This is the 1st time I’m publicly writing about my Cisco Live experience. I think is good to share this because it brings a lot of emotions and memories. Let me explain you why I keep great memories of this magnificent conferences.
Cisco Live is a great event because it gives you the opportunity to learn about all Cisco products/services/solutions and is the best place to meet a lot of engineers and experts from different countries, cultures, areas and fields of expertise in Software Development, IT, SP/Telecom, Networking, Collaboration, Security, Data Center, etc. It is a fantastic event to share knowledge and exchange ideas around numerous topics.
You will have an awesome and amazing involvement attending different classes, breakout sessions, labs, the World of Solutions, the CCIE party (if you are a CCIE or have a friend that can invite you) and the customer appreciation event. All this things combined will blow your mind away. I have been in Cisco Live multiple times and I will say that every year I go the participation and involvement is completely different.
In 2013 I was selected by my manager to be a speaker at Cisco Live in Orlando, FL and present the session: Design and Deployment of the ASR5500. I will never forget the words of my mentor: Prakash Suthar. He told me: Rafael, this is not a Webex meeting where you are able to hide your face and do a good presentation showing your slide deck! This will be a presentation with probably hundreds of engineers with equal or more experience and knowledge than you. So you need to be prepared! Are you ready for this challenge?
I said: Yes! I accepted the challenge with great courage and I started preparing very well for it. I will never forget this moment because the pressure and the expectations were so high that I was not able to sleep well. I was only thinking about how much time I need rehearse every day to do a good job at Cisco Live.
This process was not easy because you have your daily job activities and you also need to focus on your presentation to successfully deliver the content at Cisco Live. That’s not as simple and smooth as it looks like because it requires a lot of effort.
Another thing I will like to mention is that as a speaker you need to take a mandatory training for technical public speaking. This training is super cool because you will learn all the necessary skills to be a good presenter. The training will prepare you on how to do eye contact, pause, breathe, handle your body posture, manage your gestures, organize the content of your presentation and manage your Q&A in different ways.
The training is pretty fascinating, however, this training will only make sense if you are able to rehearse and put in practice everything you learned. Remember, even the best speakers in the world will always practice multiple times before their presentation so keep that in mind!
Well, the big day finally came up. I presented my topic at Cisco Live. I was able to deliver the presentation the same way I rehearsed it multiple times. It was a great session and I was extremely happy with the results. But honestly, the most awesome and impressive element of this entire journey is that I came back from Cisco Live completely shocked.
I was overwhelmed of information with all the breakout sessions, seminars, activities and engineers I met. The good thing is that I took a lot of notes to go over the content and contacts and when I came back to the office I told my co-workers, friends and colleagues: This is the best technical event for any engineer that wants to learn and gain good knowledge.
Nice picture of Cisco Live logo at the Convention Center
With my buddy and awesome friend Ernesto Ovcharenko NE @ Facebook
With some Friends from Telefonica and AT&T
In 2015 I got the opportunity to speak again at Cisco Live in San Diego, CA. Very similar to the topic of Cisco Live 2013 but with new slides and changes to the product and solution. This time I was more confident and secure, with more experience, more mature and with a better knowledge and expertise in my area. I really loved my session because the pressure was less. Again, I came back impressed. Cisco Live is always shoking. The difference this time was that I built a strategy and a plan of action. I booked all the sessions I wanted to attend (Mobility, SP, Data Center Switching, virtualization, OpenStack, ACI and Cloud Apps). I spent quality time with the speakers after each session was done and meet a lot of engineers and literary stop by in all the booths of World of Solution that I really liked to learn more about what those companies are doing to integrate their products and solutions with Cisco portfolio.
I also went for the first time to the CCIE party and it was really nice because I had the opportunity to meet a lot of engineers from different partners, vendors and few product managers of the different Certification Learning Program. The participation and involvement from all attendees was outstanding.
Before my presentation at Cisco Live
The speaker Badge! 🙂
Customer appreciation event with my friend Ullas Upendran
My Cisco Live takes away:
Start the conversation with partners, vendors, Cisco engineers and other colleagues. Make virtual friends and relationship before Cisco Live and turn them into friends in your next Cisco Live. Your experience will be completely different and you will be able to get the most and best from that event.
Try to attend as much sessions as you can. Don’t be shy and go ahead and say hi, start a conversation, introduce yourself, ask questions, etc. with all the engineers that see on your way at Cisco Live!!
And last but not least: Make notes of all your sessions, try to meet the expert after the session is over to exchange knowledge and learn more about the product/solution. Grab from the expert his contact information so you can keep in touch with him after the event.
As an engineer how you can justify your trip to Cisco Live (source www.ciscolive.com):
– Discover innovative ways that networking and communications technology can help you reach new markets and boost revenue from existing customers.
– Understand which solutions are right for your specific challenges, so you can make smarter use of your technology budget.
– Do more with the technologies already in place, to help you stay competitive and keep costs down.
– Build in-house skills at a lower cost than hiring a third-party consultant.
– Up-level the skills and experience of your department with advanced Cisco certifications.
– Anticipate emerging technology and communications trends, so you can plan for any impact on your business.
– Understand how innovative, market-leading companies are using technology to build and sustain a competitive advantage.
– Plug into a worldwide network of knowledgeable professionals who share ideas on how to accomplish more with less and keep costs down without sacrificing innovation.
– Connect with thousands of experts — including hundreds of Cisco engineers plus thousands of the brightest innovators in IT — for guidance and advice on the specific IT challenges your company may be facing.
How you can participate @ Cisco Live:
– Technical Education Program
– Cisco Developer Network Services Program
– Service Provider Program
– Industry sessions
– Product sessions, panels, labs and case studies
This is a short resume of my experience @Live. I hope you enjoyed this post and learned more about this great event so you can have the opportunity to attend.
Thanks and see you on my next post!
Rafael Ceara.-
