tech innovation as coming from three different options: building it, buying it, or b*tching about it.

Building It – This one is the classical source of inspiration.  Look at companies like Selsius developing CallManager, or Cognio’s spectrum analyzer chips.  More often than not, these companies are lead by brilliant individuals with a kind of hyper focus that allows them to shut out all distractions and build the next better widget.  Ryan Woodings of MetaGeek is a great example.  He spent lots of time and hard work analyzing a need and creating a brilliant product to address it.  Companies that go out on a limb to build better widgets help make the world better with new ideas to address our needs and desires.  The only problem with this kind of development is the amount of time it takes to come up with these ideas.  You must be willing to invest a large amount of resources to achieve your goals.  How many inventors and innovators have gone broke trying to realize their dreams?  Even Ryan had to struggle with keeping his day job until MetaGeek took off and became lucrative enough to be his new day job.  Large companies like Cisco and Juniper suffer from the same problem on a different scale.  They must sink huge budgets into research and development in order to create new products.  Sometimes, the people in charge don’t take well to R&D budgets spiraling out of control, so they cut back and risk stifling innovation.  You also run into issues with your company being brilliant, but unknown.  How many times have you heard the phrase, “The best company no one’s ever heard of.”?  Chances are the kind of company that has brilliant people with an acute ability to focus on product innovation may not have the vision to tell people about their wonderful new widget.  If that happens, they may wither and die before they get famous because no one knew who they were and how great their product was.  In many cases, this leads to…

Buying It – If you don’t have a particularly inspirational idea or an innovative team to design something new, but you happen to be sitting on a pile of cash the size of a dump truck, you always have the option of buying innovation.  This isn’t always a bad thing.  If you have a company that has a great product and no exposure, you can take your money and invest it in the technology and people and market it yourself.  It’s also faster in a lot of cases to purchase the time and effort that someone else has put in rather than reinventing the wheel.  John Chambers at Cisco has a philosophy that if Cisco can’t be the best in a market, they’ll acquire the first or second place company and make them the best.  Cisco bought Selsius and Cognio and Profigo and Protego and a whole host of other companies.  HP has purchased Colubris and 3COM and 3Par. Microsoft recently purchased Skype.  Even Juniper has purchased Trapeze.  Acquisitions happen all the time.  At one point, Cisco was even funding engineers to branch out and start their own companies to perform research and development into new product lines.  If they made good, Cisco would come back and buy the company and rehire the old engineer as the new director of that particular product’s development.  That’s not to say that buying your R&D is always the best method.  Eventually, you will run out of cash to buy companies, and then your research and innovation goes kaput.  Many of the best companies are just too big to swallow, no matter how much money you have to buy them.  It’s also very tough to integrate the development teams from purchased assets into your fold.  How many time do you see a company be purchased, then have the lead team leave six to eight months later?  People who are used to having total control over the entire creative process sometimes don’t take kindly to corporate oversight.  The have a difference of opinion and out the door they go, ostensibly to form a new company around the same idea.

B*tch About It – I’m seeing this becoming a bigger and bigger method of innovation recently.  It seems that when a company comes up with an idea, a competitor does their best to knock it down several pegs.  Whether it be to buy time to bring their own strategy to market or to pitch an idea with a totally different product, the idea is that by complaining (often loudly), you can force your people to innovate while making sure the other guys can’t sell their widgets.  For a particular example, I’m going to pick on TrILL.  Right now, TrILL isn’t a standard.  Other companies, like Cisco and Brocade, have come out with proprietary features that function much like TrILL eventually will, but don’t totally interoperate.  Others have decided to do something totally different, like Juniper or HP.  Right now, the battle of PR is being waged by Juniper in regards to their QFabric being totally different that TrILL or Cisco’s FabricPath.  HP is waging a PR war against Cisco from the standpoint that FabricPath is not standards-based, while HP is content to wait for TrILL to become ratified and rely on their own proprietary IRF solution in the interim.  To me, the innovation here isn’t so much centered around what any one particular company is capable of, but rather what there competitors are incapable of doing.  FabricPath isn’t a standard.  IRF doesn’t scale to the Nth node.  QFabric is currently a pipe dream without substance.  Every vendor is guilty of attacking their competitors rather than extolling the virtues of their particular solution.  If you spend your time telling me what your product does rather than concentrating on what your competitor’s product doesn’t do, you are much more likely to convince me to buy your widget, or so the thinking goes.

Tom’s Take

Creation and innovation take resources.  Plain and simple.  You’re either going to use brainpower to invent something, money to buy something, or hot air to talk about how much something sucks.  I love people that are creative enough to think of things that no one else has thought of before.  Late night television is littered with them. Others aren’t as creative, but have the resources to make those creative people prosper in a great environment.  These kinds of innovators are tried and true and have my utmost respect.  The last group, the whiners and complainers, not so much.  The amount of effort it takes to sell me on the idea that someone else’s hard work isn’t up to snuff could be better directed in developing new products or ideas.  That negativity can be turned into hugely positive things if only we take the time to focus.  I make an effort to stop presenters once their message becomes all about how something isn’t great and make them tell me about how great their thing is instead.  You quickly see who the true innovators are.  Real innovators are proud of their accomplishments and won’t hesitate to talk about them.  The whiners and complainers fall apart when they aren’t allowed to use negativity to sell themselves.  Think about that the next time you get ready to innovate.