I think it’s fair to say that all technical marketing engineers are excited for Cisco Live, and happy when it’s over. Cisco Live is always a lot of fun–I heard one person say “it’s like a family reunion except I like everyone!” It’s a great chance to see a lot of folks you don’t get to see very often, to discuss technology that you’re passionate about with other like minded people, to see and learn new things, and, for us TMEs, an opportunity to get up in front of a room full of hundreds of people and teach them something. We all now wait anxiously for our scores, which are used to judge how well we did, and even whether we get invited back.
It always amazes me that it comes together at all. In my last post, I mentioned all the work we do to pull together our sessions. A lot of my TMEs did not do sessions, instead spending their Cisco Live on their feet at demo booths. I’m also always amazed that World of Solutions comes together at all. Here is a shot of what it looked like at 5:30 PM the night before it opened (at 10 AM.) How the staff managed to clear out the garbage and get the booths together in that time I can’t imagine, but they did.
The WoS mess…
My boss, Carl Solder, got to do a demo in the main keynote. There were something like 20,000 people in the room and the CEO was sitting there. I think I would have been nervous, but Carl is ever-smooth and managed it without looking the least bit uncomfortable.
My boss (left) on the big stage!
The CCIE party was at the air and space museum, a great location for aviation lovers such as myself. A highlight was seeing an actual Apollo capsule. It seemed a lot smaller than I would have imagined. I don’t think I would ever have gotten in that thing to go to the moon. The party was also a great chance to see some of the legends of the CCIE program, such as Bruce Caslow, who wrote the fist major book on passing the CCIE exam, and Terry Slattery, the first person to actually pass it.
CCIE Party
I delivered two breakouts this year: The CCIE in an SDN World, and Scripting the Catalyst. The first one was a lot of fun because it was on Monday and the crowd was rowdy, but also because the changes to the program were just announced and folks were interested in knowing what was going on. The second session was a bit more focused and deeper, but the audience was attentive and seemed to like it. If you want to know what it feels like to be a Cisco Live presenter, see the photo below.
My view from the stage
I closed out my week with another interview with David Bombal, as well as the famous Network Chuck. This was my first time meeting Chuck, who is a bit of a celebrity around Cisco Live and stands out because of his beard. David and I had already done a two-part interview (part 1, part 2) when he was in San Jose visiting Cisco a couple months back. We had a good chat about what is going on with the CCIE, and it should be out soon.
As I said, we love CL but we’re happy when it’s over. This will be the first weekend in a long time I haven’t worked on CL slides. I can relax, and then…Cisco Live Barcelona!