Tag Archives: Cisco Live

Friday Thoughts Pre-Cisco Live

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It’s weird to think that I’m headed out to Cisco Live for the first time since 2019. The in-person parts of Cisco Live have been sorely missed during the pandemic. I know it was necessary all around but I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed being around others and learning from the community until I wasn’t able to do it for an extended period of time.

Now we’re back in Las Vegas and ready to take part in something that has been missed. I’ve got a busy lineup of meetings with the CCIE Advisory Council and Tech Field Day Extra but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try and have a little fun along the way. And yes, before you ask, I’m going to get the airbrush tattoo again if they brought the artist back. It’s a tradition as old as my CCIE at this point.

What else am I interested in?

  • I’m curious to see how Cisco responds to their last disappointing quarter. Are they going to tell us that it was supply chain? Are they going to double down on the software transition? And how much of the purchasing that happened was pull through? Does that mean the next few quarters are going to be down for Cisco?
  • With the drive to get more and more revenue from non-hardware sources, where does that leave the partners of Cisco? Is there still a space for companies to create solutions to work with aspects that Cisco doesn’t do well? Or will they find themselves in a Sherlock situation eventually?
  • I’m cautiously optimistic that a successful conference will mean more of the same going forward. I know there’s going to be reports of COVID coming out of Vegas because there’s no way to have a group that big together and be 100% free. If there is a big issue with rates skyrocketing after a combined two weeks of RSA and Cisco Live it will force companies to rethink a return to conference season.

Tom’s Take

If you’re in Vegas next week I hope to see you around! Even if it’s just in passing in the hallway stop me and say hello. It’s been far too long since we’ve interacted as a group and I want to hear how things have been going. For those that aren’t going to go make sure to stay tuned for my recap.

Tom’s Corner and Turning Another Corner

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Thanks to everyone that popped in for Tom’s Virtual Corner at Cisco Live Global 2021. It was a great time filled with chats about nothing in particular, crazy stories about unimportant things, and even the occasional funny picture. It was just was Tom’s Corner has always been. A way for the community to come together and be around each other in a relaxing and low-key environment. Maybe we couldn’t meet in person but we got together when we needed it the most.

There was also something else that Tom’s Corner has represented for me for the last year that I didn’t even catch until it was pointed out to me by my wonderful wife Kristin (@MrsNetwrkingNerd). Tom’s Corner was the start of something that made me feel better about everything.

Get On Up and Move

After Tom’s Virtual Corner in 2020, I was energized. I needed to get up and get things done after sitting in a chair for hours talking to all my absent friends and getting the energy I needed to feel after months of being locked away during a pandemic. I felt on top of the world for the first time in quite a while. And I needed to do something with that burst of energy.

So I got up and went for a walk. Exciting, right? I recorded a quick Periscope (RIP) video thanking everyone in the community for turning out and being a part of things even behind the keyboard. Then I kept going. Walking a mile or two and then coming back home. I noticed that after I did I closed my Apple Watch fitness rings for calories burned and exercise.

Rather than just counting steps like a Fitbit, Apple came up with their own measure of activity. I had a love/hate relationship with it. Some days it was easy to get my goal for standing once a minute every hour. Other days was impossible thanks to airplanes and such. Calories could be a breeze on days at events due to all the walking. Or they could be a disaster on days when I barely got out of my chair. Exercise goals were almost impossible. How could I find time to hit those?

After the amazing energy of Tom’s Virtual Corner in 2020, I decided to get serious about fitness. No more excuses. No more giving up and calling it a day because it was too hot outside or raining. I was going to do this because I needed to do it and the people that I care for in the community gave their time to be a part of something special to me. If they could do that I could find the time to do it too.

June 1 became June 30th and I was still going strong. I kept moving. My walking turned into getting back into running with a Couch to 5k beginner program I’ve done several times before. This time I was determined not to give up so easily. I thought back to the year before when I was able to run for a bit but ended up mixing up the walking and running and ultimately going back to being all but sedentary. The key for me this time was moving every day. Not just getting out every other day but walking one day and running the next.

The Running Nerd

Before I knew it, I was running more than I was walking. I was going further with every exercise. I felt better. I also noticed that I was losing weight, which was something that hadn’t happened the last time I was exercising. My health was improving. My belt had to tighten an extra notch. By the time of Mobility Field Day 5 at the end of July someone pointed out that I looked slimmer. I didn’t really notice it that much.

As the months went on more and more people remarked that I looked slimmer and fitter. It took four months before I stepped on a scale to be sure. And yes, I really was losing weight. Not a few pounds but a lot of them. As best as I can guess I was somewhere just over 265 pounds in this picture from February 2020:

Looking back at it now I can’t even believe it. I didn’t change my diet. All that happened was that we started cooking more and more meals at home thanks to the pandemic. I got better at making things I wanted to eat and knowing what was going into them. My every-other-day runs became more frequent. I was only walking twice a week now and running the other five days. My runs went from just barely 3 miles on occasion to at least 5 miles a day. My walks were up to 6 miles a day too.

Here’s a side by side comparison of what I looked like in June of 2020 and what I look like right now (March 2021):

I’m down three pants sizes. I weigh 210 pounds, down 55 lbs from my highest weight just over a year ago. My running is getting faster. I feel better. My doctor has told me everything looks much better than it did when he saw me last year for my checkup. When I got my BSA medical form filled out for my activities right before the pandemic last year I was worried I was going to be in trouble because I was too heavy for my height. When I had it done again last month I was well under the weight limit for the first time in a very long time.

Tom’s Corner is what set me on this path. The positive energy of the community kicked me forward and helped me see that I needed to be healthy. I needed to get back to a place where I didn’t feel self-conscious and worried about weight gain or my fitness to go on hikes or be active. The response of people when they see how much weight I’ve lost or how much I run has boosted my confidence even more and encouraged me to keep going.

I’ve closed my rings for 303 straight days. The light at the end of the year-long tunnel is almost here. I’m going to make it there even if I have to walk at 11:00pm at night to get those last few calories or do an Apple workout in the middle of a blizzard to make sure I didn’t miss my exercise goal. It’s something that drives me to wake up and make plans for the day. When I didn’t get my run in during Tom’s Corner this year I made sure to get it done as soon as I could so I didn’t miss out. I need to stay healthy and happy to ensure there are more Tom’s Corner meetups in the future.

Tom’s Corner

Motivation is hard. I’ve learned that lesson my whole life both the easy way and the hard way. Like a shark, if I stop moving I’m not going to start again. Planning how I’m going to make this all happen takes cycles of my day but results in a happier, healthier, more confident me. Thanks to my friends and fellow community members at Tom’s Corner I’ve transformed myself into something to be proud of. I’m often told that Tom’s Corner gives people something they need. Maybe it’s a place in the community. Or a friendly conversation when they need it the most. For me, Tom’s Corner was the kick in the pants I needed to be a better Tom. Thank you all for helping me turn that corner and get better.

Tom’s Virtual Corner at Cisco Live Global 2021 – Anniversary

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We made it through the year that was March 2020. Here were are on the other side trying to find out whatever this normal is supposed to look like. We’re not out of the woods yet but we do know that things aren’t going to be back to the way they were any time soon. That includes the events that we enjoyed traveling to and hanging out at.

Cisco Live has made the decision to go virtual again this year. One can’t blame them to be honest. Travel uncertainty and the potential liability of having a huge event just didn’t make sense. If you thought the old Conference Crud was bad you really don’t want this new-and-improved version! Cisco has also decided that one global event makes more sense than several events scattered across the calendar. That means that Cisco Live Europe and Cisco Live US are now global and happening at the end of March instead of January or June.

With the announcement that everything will be virtual again this year it also means that the social aspect of the event is going to be virtual as well. As much as we would have liked to hang out at Tom’s Corner in Las Vegas and catch up it just won’t be happening. I am a bit disappointed because this year was going to be the tenth anniversary of Tom’s Corner. It’s been a decade since I plopped down in an uncomfortable chair and set out on a quest to meet people. I was hoping to bring back the stool and the table and the corner live in person but it appears that we’ll have to do it some other time.

In the interim, we’re still going to be getting together in just a few weeks! We’re going to be hosting a Webex call just like we did last year so we can all hang out and chat throughout the day. Here are the details:

Date: March 29, 2021

Time: 7am PT – Whenever we get bored!

Where: Virtually via Webex (link will be in the calendar invite)

If you want to take part in the virtual corner, you need to either send an email to tom@networkingnerd.net or send a DM/PM/RRM/DMVPN to me on social media with the email address you want your calendar invitation sent to. If there is no email address I can’t send out the invitation! We’ll send them out as we can to get everyone signed up. You can pop in and out whenever you want. We’ll try to create breakout rooms for those that just want to chat on specific topics and such. It’ll be fun! Provided, that is, that we all keep to some basic ground rules:

  • Disruptive attendees may be removed at the discretion of the hosts.
  • Wheaton’s Law applies. If you think you’re violating it, you probably are.
  • Be respectful of the community. We want this to be positive for everyone and that means everyone is responsible for keeping it that way.

If you have any questions about Tom’s Corner or things in general just ask! I want to thank Gestalt IT for allowing us to host this meeting and continuing to support community engagement and involvement. A huge part of my job is doing things like this and I still continue to be thrilled to have the support of Stephen Foskett, Claire Chaplais, and the rest of the Gestalt IT team when it comes to taking part of my day to interact with you all, virtual or otherwise.

I wish things could have been different as far as Cisco Live this year but we’re going to make the most of what we have. That means virtual for now but rest assured the the next time we can all meet in person we’re going to have a birthday party for Tom’s Corner that will be sung of in legends to come!

The Conundrum of Virtual Conferences

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Okay, the world is indeed crazy. We can’t hide from it or hope that it just blows over sooner or later. We’re dealing with it now and that means it’s impacting our work, our family lives, and even our sanity from time to time. One of the stalwart things that has been impacted by this is the summer conference schedule. We’ve had Aruba Atmosphere, Cisco Live, VMworld, and even Microsoft Ignite transition from being held in-person to a virtual format complete with shortened schedules and pre-recorded sessions. I’ve attended a couple of these so far for work and as an analyst, and I think I’ve figured it out.

If you come to a conference for content and sessions, you’ll love virtual events. If you come for any other reason, virtual isn’t going to work for you.

Let’s break this down because there’s a lot to unpack.

Information Ingestion

Conferences are first and foremost about disseminating information. Want to learn what new solutions and technologies have been launched? It’s probably going to be announced either right before or during the conference. Want to learn the ins-and-outs of this specific protocol? There’s probably a session on it or a chance to ask a professional engineer or architect about it. There’s a lot of content to be consumed at the conference. So much, in fact, that in recent years the sessions have started to be recorded and posted for consumption after the fact. You can now have access to a library of any topic you could ever want. Which comes in really handy when your boss decides in November that you’re going to be the new phone person…

Because all this content has been recorded and published before, transitioning the content to a virtual format is almost seamless. The only wrinkle is that people are going be recording from their home instead of a blast freezer ballroom in the Mandalay Bay. That means you’re going to need tighter control over things like environment and video recordings. Your people are going to have to get good and talking and setting up their screens to be effective. Most good presenters can do this already. Some need some coaching. Most are going to need a few takes to get it right since they aren’t going to be editing together their own video. But the end result is going to be the same. You’re going to have great content to share with people to be consumed over the course of days or weeks or even months.

Keynotes are a little bit harder to quantify in this content category. They are definitely content, just not for tech people. Keynotes are analyst and press fodder. It’s a packaging of the essence of the event in an hour-long (or longer) format designed to hit the important points for tweets and headlines. Keynotes are very, very, very rehearsed. No one tends to go off the script unless it’s absolutely necessary. Even the off-the-cuff remarks are usually scripted and tested for impact ahead of time. If a joke fails to land, just imagine the three others they tried that were worse.

But keynotes at a virtual event can be more impactful. Because you can do some editing you can put together different takes. You can inject some emotion. You can even use it as a platform for creating change. I specifically want to call out the Cisco Live keynote from Chuck Robbins this year. It wasn’t about tech. We didn’t really hear about protocols or hardware. Instead, Chuck used his platform to talk about the drivers of technology. He stood up and told the world how we need to use our talents and our toys to build a better world for ourselves and for everyone around us. Chuck didn’t mince words. He postponed Cisco Live by two weeks to highlight the struggles and causes that are being shown nightly on the news. He wanted us to see the world he and his company are trying to help and build up. And he used the keynote slot to push that message. No flashy numbers or sparkly hardware. Just good, old fashioned discussion.

Virtual Hallways

Every positive thing should have something corresponding to balance it out. And for virtual conferences, it’s the stuff that’s not about content. Ironically enough, that’s the part that I’ve been so steeped in recently. Sure, Tech Field Day produces a lot on content around these events. I’m happy to be able to be a part of that. But the event is more than just videos and slide decks. It’s more than just sitting in uncomfortable chairs in a meat locker nursing a hangover trying to understand the chipset in a switch.

Conferences are as much about community as anything else. They’re about seeing your friends in-person. Conferences are about hallway conversations about random topics and taking a taxi to a bar halfway down the Vegas Strip to meet up with a couple of people and some person you’ve never even heard of. It’s about meeting the co-workers of your friends and pulling them into your circle. It’s about sharing hobbies and life stories and learning about the crazy haircut someone’s kid gave themselves right before they left.

Community matters to me most of all. Because a conference without a community is just a meeting. And that part is missing virtually. I did my best with an attempt to do Tom’s Virtual Corner with our community. I was shocked and pleased at the number of people that joined in. We had over 50 people on the calendar invite and over a dozen connected at any one time. It was wonderful! But it wasn’t the corner that we know and love. It’s not that it wasn’t special. It was totally special and I appreciate everyone that took time out of their day to take part. But there are some things that are missing from the virtual experience.

I’ll take myself for example. I have two problems that I have to overcome at events:

  1. I’m a story teller.
  2. Other people need to talk too.

If I get on a tear with number one, number two won’t happen. At an in-person event it’s easy enough for me to deal with the first one. I just pull interested people aside for a small group conversation. Or I wait for a different time or another day to tell my story. It’s easy enough to do when you spend sixteen hours around people on average and even more well into the night with friends.

However, those above things don’t really work on Zoom/Webex/GoToMeeting. Why? Well, for one thing you can only really have one speaker at a time. So everyone needs to keep it short and take turns. Which leads to a lot of waiting to talk and not so much for listening. Or it leads to clipped quips and not real discussion. And before you bring up the breakout room idea, remember that mechanically there is a lot of setup that needs to happen for those. You can’t just create one on the fly to tell a story about beanbags and then just hop back into the main room. And, breakout rooms by their very nature are exclusionary. So it’s tough to create one and not want to just stay there and let people come to you.

Tom’s Take

This is just a small part of the missing aspect of virtual conferences. Sure, your feet don’t hurt at the end of the day. I’d argue the food is way better at home. The lack of airports and hotel staff isn’t the end of the world. But if your primary focus for going to events is to do everything other than watching sessions then the virtual experience isn’t for you. The dates for Cisco Live 2021 and Aruba Atmosphere 2021 have already been announced. I, for one, can’t wait to get back to in-person conferences. Because I miss the fringe benefits of being in-person more than anything else.

Cisco Live 2019 – Rededicating Community

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The 2019 Cisco Live Sign Photo

Another Cisco Live is in the books for me. I was a bit shocked to realize this was my 14th event in a row. I’ve been going to Cisco Live half of the time it’s been around! This year was back in San Diego, which has good and bad points. I’d like to discuss a few of them there and get the thoughts of the community.

Good: The Social Media Hub Has Been Freed! – After last year’s issues with the Social Media Hub being locked behind the World of Solutions, someone at Cisco woke up and realized that social people don’t keep the same hours as the show floor people. So, the Hub was located in a breezeway between the Sails Pavilion and the rest of the convention center. And it was great. People congregated. Couches were used. Discussions were had. And the community was able to come together again. Not during the hours when it was convenient. But a long time. This picture of the big meeting on Thursday just solidifies in my mind why the Social Media Hub has to be in a common area:

You don’t get this kind of interaction anywhere else!

Good: Community Leaders Step Forward – Not gonna lie. I feel disconnected sometimes. My job at Tech Field Day takes me away from the action. I spend more time in special sessions than I do in the social media hub. For any other place that could spell disaster. But not for Cisco Live. When the community needs a leader, someone steps forward to fill the role. This year, I was happy to see my good friend Denise Fishburne filling that role. The session above was filled with people paying rapt attention to Fish’s stories and her bringing people into the community. She’s a master at this kind of interaction. I was even proud to sit on the edge and watch her work her craft.

Fish is the d’Artagnan of the group. She may be part of the Musketeers of Social Media but Fish is undoubtedly the leader. A community should hope to have a leader that is as passionate and involved as she is, especially given her prominent role in Cisco. I feel like she can be the director of what the people in the Social Media Hub need. And I’m happy to call her my friend.

Bad: Passes Still Suck – You don’t have to do the math to figure out that $700 is bigger than $200. And that $600/night is worse than $200/night. And yet, for some reason we find ourselves in San Diego, where the Gaslamp hotels are beyond insane, wondering what exactly we’re getting with our $700 event pass. Sessions? Nope. Lunch? Well, sort of. Access to the show floor? Only when it’s open for the random times during the week. Compelling content? That’s the most subjective piece of all. And yet Cisco is still trying to tell us that the idea of a $200 social-only pass doesn’t make sense.

Fine. I get it. Cisco wants to keep the budgets for Cisco Live high. They got the Foo Fighters after all, right? They also don’t have to worry about policing the snacks and food everywhere. Or at least not ordering the lowest line items on the menu. Which means less fussing about piddly things inside the convention center. And for the next two years it’s going to work out just great in Las Vegas. Because Vegas is affordable with the right setup. People are already booking rooms at the surrounding hotels. You can stay at the Luxor or the Excalibur for nothing. But if the pass situation is still $700 (or more) in a couple of years you’re going to see a lot of people dropping out. Because….

Bad: WTF?!? San Francisco?!? – I’ve covered this before. My distaste for Moscone is documented. I thought we were going to avoid it this time around. And yet, I found out we’re going back to SF in 2022.

WHY?!?!?!?

Moscone isn’t any bigger. We didn’t magically find seating for 10,000 extra people. More importantly, the hotel situation in San Fran is worse than ever before. You seriously can’t find a good room this year for VMworld. People are paying upwards of $500/night for a non-air conditioned shoe box! And why would you do this to yourself Cisco?

Sure, it’s cheap. Your employees don’t need hotel rooms. You can truck everything up. But your costs savings are being passed along to the customer. Because you would rather them pay through the nose instead of footing the bill yourself. And Moscone still won’t hold the whole conference. We’ll be spilled over into 8 different hotels and walking from who knows where to get to the slightly nicer shack of a convention center.

I’m not saying that Cisco Live needs to be in Vegas every year. But it’s time for Cisco to start understanding that their conference needs a real convention center. And Moscone ain’t it.

Better: Going Back to Orlando – As you can see above, I’ve edited this post to include new information about Cisco Live 2022. I have been informed by multiple people, including internal Cisco folks, that Live 2022 is going to Orlando and not SF. My original discussion about Cisco Live in SF came from other sources with no hard confirmation. I believe now it was floated as a trial balloon to see how the community would respond. Which means all my statements above still stand regarding SF. Now it just means that there’s a different date attached to it.

Orlando is a better town for conventions than SF. It’s on-par with San Diego with the benefit that hotels are way cheaper for people because of the large amount of tourism. I think it’s time that Cisco did some serious soul searching to find a new venue that isn’t in California or Florida for Cisco Live. Because if all we’re going to do is bounce back and forth between San Diego and Orlando and Vegas over and over again, maybe it’s time to just move Cisco Live to Vegas and be done with the moving.

Tom’s Take

Cisco Live is something important to me. It has been for years, especially with the community that’s been created. There’s nothing like it anywhere else. Sure, there have been some questionable decisions and changes here and there. But the community survives because it rededicates itself every year to being about the people. I wasn’t kidding when I tweeted this:

Because the real heart of the community is each and every one of the people that get on a plane and make the choice time and again to be a part of something special. That kind of dedication makes us all better in every possible way.

A Matter of Perspective

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Have you ever taken the opportunity to think about something from a completely different perspective? Or seen someone experience something you have seen through new eyes? It’s not easy for sure. But it is a very enlightening experience that can help you understand why people sometimes see things entirely differently even when presented with the same information.

Overcast Networking

The first time I saw this in action was with Aviatrix Systems. I first got to see them at Cisco Live 2018. They did a 1-hour presentation about their solution and gave everyone an overview of what it could do. For the networking people in the room it was pretty straightforward. Aviatrix did a lot of the things that networking should do. It was just in the cloud instead of in a data center. It’s not that Aviatrix wasn’t impressive. It’s the networking people have a very clear idea of what a networking platform should do.

Fast forward two months to Cloud Field Day 4. Aviatrix presents again, only this time to a group of cloud professionals. The message was a little more refined from their first presentation. They included some different topics to appeal more to a cloud audience, such as AWS encryption or egress security. The reception from the delegates was the differencue between night and day. Rather than just be satisfied with the message that Aviatrix put forward, the Cloud Field Day delegates were completely blown away! They loved everything that Aviatrix had to say. They loved the way that Aviatrix approached a problem they had seen and couldn’t quite understand. How to extend networking into the cloud and take control of it.

Did Aviatrix do something different? Why was the reaction between the two groups so stark? How did it happen this way? I think it is in part because networking people talk to a networking company and see networking. They find the things they expect to find and don’t look any deeper. But when the same company presents to an audience that doesn’t have networking on the brain for the entirety of their career it’s something entirely different. While a networking audience may understand the technology a cloud audience may understand how to make it work better for their needs because they can see the advantages. Perspective matters in this case because people exposed to new ideas find ways to make them work in ways that can only be seen with fresh eyes.

Letting Go of Wires

The second time I saw an example of perspective at play was at Mobility Field Day 3 with Arista Networks. Arista is a powerhouse in the data center networking space. They have gone up against Cisco and taken them head-to-head in a lot of deals. They have been gaining marketshare from Cisco in a narrow range of products focused on the data center. But they’re also now moving into campus switching as well as wireless with the acquisition of Mojo Networks.

When Arista stepped up to present at Mobility Field Day 3, the audience wasn’t a group of networking people that wanted to hear about CloudVision or 400GbE or even EOS. The audience of wireless and mobility professionals wanted to hear how Arista is going to integrate the Mojo product line into their existing infrastructure. The audience was waiting for a message that everything would work together and the way forward would be clear. I don’t know that they heard that message, but it wasn’t because of anything that Arista did on purpose.

Arista is very much trying to understand how they’re going to integrate Mojo Networks into what they do. They’re also very focused on the management and control plane of the access points. These are solved problems in the wireless world right now. When you talk to a wireless professional about centralized management of the device or a survivable control plane that can keep running if the management system is offline they’ll probably laugh. They’ve been able to experience this for the past several years so far. They know what SDN should look like because it’s the way that CAPWAP controllers have always operated. Wireless pros can tell you the flaws behind backhauling all your traffic through a controller and why there are much better options to keep from overwhelming the device.

Wireless pros have a different perspective from networking people right now. Things that networking pros are just now learning about are the past to wireless people. Wireless pros are focused more on the radio side of the equation than the routing and switching side. That perspective gives the wireless crowd a very narrow focus on solving some very hard problems but it does make them miss the point that their expertise can be invaluable to helping both networking pros and networking companies see how to take the best elements of wireless networking control mechanisms and implement them in such a way as to benefit everyone.

Tom’s Take

For me, the difficulty in seeing things differently doesn’t come from having an open mind. Instead, it comes from the fact that most people don’t have a conception of anything outside their frame of reference. We can’t really comprehend things we can’t conceive of. What you need to do to really understand what it feels like to be in someone else’s shoes is have someone show you what it looks like to be in them. Observe people learning something for the first time. Or see how they react to a topic you know well. Odds are good you might just find that you will know it better because they helped you understand it better.

Finding Value in Cisco Live 2018

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The world famous Cisco Live Sign picture, 2018 edition

Another Cisco Live has come and gone. Overall it was a fun time for many. Catching up with friends. Meeting people for the first time. Enjoying the balmy Orlando weather. It was a chance to relive some great times for every one. But does Cisco Live 2018 dictate how the future of the event will go?

Packing The Schedule

Did you get a chance to attend any of the social events at Cisco Live? There were a ton. There were Tweetups and meet ups and special sessions galore. There was every opportunity to visit a lounge or area dedicated to social media presence, Boomerang videos, goofy pictures, or global outreach. Every twenty feet had something for you to do or some way for you to make an impact.

In fact, if you went to all of these things you probably didn’t have time for much else. Definitely not time for the four or five keynote addresses. Or a certification test. Or the classes and sessions. In fact, if you tried to do everything there was to do at Cisco Live, you’d probably not sleep the whole week. There’s almost as much stuff to do outside the conference sessions as there is to do in them.

But is it too much? Are the activities around the learning sessions taking away from the conference itself? Think about something like the Big Ideas theater this year. In theory, it’s a great way to get people to attend sessions that are not specifically related to tech. You can introduce new ideas, especially those that are focused more on changing the world. But you’re also competing for time away from sessions that are focused on new products or building better architectures.

Every booth in the World of Solutions is designed to draw you in and keep you there. For the sponsors of the event it’s important to have conversations about their products and solutions. For Cisco people, it’s almost like they’re competing with the sessions to give you different content or a chance to interview people. Is that how things should be? I can understand the desire of DevNet wanting to change the way people look at programmable networking, for example. But every other little booth like Cisco Advanced Services or the Emergency Response Vehicle? Those feel more like attractions designed to show off rather than educate.

Paying the Piper

And what does all this cost in the long run? Sure, I love having extra features around the conference as much as the next person. But to what end? Things don’t pay for themselves. Every conference has a budget. Every piece of entertainment and every showcase booth costs money in some way or another. And how does that all get paid for? By us, the attendees.

It’s no secret that attending conferences isn’t cheap. A full conference pass for Cisco Live is around $2,000. In the past, there were cheaper options for just attending for the people networking aspect of things. But, with the growth of DevNet and other “included” options at the conference, Cisco needed to find a way to pay for them this year.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time going into the Imagine Pass issue right now because I want to sit down and have an honest discussion with Cisco about the pros and cons of the approach. But it is very important that we examine what we’re getting for the increased cost. There has to be a significant value for people to want to be a part of the event if the costs go up. The way to do that is to create compelling reasons to want to be at Cisco Live.

The way not to do that is to lock the content behind gates. Some of the things at Cisco Live this year were placed in areas that were not easy to access. One of my personal pet peeves is the NetVet lounge. I’m going to start this off by saying that I was a NetVet for many years before I moved to Tech Field Day. I’m no longer a NetVet. However, until 2013 the NetVet lounge was one of the de facto social hangout places. Now, it’s another area where you can get coffee and snacks.

Why does the NetVet lounge bother me? Because of the placement. Front and center across the aisle from the on-site Cisco Store (which took the place of the Social Media hub from 2013). Why does the NetVet lounge get to be outside the World of Solutions? Aside from the historical reasons, I can’t think of a good reason. You need to have a full conference pass to achieve NetVet status. A full conference pass gets you into the World of Solutions. Why not have NetVets meet there?

The obvious reason is that the World of Solutions closes. Yet the NetVet lounge does too. And the hours are pretty similar. Why not move the NetVet lounge into the World of Solutions and give that space to the Social Media folks. There are no restrictions on getting into the Social Media Hub. Why not have them front and center? Again, aside from the “tradition” of having the NetVet lounge outside the World of Solutions I can’t think of a good reason.

Tom’s Take

I love Cisco Live. I realized this year that I’ve been to thirteen of them. Every year since 2006. The conference has changed and grown. The focus has shifted. But the people remain the same. With the changes in the way that the pass structure the people may not be there much longer. We, as IT professionals, need to decide what’s important and give some feedback. We need to make it constructive and honest. Point out what works and what doesn’t. Don’t whine, but offer direct criticism. We can only make the conference we want by telling the people what we need. That’s how you make Cisco Live a place to be for now and for the future.

Cisco Live CAE and Guest Keynote Announcements

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As you may have heard by now, there have been a few exciting announcements from Cisco Live 2018 regarding the venue for the customer appreciation event and the closing keynote speakers.

Across The Universe

The first big announcement is the venue for the CAE. When you’re in Orlando, there are really only two options for the CAE. You either go to the House of the Mouse or you go to Universal Studios. The last two times that Cisco Live has gone to Orlando it has been to Universal. 2018 marks the third time!

Cisco is going big this year. They’ve rented the ENTIRE Universal Studios park. Not just the backlot. Not just the side parks. They WHOLE thing. You can get your fix on the Transformers ride, visit Harry Potter, or even partake of some of the other attractions as well. It’s a huge park with a lot of room for people to spread out and enjoy the scenery.

That’s not all. The wristband that gets you into the CAE also gets you access to Islands of Adventure before the full park opens! You can pregame the party by hanging out at Hogwarts, going to Jurassic Park, or joining your favorite superheroes for a picture or two for the kids. Access to Islands of Adventure isn’t exclusive, so you’ll be there with all the other tourists from around the world but it’s a great place to hang out before the party gets going!

Note that this year you will need the new Imagine pass or the Party Pass Add-on in order to access the CAE. There is no standalone social pass option or social add-on for conference passes.

Welcome To The Future

The closing keynote speakers have also been announced. Dr. Michio Kaku and Amy Webb will be on stage talking about the future of technology and how it will be impacting our society. Given the keynote that Rowan Trollope delivered during Cisco Live Barcelona, this comes as no surprise to me.

Cisco is very much trying to show that they are getting back on the leading edge of technology and driving innovation in the market. The problem with being the “800lb Gorilla” is that you’re also big and difficult to move. IBM faced the same problem before they shed their legacy and became leaner, more future-focused company. Others that tried to follow in their footsteps were less successful and either split apart or got scooped up in mergers.

Cisco is going through a transition period after the departure of John Chambers. Chuck Robbins is turning the ship as quickly as possible, but there need to be more outwards signs that things are being done to look toward a future where hardware isn’t as important as the innovation happening in software. By bringing in two of the most well known futurists in science and technology, Cisco is sending a signal to their audience of users and investors that the focus is going to be on emerging technology. This is a bit of a gamble for Cisco but it’s hoped that things pay off for them.

Note that there are also going to be other speakers in the Big Ideas Theater on the World of Solutions floor during the event. Access to the World of Solutions is restricted behind the new Imagine pass or full conference pass. There is no Social Pass option, and the party pass add-on does not grant access to the World of Solutions floor.

Tom’s Take

The Cisco Live CAE in Orlando is pretty much a known thing. It’s nice to see all of Universal this year with access to the new attractions at Islands of Adventure. People should be able to enjoy being outside in the Florida humidity instead of the blistering Las Vegas inferno. As well, the rides are going to be fun for a large number of the attendees.

It’s also good to see future-looking keynote speakers that are going to give their viewpoints on things that will impact our lives. With two speakers, I’m expecting another “interview” style closing keynote, which isn’t quite my favorite. But this is a step in the right direction. Here’s hoping that these additions to the event make Cisco Live a great show for those that will be attending.

It’s Not The Size of Your Conference Community

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Where do you get the most enjoyment from your conference attendance? Do you like going to sessions and learning about new things? Do you enjoy more of the social aspect of meeting friends and networking with your peers? Maybe it’s something else entirely?

It’s The Big Show

When you look at shows like Cisco Live, VMworld, or Interop ITX, there’s a lot going on. There are diverse education tracks attended by thousands of people. You could go to Interop and bounce from a big data session into a security session, followed by a cloud panel. You could attend Cisco Live and never talk about networking. You could go to VMworld and only talk about networking. There are lots of opportunities to talk about a variety of things.

But these conferences are huge. Cisco and VMware both take up the entire Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. When in San Francisco, both of these events dwarf the Moscone Center and have to spread out into the surrounding hotels. That means it’s easy to get lost or be overlooked. I’ve been to Cisco Live before and never bumped into people I know from my area that said they were going, even when we were at the same party. There are tens of thousands of people roaming the halls.

That means that these conferences only work well if you can carve out your own community. Cisco Live has certainly done that over the years. There’s a community of a few hundred folks that are active on social media and have really changed the direction of the way Cisco engages with the community. VMworld has their various user groups as well as VMUnderground constantly pushing the envelope and creating more organic community engagement.

You Think You Know Me

The flip side is the smaller boutique conferences that have sprung up in recent years. These take a single aspect of a technology and build around it. You get a very laser-focused event with a smaller subset of attendees based on similar interests. It’s a great way to instantly get massive community involvement around an idea. Maybe it’s Monitorama. Or perhaps it’s OSCon. Or even GopherCon. You can see how these smaller communities are united around a singular subject and have great buy in.

However, the critical mass needed to make a boutique conference happen is much greater per person. Cisco Live and VMworld are going to happen every year. There are no less than 10,000 – 15,000 people that would come to either no matter what. Even if 50% of last year’s attendees decided to stay home this year, the conference would happen.

On the flip side, if 50% of the DockerCon or OpenStack Summit attendees stayed home next year, you’d see mass panic in the community. People would start questioning why you’re putting on a show for 2,500 – 3,000 users. It’s one thing to do it when you’re small and just getting started. But to put on a show for those numbers now would be a huge decision point and things would need to be discussed to see what happens going forward.

Cisco Live and VMworld are fun because of their communities. But boutique conferences exist because of their communities. It’s important to realize that and drastic changes in a smaller conference community have huge ripples throughout the conference. Two hundred Twitter users don’t have much impact on the message at Cisco Live. But two hundred angry users at DockerCon can make massive changes happen. Each member of the community is amplified the smaller the conference they attend.

Tom’s Take

Anyone that knows me knows that I love the community. I love seeing them grow and change and develop their own voice. It’s why I work for Tech Field Day. It’s why I go to Cisco Live every year. It’s why I’m happy to speak at VMUnderground events. But I also realize how important the community can be to smaller events. And how quickly things can fall apart when the community is fractured or divided. It’s critical for boutique conferences to harness the power of their communities to get off the ground. But you also have to recognize how important they are to you in the long run. You need to cultivate them and keep the focused on making everything better for everyone.

Bringing 2017 To Everyone

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It’s time once again for my traditional New Year’s Day navel gazing. As per tradition with my blog, I’m not going to make prognostications about networking or IT in general. Either I’m going to wind up totally wrong or be totally right and no one will care. I rather enjoy the ride as we go along, so trying to guess what happens is kind of pointless.

Instead, I’m going to look at what I want to accomplish in the coming year. It gives me a chance to analyze what I’m doing and what I want to be working on. And it’s a whole lot easier than predicting that SDN is going to take everyone’s job or OpenFlow being dead again.

Write Like the Wind

My biggest goal for 2016 was to write more. And that I did. I worked in writing any time I could. I wrote about ONUG, SD-WAN, and other fun topics. I even wrote a small book! Finding time to work all the extra typing in to my Bruce Wayne job at Tech Field Day was a bit challenging here and there. And more than once I was publishing a blog post at the deadline. But all that writing did help me talk about new subjects in the industry and develop great ideas at the same time.

I also encouraged more people to write. I wanted to get people putting their thoughts down in a form that didn’t require listening or watching video. Writing is still very important and I think it’s a skill that more people should develop. My list of blogs to read every day grew in 2016 and I was very happy to see it. I hope that it continues well into 2017 as well.

King Of The Hill

2017 is going to be an exciting year for me and Tech Field Day. I ran Networking Field Day 12 as the host of the event for the first time. In the coming year, Stephen and I are going to focus on our topics areas even deeper. For me, that means immersing myself in networking and wireless technologies more than ever before. I’m going to be learning as much as I can about all the new things going on. It’s a part of the role of being the host and organizer for both Networking Field Day and Mobility Field Day coming up this year.

I’m also going to be visiting lots of other conferences. Cisco Live, Interop, and even Open Networking Summit are on my list this year. We’re going to be working closely with those shows to put on even more great Tech Field Day content. I love hearing the excitement from my friends in the industry when they learn that Tech Field Day is going to be present at a show like Cisco Live. It means that we’re reaching a great audience and giving them something that they are looking for.

We’re also going to be looking at new ideas and new things to do with our growing media presence with Gestalt IT. There should be some interesting things there on the horizon as we embrace the new way that media is used to communicate with readers and fans alike. Stay tuned there for all the excitement we’ll be bringing your way in 2017!

Tom’s Take

Analyzing a year’s worth of work helps one see progress and build toward even more goals in the coming year. I’m going to keep moving forward with the projects that excite me and challenge me to be a better representative for the networking community. Along the way I hope to learn more about what makes our technology exciting and useful. And share than knowledge with everyone I know in the best way I can. Thanks for being here with me. I hope 2017 is a great year for you as well!