0:00

I would love to know what exactly

0:02

is a senior technical advocate .

0:07

Why are you guys laughing ?

0:11

This is the Art of Network Engineering

0:14

podcast . In

0:22

this podcast , we explore tools , technologies

0:25

and talented people . We

0:27

aim to bring you information that will expand your

0:29

skill sets and toolbox and share

0:31

the stories of fellow network engineers

0:33

. Welcome to

0:36

the Art of Network Engineering . I am

0:38

AJ Murray and I

0:40

am very excited for this evening . We

0:42

have a couple of fun guests , but before

0:45

we get to them , I want to get to Kevin . Kevin

0:47

, our newest co-host . We let the

0:49

cat out of the bag this week . It's

0:52

public . It was really fun to tell

0:54

everybody on the internet and , of course , by the time

0:56

this episode releases , you'll have already been

0:59

on a few episodes , but as we live

1:01

and breathe , we just told the world that you are

1:03

a co-host of the Art of Network Engineering .

1:05

It was a lot of fun . It's been a fun week . It's been

1:07

a fun week , man . We had the announcement

1:09

that I'm joining as a co-host

1:11

. My episode dropped

1:13

, like last week , so it's

1:15

been a whirlwind of a lot of congratulations

1:18

, people reaching out and going oh , we heard your episode

1:20

. It was so cool , that kind of stuff . So heard the episode

1:22

, it was so cool , that kind of stuff . So it's been a really good week for me

1:24

and I got into Cisco Insider Champions

1:26

for the first time . Congratulations

1:29

, lots of wins for me this week .

1:36

It's a very bittersweet week for me , as I see everybody

1:38

posting those emails like oh , I got it . Unfortunately

1:40

, I work for the competition .

1:41

I can't be a .

1:42

Cisco Insider Champion anymore , so

1:44

it's like I'm on the other side of the window

1:46

waving . I miss you .

1:48

It's okay , AJ . I work for them and I

1:50

can't be a part of it .

1:54

Well , the downside of that is

1:56

, if you actually show up to Cisco Live

1:58

for those events , you get to have dinner with us as

2:00

a champion . So , like it's kind of like , count

2:02

your blessings of what you do and

2:04

don't get to do .

2:05

Be careful what you wish for . I get it Exactly

2:07

.

2:07

Nice Tim , tim

2:10

Bertino , how are you , tim ?

2:11

I'm good , buddy , great to see you

2:13

all . A couple of things , first

2:15

off , I've been trying the

2:19

TikTok thing , and , like many other things in

2:21

my life , I have no idea what I'm doing , but

2:23

but I did get a like

2:25

on one of my videos from a very

2:28

prolific , just one . It was just one , very

2:30

prolific TikToker , is that

2:32

what they're called ? I don't know .

2:35

There is no no doubt Okay .

2:37

But very , very influential

2:39

person , very popular guy

2:42

by the name of adjacent node . If you know who

2:44

he is , I'm not sure , but he seems

2:46

like he knows what he's talking about and I got a video

2:48

like from him . So I got that going for

2:50

me . And secondly , I've

2:52

been trying since about the beginning

2:54

of this year I've been trying to get into the mindfulness

2:57

thing . I got the Fitbit

2:59

and I'm going through the mindfulness app and

3:05

you know they're so the voices on on there , they're so kind and gentle . You know they

3:07

say if you're in the middle of those meditations and they're like you know

3:09

, if your mind starts to wander , that's okay

3:12

, just gently , gently , bring it back

3:14

, don't , don't get upset with yourself . And I'm like

3:16

that's good , because if you didn't say that , I'd be

3:18

cussing myself out because these thoughts are

3:20

like ping pong balls in a blender

3:23

inside my head . But

3:25

no , it's been just trying to

3:27

find balance , that balance that all of us seem

3:29

to be chasing , other than that man . I'm good

3:31

. How are you AJ ?

3:33

I'm doing very well Now . Tim , our

3:35

guests tonight are co-workers of yours . I

3:37

don't want you to go easy on them , though . Don't

3:40

play easy . Play hardball just like you do every

3:42

other guest , please Sure Well

3:49

, and on that note , I am very excited to welcome to the show tonight two senior technical

3:51

advocates from Cisco's Learning and Certifications

3:54

Quinn Snyder and Jason Belk

3:56

. Gentlemen , thank you so much for taking the time

3:58

tonight . You guys are very active

4:00

in our Discord . It's all about the journey . I've

4:03

been wanting to get you on the show for a long time . I'm

4:05

glad you took the first step and reached out . How

4:07

are you guys doing this evening , quinn ?

4:09

Doing great . It's a Thursday

4:11

, we're putting

4:13

the finishing touches on some stuff that we're working on

4:15

internally and ready

4:17

for the weekend , and that mindfulness

4:19

that Tim was speaking about and just being

4:21

able to decompress and put everything

4:23

aside is right around the corner

4:26

, so we're definitely looking forward to that as well . Awesome

4:28

, jason .

4:28

Yeah , I just wanted to mention right off the bat

4:31

long time fan been following you guys since

4:33

early on , and just excited to be here and

4:35

really appreciate just what you're doing for the community to

4:38

make it more accessible and to get

4:40

people who are already invested to that next

4:42

step and people who are just checking it out to understand what

4:44

it really looks like to be in these different industries , because

4:46

it can look really different depending on whether you're

4:48

a network engineer in what we're doing or

4:50

anything in between , really appreciate that , jason

4:53

.

4:53

I do remember I'm pretty sure both of you

4:55

were Patreons early

4:58

on when we did the Patreon thing . I

5:00

do appreciate your support and that

5:02

goes both ways . You guys are here

5:04

to support that mission of what we're doing to help

5:06

people get into this thing and share what

5:09

network engineering careers are all about . So

5:11

thank you very much Right back at you , I

5:13

guess . To start things off , I would

5:15

love to know what exactly

5:17

is a senior technical advocate ?

5:21

Why are you guys laughing ?

5:26

Because sometimes we do good cop , bad cop . I tend to be the

5:28

positive person and Quinn tends to be the

5:30

more realistic person , so I'll give the positive

5:32

spin . A senior technical advocate is

5:34

a more general version of developer relations

5:37

. So if you know DevNet , what

5:39

they historically have done , devnet's

5:41

shifted in what they're doing more on APIs

5:43

Quinn came from the DevNet team , so you can talk more about that

5:45

shifted in what they're doing more on APIs and Quinn came from the DevNet team , so you can talk more about that

5:47

. But basically what we're doing is including network engineering

5:49

, security , all the other aspects

5:51

of not just developer relations but technical

5:53

advocacy . And so we're the go-between

5:55

between the customer , which is all the

5:57

people out there using our products for learning

6:00

certifications . That's our certifications , that's

6:02

our tests , that's that whole learning

6:04

experience our community . We're

6:06

trying to be out there in the community like this and understand what

6:08

people are working with and then taking that feedback

6:10

back to our product teams , trying to make it as best

6:13

as possible and also helping define

6:15

that strategic vision of where we're going for all

6:18

those different technologies On the

6:20

side , doing the typical DevRel stuff , creating

6:22

free content so people can be interested and

6:25

get plugged in .

6:26

And I'm laughing because it's one of those things we

6:29

have kind of an internal joke

6:31

everything's made up and the points don't matter , barring

6:33

from whose line is it anyway ? Advocacy

6:36

is one of those things where you know

6:38

where you're going but you have so many

6:40

different paths to get there . Like Jason was talking about

6:43

, we have the community outreach

6:45

, we have the free content , we

6:47

have the being able to speak at our events

6:49

and things like that . But you're

6:51

able to kind of choose your own

6:53

journey of how you want to get from point A to point B

6:55

so somebody may be more prolific

6:57

in , like the future vision and how we

6:59

get from you know , engage our community

7:02

and drive adoption , engagement . And someone

7:04

like myself , who's you know kind

7:06

of a , an old , you know neckbeard kind of

7:08

person , it's like I enjoy the backend stuff

7:10

. So I'm I love writing tutorials , I love writing

7:12

content and and and

7:14

being able to , to ease the

7:17

, the , the barriers for

7:19

adoption , for people to to consume or

7:21

to produce the things that we , we generate

7:23

, so it ton of things

7:25

and you kind of make it what you want to be . And

7:28

that's why I was laughing , because it's like

7:30

how do you define something that has no real definition

7:32

, except for the end state .

7:34

So it's clear that you guys really I

7:36

mean you'd have to love network engineering if you're going

7:39

to be an advocate for it , right yeah

7:41

? I guess I want

7:43

to go back and now understand what

7:45

got you guys into network engineering

7:47

and what about it is makes

7:50

it such a passion for you that you want to share it with others

7:52

and create content and help people learn , which

7:54

I totally vibe with , by the way , I there's nothing

7:56

I enjoy more than writing a blog

7:58

article and getting feedback that you know . Hey

8:01

, I learned how to do this because

8:03

of something you wrote , kind of thing . So I

8:05

totally vibe with what you guys are saying . Quinn , let's start

8:07

with you .

8:08

Yeah , it's , it's . It's funny

8:11

that you bring this up because I've had some internal

8:13

discussions based on some moves that we've

8:15

had . But I honestly

8:17

got started as a high school student back

8:19

in like 2002 , 2003

8:21

. We were lucky enough to have a networking

8:23

academy and it was that one challenge

8:26

. It was like there

8:28

was an organization called SkillsUSA

8:30

it used to be called VICA that had

8:33

an internetworking competition that was based on the CCNA

8:35

blueprint and we had some gold medal winners

8:37

at the national competition coming

8:40

out of my hometown and it's like

8:42

I want to be one of those people . I want to have my name in

8:44

the paper , I want to be the best and

8:47

, um , you know . So I fought my way through

8:49

uh , my advisor

8:51

who didn't let freshmen in , but I fought my

8:53

way . It is like , hey , I can prove myself , I'm going

8:55

to do this . Um went

8:57

through the CCNA uh curriculum

8:59

as a with as an Etiket student . I

9:02

had my CCNA at 2004,

9:07

. So I must have been I don't know

9:09

14 , probably 15 , bordering

9:11

on 16 , I guess and I

9:13

was like this is what I want to do

9:15

. I had stacks of 2500

9:17

series routers in my house and I was building frame

9:20

relay and ISDN networks and

9:23

I just knew that that's what I wanted to be and out

9:25

of uh , at a high school , I got hired on as a partner and

9:27

, uh , or hired on with a partner and

9:29

did a lot of um , part-time work

9:32

through college and um , uh

9:34

, you know , grew through the ranks there , cut

9:37

my teeth on a lot of projects , brought down

9:39

a lot of networks , which I think is the only way

9:41

that you can learn as a network engineer . If you have not

9:43

brought down prod , you're not a network

9:45

engineer . And

9:48

then moved into kind

9:50

of a development role early on

9:52

when I saw some DevNet presentations in

9:55

like 2015 , 2016, . Saw

9:58

that the writing was on the wall , moved to Cisco

10:00

, was an SE and then , after

10:02

that , was in DevNet . Now I'm here at Learning and Certifications

10:04

. But the reason that I do

10:06

what I do is because

10:08

there are so many people that help me get to

10:10

the point of where I'm at whether it was , you

10:13

know , authors writing books , people

10:15

at the partner that took me under their wing and said

10:18

, hey , let's go break some stuff , let's go like , cut

10:20

your teeth on what it means to write

10:22

config , cut your teeth on what

10:24

it means to write config , being

10:27

able to give back to the community and students and my engagement with the

10:29

Networking Academy . Now those

10:32

are the things that keep me going , that's why I love presenting

10:34

, that's why I love teaching , that's why I love educating

10:37

and that's why I want to espouse

10:39

the virtues of what it means to be a network engineer

10:41

, because it brought me so much success and

10:44

I just want to pay it forward .

10:46

That's awesome . Let's

10:48

go to Jason . How did you get started ? What's

10:50

the network engineer bug that bit you ?

10:54

Yeah , for me it was a journey

10:57

that happened after I joined

10:59

Cisco . You

11:04

know , you just accidentally join the top networking

11:06

company and then become a network engineer . So

11:09

for me I was a computer science undergrad

11:11

at Santa Clara University in the Silicon Valley

11:13

. I realized I wasn't too good at

11:15

coding . I'm a hard worker , but

11:17

when I was looking at pointers and arrays and

11:20

C and C++ and C Sharp , I

11:22

was really struggling . And I think also now that I

11:24

do a lot of teaching , and so I was really struggling , and I think also now that

11:26

I do my teaching , and so I was like man , I love

11:28

technology , I love making things go blank

11:30

, but I don't

11:32

want to have to deal with binary . Obviously

11:35

, networks have that . But anyway , all I have to say is my

11:38

buddy in college , who was a couple

11:40

years ahead of me , was at Cisco as an intern . Gunfall

11:43

was part of the university hiring program and helped me get an

11:45

internship as an IT analyst and

11:48

so I started at Cisco , converted from intern to full-time

11:50

, so my first job out of college was at Cisco as an

11:52

IT analyst . I was doing Excel spreadsheets

11:54

, pivot tables , all the stuff

11:56

that you would expect a Cisco employee to be doing . And

11:59

then one of my other good buddies from Santa Clara

12:01

University was on the network engineering team . One of my other good buddies from Santa Clara University was on the network

12:04

engineering team . I was like man , that seems really cool . You have a terminal , it has

12:06

all fun colors , you look like a hacker . Also

12:11

, the skills you're learning seem really marketable . There

12:13

was a lot of layoffs at the time . This was 2008 , 2009

12:16

. There were layoffs

12:18

that were happening around that time , 2011 . I'd

12:22

been at Cisco for a couple years as an IT analyst so I got my CCNA

12:24

. I was like I want to get into the networking team . I want to have skills

12:26

that are relevant to the industry , no matter

12:29

what , and also it was more interesting to me Because

12:31

I enjoyed the analyst side , interacting with people

12:34

helping data . But also on the other side , I

12:36

enjoyed the technology and wanted to get more technical . So

12:38

from there , basically on the networking team , I was

12:40

on the Cisco IT network operations for

12:42

campus and branch , and so we support all

12:45

Cisco's campus and branch offices , which

12:47

are like 500 , 600 different places all

12:49

over the world , from headquarters in

12:51

San Jose to branch offices down in

12:53

Mexico and all over the world

12:56

.

12:56

I want to stop you there just for a second

12:59

because I would be

13:01

super intimidated to be

13:03

on the IT team supporting

13:05

a networking company like Cisco

13:08

. Can you kind of walk us through what that was

13:10

like ?

13:10

Yeah , I really enjoyed it

13:12

. It was a great learning experience for me because

13:15

there were so many processes already

13:17

in place that I didn't have as

13:19

someone who just was breaking the industry . I was able to kind of fit

13:21

into the grooves . So

13:24

what direction ? Are you curious about the

13:26

devices we were working on ?

13:29

Did you use Cisco ?

13:32

I would think IT people are the worst people

13:34

to have to service .

13:36

That's where I'm going from , Kevin . That's where I'm

13:38

going .

13:40

It was all Cisco , but we did have partner

13:42

sites that had older Cisco equipment , our

13:45

internal refresh cycle . We had newer stuff but we did

13:47

have to work with older equipment that a

13:50

partner DMZ handoff was basically

13:53

never going to upgrade their hardware unless they absolutely had

13:55

to . So we definitely had that same struggle

13:57

of both working with the new and

13:59

working with the old , even within Cisco old

14:02

, even within Cisco and even within Cisco , different hardware platforms . I'd be like

14:04

, okay , this syntax isn't working for my

14:06

3850 versus my 3750

14:08

, if it's stackable , versus there's

14:11

so many different things that come up . And so for me

14:13

, being on that team , it was a learning experience , just

14:15

kind of shadowing people . Initially the

14:17

operations side , I think , helped me realize

14:19

that my troubleshooting skills and then implementation

14:22

side helped me be better at

14:24

operations because I'm like oh so this is how you set

14:26

up a site . So when I'm troubleshooting

14:28

I know where the things are , I know how the architectures are , because

14:30

at the time I was still just

14:32

trying to soak it all in and it took several

14:34

years for me to really understand Cisco's

14:37

network because it was so massive . You know , like this

14:39

is just the campus and branch team and I

14:42

was just trying to learn as much as I can

14:44

. Just the campus and branch team and I was just trying to

14:46

learn as much as I can . So within that role I quickly realized

14:49

that even within network engineering , that

14:52

my strength was more in teaching and making things more efficient

14:55

from an overall process . So

14:57

, going back to the computer science thing , I just know my own

14:59

strengths . I'm technical , but not so technical that

15:01

I'm necessarily going to be the guy that's going to go in the

15:03

dark room and figure it all out . And so

15:05

I started creating documentation

15:07

, helping

15:12

get people to understand what the network looked like , what processes , as

15:14

well as getting into automation . So this is like when Kirk Byers had started his Python

15:16

series before DevNet and all that kind of stuff . So

15:18

I started learning NetMeco , I started learning

15:20

Ansible , I started learning Cisco NSO because it was a

15:22

free product internally for us and

15:28

I actually built an NSO course to teach my other coworkers how to basically abstract

15:30

their configuration as a data model and then basically have Python to then roll

15:32

that out to all the devices , which I didn't realize at the time was

15:34

such a unique way of interacting

15:37

with the network for average networks . And

15:39

I took those skills and published

15:41

the course that I worked with the other employees on

15:43

GitHub to say and mark down this is a

15:45

sample of my work and I saw Network to Code with Jason

15:48

Edelman posted on Twitter . I

15:50

was following him on Twitter at the time and not

15:52

in developer relations , just network engineer . Saw him

15:54

posting hey , we're looking for people . And so I messaged

15:56

him , my course , and actually started working in Network to Code

15:58

for several years , but both a

16:01

little bit on the consulting side , seeing customer sites , which was helpful

16:03

, but primarily on the training side , so helping build

16:05

networked codes , vendor-neutral training

16:07

, and then I worked with Learning Certifications

16:09

with them a little bit , so I got a little exposure there . And

16:12

then I came back to Cisco a few years later because I wanted to

16:14

go back to the bigger life side of things

16:16

, because we were starting a family , we had small

16:18

kids and I didn't want to be traveling all the time

16:20

on the consulting side . But I really enjoy my time

16:22

in all those different roles but that just kind of fit me

16:24

into it , that's really important .

16:26

I do want to . I do want to

16:28

, quinn , I want to go back to your

16:31

story and kind of pick that apart

16:33

a little bit . Being in the

16:35

training and certification realm , you

16:37

talked about kind of how you got your

16:39

start and going through training

16:42

and just learning things on the job and that kind of

16:44

thing . Did you have anybody

16:46

or a group of people that you really looked up

16:48

to or mentored you ? That's part

16:51

one of the question , and the second part would be what

16:53

would be your advice to people that

16:55

are trying to learn more about and break

16:57

into networking today ?

17:00

Yeah , I mean I can roll

17:02

through a litany of people who were like

17:05

hey , I was 18

17:07

, 19 , sitting in there , I was

17:09

responsible At the time . The partner

17:11

had two parts of the business . One was

17:13

the E-rate

17:15

, like Apple laptops

17:18

for all the school districts and stuff like that . So I

17:20

had kind of streamlined the imaging process

17:22

of that and when

17:24

I was waiting for those to complete , you know , people come

17:26

back and say , hey , you know , quinn , what are you doing ? I'm like I'm just

17:28

waiting for this to build . And you know

17:31

there were folks that were CCIEs

17:33

, that were experts in their field . They're like hey , we've

17:35

got to go . You know , replace

17:37

this . You know , set of firewalls

17:40

for the state DMZ or whatever

17:42

. Hey , let's go . You know , just pop in , I'll

17:44

have you back before classes , let's go . You know

17:46

. And

17:48

they were so willing

17:50

to give their time and

17:52

energy and effort and

17:55

give me a chance to really

17:58

to fail Like , and then that , and that's one of

18:00

the things it's like . You know , we , we Hank

18:03

Preston , has talked about a lot of this and is you

18:05

know how to be a network

18:07

engineer in the programmable age talk that he's been doing

18:09

for a while . But you know we treat the

18:12

, the network , as one of these monoliths

18:14

that can never go down , that can never

18:16

break . And so the pressure's there

18:18

on those junior engineers like you can't screw

18:20

up , and if you do , it's a resume-generating

18:23

event and you're done , you're out of the industry , kind of thing

18:25

. And these individuals were like , do

18:28

your thing , I'll check over it . If

18:30

you screw up , blame's on

18:32

me'll , we'll move on from there

18:34

. And that that made such a huge impact

18:36

to me that that , um , that

18:39

, uh , I , I , I

18:41

am . I am here today through

18:44

my trajectory because of the things that those people did

18:46

and and and and my advice

18:48

to to the folks that are are

18:51

trying to break into the industry it's you

18:53

know I get , we've all got to go through a

18:55

grind . We have to do the things . You know , whether it's help desk

18:57

or this network support or network admin

19:00

, like you're just kind of doing VLAN changes

19:02

or MACD stuff , but

19:05

when you can find those people that

19:07

are willing to give their time and energy and effort

19:09

, and they're out there . I mean every industry

19:12

, every corporation , every enterprise has

19:14

those people that are like , yes , I

19:16

want to teach people . I mean

19:18

, you know , jason and I we both talked

19:20

about the . You

19:22

know , we want to teach , like that's why we're doing what we're

19:25

doing , and every industry and every enterprise

19:27

has those people . Find those people , latch

19:29

onto them and let them

19:31

be your sounding board . Like

19:37

, how did you , you know , whether it's figuring out how you , how you did what you did ? Or or , hey

19:39

, I'd like to do this . Can you , can you help provide air cover ? Or , uh , you know , how

19:41

do I get to the next level and how do I grow within

19:44

the role that I'm at ? Or what was your journey and how

19:46

do I emulate that ? Like , there's

19:48

, this is one of those industries

19:50

where we're , we're uh and

19:52

uh and

20:00

we have such a a wealth of knowledge through , you know , tribal experience . And , hey , we've been here

20:02

for 10 , 15 , 20 years . We know where , where things are broken , we know how to work around

20:04

things and and I

20:06

think it's it's especially being

20:08

at cisco and seeing the , the wealth of talent

20:10

and tim you can . You can speak to this as well . It's like there's so many people who are

20:12

willing to give their time . You just got to ask . And because we don't want to , there's so many people who

20:14

are willing to give their time . You just got to ask and because we

20:16

don't want to seem pretentious , we don't want to seem like we know

20:18

it all it's like . But if you come to us and say

20:20

, hey , I want to learn more , we will open

20:23

up the everything and show you what's going

20:25

on .

20:32

So that's don't cool story to tell

20:35

and I think an important one , because , to

20:37

your point there in really

20:39

I was going to maybe single out an industry

20:41

, but really any of them it's . The

20:44

network has become we've talked about this

20:46

many times the network has become a utility

20:48

. It must always be there

20:50

, high , and to

20:53

have that mentorship that

20:55

says , hey , yes , we need

20:57

to be careful , but

21:00

let's practice this , let's lab it . Otherwise

21:03

I think we just we kind of get

21:05

stuck in this spot where we're afraid

21:07

of our shadows sometimes in network

21:10

engineering , and I think anything

21:12

you can do to get your confidence up

21:14

is needed .

21:16

I think paralysis , not being

21:19

able to pull the trigger , sometimes is a

21:21

huge problem in our industry . But I find it really

21:23

interesting . You guys had like opposite

21:25

stories of how you got where you are Like

21:27

the same job , but complete opposite . It seems

21:29

like Quinn , you were like focused

21:31

laser , focused on what you were going to do , and

21:33

Jason kind of like I feel like you kind of just fell into it and

21:36

kind of discovered as you went . So I find that really

21:38

interesting .

21:39

it's it's , yeah , fascinating one other thing

21:41

I wanted to mention is in college I did have one of my favorite

21:43

classes for computer science was the networking

21:46

class and part of the teacher , the professor

21:48

. He just did a great job I'm blanking up his name right now

21:50

but that really impacted me in a positive

21:52

direction to get into networking , in addition to having my

21:54

friend who was a schoolmate on the networking

21:56

team . It just seemed so mysterious because

21:59

I'm like man , there's no way I can learn all this stuff . But I think

22:01

the more that you immerse yourself

22:03

in it and surround yourself with other

22:05

positive people who are trying to do the same thing , like

22:07

this community and also our community help

22:09

facilitate , it just becomes more normal

22:11

, like anything else . If you're trying to get into road biking

22:13

or trying to get into fitness , like , you have

22:15

to have a community that's driving you forward

22:17

and you may or may not , depend on your

22:19

geography have the luxury

22:22

of people who can provide that mentorship

22:24

. Um , so I I in the past five years I

22:26

moved from silicon valley to reno , nevada

22:28

, and like reno has some network engineers

22:30

but there's not no meetups . I mean there's like a general

22:32

it meetup that I try to go to , but it's

22:35

definitely that's one of the things being

22:37

a full-time remote person who's in a city

22:39

that's not as big as the Silicon Valley , like

22:42

having something like this , or like we have

22:44

in our Cisco Learning Network community , just

22:46

has been life-changing for me in

22:48

maintaining my skills and my interest

22:50

in the industry .

22:51

Yeah , very true , good points . I

22:56

feel like it's true , very true , for me , too , where I , other than the coworkers that I've met , I don't

22:58

know a single other IT person in my personal

23:00

life . I'm like the only IT person

23:02

. So having a community whether it's , you know

23:04

, listening to a podcast on the way to work , having

23:06

social media where you're connecting with other engineers , it

23:08

having a community there to support you is , you

23:10

know , you know , very important

23:13

in anyone's career .

23:14

Yeah , that's one thing I hear time and time again , especially

23:16

on this show , is people that

23:19

have been in the industry for a while . They constantly

23:21

say what is out there now

23:23

on different Discord servers

23:25

and on Twitter X

23:28

, whatever , and

23:30

even to an extent on LinkedIn , is people

23:32

wish that these different community

23:35

avenues existed when

23:37

we were first starting . So

23:39

, yep , there's the old guy

23:41

soapbox is already starting , back when we

23:43

had 10

23:45

miles uphill .

23:48

And I would just encourage whoever's listening

23:50

don't feel like you're in a place where

23:53

you can't engage with the community , no

23:55

matter where you're at . If you're just getting started or you're

23:57

all the way up to an expert , your voice is

23:59

going to help make things better , Assuming you're a positive

24:01

person who's trying to assume people's

24:03

best intentions and all that kind of stuff . I

24:05

would just encourage more people

24:07

who are just staying on the sidelines to get involved

24:10

and you never know what your experiences can

24:12

bring to the table to really fill out a

24:14

gap that was you didn't even know was there 100%

24:17

.

24:17

I think that's especially true with social media , where

24:19

you have people who have been in the industry for 20

24:21

years . You have people who seem , like you

24:23

know , as someone who's just starting out . All these

24:25

people are on a pedestal and you're

24:27

kind of afraid to engage because they're so

24:29

much smarter , they know so much and

24:32

I don't want to like be my little hey

24:34

, what's a VLAN kind of thing ? So

24:36

it's super intimidating , but that's how you learn

24:38

, that's how you know everyone who I've ever met

24:40

in social media who is actually

24:42

engaging , where they're actually engaging

24:44

in conversation , discourse . They've been really

24:47

opening , they've been really well like , everyone

24:49

wants to share , everyone loves what we do . You

24:51

know , if you're , if you're a network engineering you've been doing it for 20 years

24:54

you pretty much love what you're doing or

24:56

you move on to something else and so those people

24:58

are very welcoming , want to share their knowledge

25:00

.

25:00

So , yeah , a hundred percent , and I would just say I

25:03

mean the community itself is is fairly

25:05

. I mean it's small enough where

25:07

you will eventually cross paths , and the thing

25:10

like what I'm coming to grips with now

25:12

. What I'm coming to grips with now we're working on a virtual

25:14

event for Cisco

25:16

U , and part

25:18

of the track

25:20

of that is around hands-on exercise

25:24

that you can follow along as someone's presenting , and

25:26

someone who was incredibly

25:28

influential in my early CCNA

25:30

career has written many

25:32

CCNA books . I

25:37

get the privilege of working with that individual on building these tutorials

25:39

right . And so here I am , 20 years later and

25:42

I'm working with this individual on like , here's

25:44

how we use GitOps and here's how you publish things

25:46

in Markdown and here's how this automated

25:48

publishing process works . And it's like the

25:51

world comes full circle

25:54

. You know , and just

25:56

because you don't have strengths in the immediate

25:59

thing you talk about , what is a VLAN

26:01

, kevin ? But everyone brings something unique

26:03

to the table and

26:06

it's an idea of gestalt . I mean the whole

26:08

is greater than some of its parts , and so when we're

26:10

all together , we all learn something new

26:13

and we all

26:15

grow from it , especially .

26:16

Jason , I'll throw this one at you . Being

26:19

a technical advocate

26:21

, I see that as being somebody who

26:23

is definitely public facing

26:26

. You're talking to people all the

26:28

time . Your face is all over the internet

26:30

. You're seen as definitely

26:32

somebody who can help out technically

26:34

, is definitely somebody who

26:36

can help out technically . Was

26:39

there anything you had to do to practice being ready to kind of be in the public eye and

26:41

be out in front of people often ?

26:43

Yeah , I think for me , being

26:46

those two years in Consulting , network to Code helped

26:48

my confidence so much from when I was in

26:50

operations to where I'm at now . It was a

26:52

perfect transitional role

26:54

for me in that I was forced to teach

26:57

classes to clients that were paying

26:59

these consulting fees , whether I was ready or not

27:01

, and

27:03

so everyone liked what I did . But

27:05

my standards of quality , I think , are higher , and

27:08

Network to Code does a great job , not to say whatever

27:10

. My point being is that sometimes

27:12

you have to put yourself out there before you feel

27:14

like you're ready , and that

27:17

was five years ago , and so now

27:20

I have five years of that experience

27:22

where blogs

27:24

, tutorials

27:29

, videos . It's not something that comes naturally for me , but

27:31

it's something that I have such a strong desire to be in the shoes of the person

27:33

who's struggling and to be helping facilitate , to

27:35

reduce that struggle , because for me

27:37

, when I was learning networking and

27:39

especially learning automation , there wasn't

27:42

as many resources out there , and

27:45

so being able to help people in that

27:47

and also just being able to practice communicating

27:49

both those things happen

27:51

at the same time , where I'm both getting better

27:53

at communicating , hopefully in my convoluted

27:55

way of saying that I'm

28:00

just talking myself in a circle , I'd

28:04

say for communication , a lot of it's practice

28:06

and putting yourself out there before you're even ready and

28:09

just being willing to fail in public . It's

28:12

one of those things where , when you're up there on the pedestal

28:14

teaching something , you're like , oh shoot , I forgot what I'm going to say

28:16

next . One of the things that helps

28:18

me is the audience wants you to succeed . Nobody

28:21

sitting in the audience is staring

28:23

at you like , oh yeah , I hope this guy makes five minutes of awkward

28:25

conversation , and

28:28

so for me that's my mindset

28:30

. It's assuming positive intent for my

28:33

audience and I want to make the experience

28:35

that they want to have , and that's helped

28:37

me a lot in stopping myself from psyching

28:39

myself out for whether that's

28:41

a huge webinar or just

28:43

a small meeting with a few people .

28:45

You brought up something there a minute ago

28:47

around the concept of teaching . I

28:50

think some of us we

28:52

think we have an issue with

28:55

really understanding a concept , and

28:57

how do we practice understanding a concept

28:59

, and teaching is a great way to

29:01

do that . I think a fallacy is that

29:04

we think , well

29:06

, I need to be an expert

29:08

in something before I can teach someone

29:11

, and I've learned recently that

29:13

it's quite the opposite . If you're learning

29:15

something , one of the best ways to reinforce

29:17

that learning that I've found is to teach

29:20

it not only to yourself , but to other

29:22

people as well . I'm really glad you called that out

29:24

.

29:24

Yep , and it helps for my own reference . I

29:26

know there's been lots of people who say they write their own blogs

29:29

so that they can teach themselves later when they forget

29:31

, and

29:37

so I'd say that's a big part , too is just some things that you don't do very often , like getting the practice

29:39

of documenting for yourself the process , and that's going to make you better

29:41

as an engineer .

29:42

Quinn , do you have any thoughts on this ? I mean , if

29:44

I were you , I wouldn't have had a problem getting

29:46

out in public . I'd show that beard everywhere .

29:51

I mean it's funny because

29:53

the same thing that Jason

29:55

talks about getting yourself out there it's

29:57

one of the hardest things to

29:59

actually do . You

30:02

know , I was lucky enough

30:04

to be in a position with DevNet

30:06

Granted the world shut down

30:08

shortly after I joined . I do

30:10

believe that I was a cause of some of that , but

30:17

they didn't want to see me travel and present to people

30:19

. That's , that's really the joke there

30:21

. But like I

30:23

mentor , I have mentored several

30:25

people who have gone on to present

30:27

at Cisco Live and to earn the Distinguished

30:30

Speaker Award

30:32

, and one of the things is is

30:34

well , why would someone listen to

30:36

me ? And the thing

30:39

of it is , if you have

30:41

a compelling story , if you have something you really

30:43

are passionate about , it doesn't

30:45

matter the level of expertise that you

30:47

have . That shows through

30:49

. The people that do

30:52

the best in that teaching

30:54

, in that conveyance

30:56

of knowledge , are oftentimes the people

30:59

who are the most . They may not be

31:01

the 100% expert that we strive

31:03

to be , but they're the most passionate . They want to see people

31:05

succeed . They want to see people grow , succeed

31:15

, and you want to give them the knowledge and and and that

31:17

driver and getting out there and and , uh , putting yourself out there in a way

31:20

that seems vulnerable . Uh

31:22

, it's scary . And I , you

31:24

know , usually the the third presentation is

31:26

the best one . You learn how you fail to , you

31:28

learn what you need to tighten up on . And the third one

31:30

is like , okay , now I understand this . Um

31:32

, but yeah , it's , it's , it's

31:35

it's it's scary , it's

31:37

it's nerve wracking , but it's

31:39

, it's so worth it . And and being able to

31:41

put yourself out there and grow and teach is

31:43

what , when you see those nods

31:46

, and you see those head nods and going , oh yeah , that's , that's

31:48

, that's the thing , like that's

31:50

that makes it all worth it .

31:52

One other thing I wanted to mention is that , especially

31:54

early on , for if

31:58

you're in a role that's more public facing , like teaching , just straight repetition

32:00

, when he helps kind

32:02

of reinforce it , then you can kind of do

32:04

some jazz . So

32:07

basically , all that to say is , if

32:09

you know the technology , that's the fundamental part . But then being

32:11

able to communicate the technology , like building your own scripts

32:13

Like I built flashcards for myself that I would

32:15

take walks on and just walk around

32:17

my house for hours and just say

32:19

these are the ballpoints I want to talk about . Here's the slides

32:22

. And it seems kind of silly , but it's

32:24

like what we do in grade school when we're trying to learn our ABCs

32:26

, and so there is sometimes , just

32:29

in terms of understanding , flow when you're first getting

32:31

into it , like now , I'm able to just make

32:33

PowerPoint slides and mostly talk to them without

32:35

rehearsing as

32:37

much , depending on the topic . But

32:39

I'd say , especially if you're trying to break into a

32:42

more public facing role or a teaching role , it

32:44

both includes just practicing

32:46

without an audience , practicing in front of the mirror you know

32:48

all the silly things that people say . It really does make

32:50

a difference .

32:52

So talking about performing and being in front of people , now

32:55

this might be a dumb question , but where would

32:57

a normal network engineer person

32:59

see you guys or see what you

33:02

write ? Where

33:04

would someone run into you ? Is it like you

33:06

come to a business and you talk to people ? Is it

33:08

events that people come to you ? How does this work ?

33:11

There's a couple of different venues . I mean we

33:13

obviously do a lot of events . So

33:16

all the Cisco Lives . We have

33:18

this Cisco Learning and Certifications

33:20

area at the Cisco Live

33:22

you know US , melbourne

33:25

or Australia , I guess , abjc , and then

33:27

Europe . We have the

33:29

Cisco Youth Theater . All of us present

33:32

there . We do outside

33:34

things with DevNet or certification

33:37

breakouts , things like that . We do virtual

33:39

events , we do outreach of

33:42

things . We're starting

33:44

to become a little bit more customer-facing but

33:47

we're not doing that in the

33:49

role of the presentation

33:52

like we would at Cisco Live and getting ourselves out there

33:54

and teaching and education Cisco U

33:56

. We have a lot of tutorials that myself

33:58

and Jason have written . You

34:01

can see who wrote them . There's

34:04

some attribution there so you can see those . We

34:07

do webinars , we do virtual

34:09

events like the Cisco U Spotlight

34:11

, we do things one-offs

34:13

and stuff , so that's probably the best way to catch us in

34:16

our education .

34:17

And a couple other avenues that I'd mention is

34:19

that we have the CLN Cisco Learning Network online

34:22

community where we're active looking

34:25

at people's questions . We have a lot of great other

34:27

community members who are very active on there , and

34:30

so CLN is a great place as

34:32

well . As we have our own YouTube

34:34

channel that we since we've joined the team

34:37

in the past couple of years that , if you haven't checked out the

34:39

Cisco U YouTube

34:41

channel , that's a great thing too where we're posting

34:44

tutorial videos on what's called the

34:46

U , which is a YouTube playlist of basically

34:48

free walkthrough tutorials . Quinn has one

34:50

on Terraform , we have ones on Git , we have ones

34:52

on security network engineering , so

34:56

it's not just DevNet stuff . We're trying to cover all the different

34:58

aspects of learning certifications , all the different

35:00

technologies on all the different

35:02

social media platforms , aligning with our

35:04

marketing team , as well as the

35:07

new certifications we're making and existing ones .

35:09

Awesome , that's great . When I think of Cisco

35:11

U , I just think of signing up for that . I

35:13

actually just did it , that's probably what's on my mind . But signing

35:16

up for that , I actually just did it , that's probably what's on my mind . But signing up

35:18

for the all-access pass , that's like 60 learning credits and you get

35:20

that year pass . That's all behind a paywall , though , or at least

35:22

most of it is , so

35:26

it's great that there's some options there for people

35:29

who are interested in looking at YouTube and that kind of

35:31

stuff .

35:31

Yeah , and

35:36

just to say that with Cisco U . So yes , there is stuff

35:38

that's behind the paywall , but the things that Jason and

35:40

myself and other folks create around tutorials , they're free to

35:42

everybody , so not the same level of in-depth . Well

35:45

, they're in-depth , but it's not a cohesive

35:47

plan . So when you go through Cisco U

35:49

and you click on a course , there's a lot

35:52

of different aspects and you go through a lot of the lessons

35:54

and it could be eight hours worth of

35:56

content for that one thing . The tutorials

35:58

that we create they're 20 to 45 minutes , but

36:00

they're always free and sometimes

36:02

they're a little bit more targeted around

36:05

a specific topic . Um , you know , maybe

36:07

I just need to learn something about Ansible or something specific about

36:09

Terraform , or maybe I want to learn how to

36:11

use VI or whatever Like . Those things are

36:13

free and it's very targeted , so you

36:15

don't have to sift through the entire portfolio . Those

36:19

things are available .

36:20

I had no idea . I'll be checking them

36:22

out .

36:23

We don't have any associated lab infrastructure for

36:26

those free tutorials yet , but you can scroll

36:28

through the steps and understand , or

36:31

maybe use one of the DevNet sandboxes I

36:33

definitely highly recommend . If you haven't checked

36:35

out the Cisco U tutorials , it's a treasure trove

36:37

of them . We've been making them for several years

36:39

now and we're just now getting to the point where we have enough

36:41

momentum that we're marketing the more , finding more ways

36:43

to get the word out on , like

36:46

he said , all the way from VAM app dynamics . I'm

36:49

working on some Splunk ones right now . That'll hopefully

36:51

be out by the time this is released . So we're

36:53

trying to do moment of need , anywhere

36:56

from 10 minutes to an hour step-by-step

36:58

instructions that are getting people interested

37:00

and looking at Cisco U and diving

37:02

deeper into the rest of our offerings

37:04

.

37:05

So I kind of want to dive into that a little bit

37:07

more . Around

37:09

your day-to-day right . So you're both senior technical

37:11

advocates . Do you get to pick and

37:13

choose the things that you want to create content around

37:16

? Do you work within a vertical

37:18

? For example , do you focus on

37:21

data center and then do you focus on enterprise

37:24

? How do you come up with

37:26

the content you're going ?

37:27

to create . So , in terms of expertise , we

37:29

have a spreadsheet between the three of us of

37:31

stack ranking who's most comfortable

37:33

with which technology , and so we kind of covered them

37:35

all . But

37:37

when it comes to the tutorials , we

37:42

have people who are both instructors within the learning certifications that contribute

37:44

, as well as within the broader Cisco community

37:48

of employees , whether that's TMEs

37:50

, engineers , stuff like that . But

37:53

for our day-to-day , I'd say

37:55

it's pretty similar between

37:58

the three of us myself , quinn and Kareem . It's

38:00

a mixture of forward-looking

38:02

, of okay , are we

38:05

creating enough content to cover the different

38:07

themes that we're looking at ? So we have different monthly

38:09

themes that we're aligning to our marketing pushes from

38:13

Learning Certifications has its own marketing team that are great

38:15

, and so we want to make sure that what we're doing

38:17

is amplified out in the community in terms of the

38:19

different technologies , and so we're creating different

38:22

tutorials on those topics as

38:24

well as helping review blueprints

38:26

. So , like last week , I was looking at CCNP service

38:29

provider blueprints and we had a bunch of people on the call and we were

38:31

those voices saying you know , yes , let's include

38:33

this technology , let's not include that technology

38:35

and stuff like that . Quinn , are there any

38:38

other ones you wanted to chime in on . I don't want to hog up all their time

38:40

.

38:41

No , no , it's fine . I spend a lot of my time

38:44

working on

38:46

. I enjoy the creation

38:48

, I enjoy the engagement working on the

38:50

blueprints and things that Jason mentioned . I

38:52

spend a lot of time kind

38:54

of doing some internal consensus , getting

38:56

people on board . So , as Jason said

38:59

, we solicit feedback from

39:01

other VEs that we have

39:03

within Cisco . I do a lot

39:05

with our internal publishing around our tutorials

39:07

. So I'm constantly tweaking all the

39:09

GitHub action stuff that we use to publish

39:11

all that . So I get to get my hands dirty with

39:13

some of the code . And

39:16

then there's a portion of what we do

39:18

that's kind of I guess it's

39:20

demand driven content

39:22

type stuff . So it's like , okay , we have this new

39:24

idea , let's go and run a thousand miles

39:26

an hour , put all the stuff that you're working

39:29

on into a box and work on that for four hours

39:31

, and the other four hours of the day you're going to do this new thing

39:33

that we're working on . So sometimes that's Cisco live

39:35

content . Sometimes that's hey

39:37

, we have this harebrained idea to do a

39:40

new virtual event and let's get off the ground as

39:42

we launched that completely from from uh

39:44

scratch . Sometimes it's it's uh

39:47

, you know , acquisitions that we have . Okay

39:49

, now we've got to suddenly bring on this whole

39:51

new series , a community of learners , and bring

39:53

them into our platform . So , um , you

39:55

know , we we try in earnest to plan

39:57

our day as best as possible , but sometimes

40:00

it gets derailed by new things that come up .

40:02

So it sounds like you're still a typical IT worker

40:05

. I remember trying to plan my days out

40:07

, and then it gets completely derailed by something

40:09

else , so you're not immune to that . That's good to hear For

40:12

both of you . What's your absolute favorite

40:15

topic to nerd out on , like

40:17

when you think about the content you've got to create

40:19

, what just really gets those creative juices flowing

40:22

? I'll start with you , jason .

40:27

Sure , for me it's probably either Ansible or NSO . Those

40:31

two things were just foundational for me in terms of seeing configuration

40:34

as something that , at scale

40:36

, was not something that I need to be scared of , because

40:40

when I was at Cisco IT there

40:42

was firewalls that had , let's just say

40:44

, so many ACLs in place

40:46

that you couldn't hit spacebar enough to go

40:48

through them all and

40:53

devices were crashing because of RAM hundreds of thousands of them , anyway . So all that to

40:55

say is being able to have automation that could work

40:58

with that and I could just say for each

41:00

ACL in the Swiss iterate

41:02

, is this IP present ? Check the port . For

41:04

each ACL in the Swiss iterate , is this IP present

41:06

? Check the port . So

41:08

I think for me , those two topics really hit home for me as something that if you talk about

41:10

whatever you want , you're probably going to see something from Ansible or NSO

41:13

for me , Nice Quinn

41:15

.

41:16

For me . I have this

41:18

soft spot in my heart for

41:20

either Terraform I'm

41:23

just a huge Terraform fan , I do a lot of

41:26

stuff around that or , honestly

41:28

, anything DC networking related . So all

41:30

the ACI , vxlan

41:33

, deep dive stuff . I

41:35

cut my teeth with a lot of that back when I was

41:37

working at a partner doing a lot of big multi

41:39

or massively scalable data centers was

41:41

I think the term back in the day . Or massively scalable

41:44

data centers was I think the term back

41:46

in the day Doing

41:50

BGP as an IGP to scale out tens of hundreds of

41:52

racks and things like that . So those are the things .

41:58

When I get deep into DC technology , DC networking , I'm like , yeah , this feels

42:00

like home . I have a very selfish question , and it

42:03

may or may not be because

42:05

of the role I just recently took , but

42:08

my question is around

42:10

what would your advice be for

42:12

someone who wants to remain

42:15

technical , isn't necessarily

42:17

on the keyboard every day in customer

42:19

environments , working for a partner , that

42:22

kind of thing ? What are some ways of

42:24

keeping skill sets up to date ?

42:26

I think for me , that looks

42:28

like a mixture of forcing yourself

42:31

to volunteer for projects that

42:33

you don't have time for , but you kind of

42:35

need to stay relevant

42:37

. So it's just like when you're in

42:39

IT and your operations I have so

42:41

much time in order to push myself

42:43

, sometimes you do have to put in extra time , I'm not going to lie . But

42:46

on the other side , I'd say , finding

42:48

use cases that inspire you to actually use

42:51

the technology . So I've been playing

42:53

around with generative AI

42:55

and chat , gpt and stuff like that and

42:57

it's kind of gotten me inspired back in . Okay , what can I do

42:59

to now integrate that into my existing technology

43:02

stack ? So I'd say , finding new things that are developing

43:04

that integrate , maybe , in with existing

43:06

skill sets that force you to relearn

43:09

them and stay up to date and then reimagine

43:11

them in a new context .

43:13

Oh , that sounds good . What do you got for me , Quinn ?

43:16

Yeah , that's a tough one . I mean because I

43:18

came from the world where everything

43:21

was a fire drill , like , hey , you have to go do

43:23

this for another customer , and so it's a

43:25

muscle that I've struggled

43:27

to work on because I've

43:29

so focused on my day-to-day . But

43:32

I really agree with Jason , it's one of those things where it's like

43:34

the

43:37

previous question was talking about , what's the thing that you

43:39

absolutely love to nerd out on , and I think

43:41

we all have those topics love to

43:43

nerd out on , and I think we

43:46

all have those , those topics . And and you , you

43:48

, yes , there are certifications or you know , maybe you want to go

43:50

for this , uh , role that covers only this specific technology or

43:52

whatever , and you have to . You have to do that toil . You've got

43:54

to put in the work , you've got to study things that

43:56

you , you don't necessarily , or

43:58

you have to learn things you don't necessarily want

44:00

to learn . But finding , finding

44:03

what motivates you , like what are you really interested

44:06

in ? And and that not

44:08

to make your , your hobbies and

44:10

your , your interests , like into a job

44:12

, but it makes that studying , it makes

44:14

that that learning , it makes that labbing a

44:17

heck of a lot easier than than , okay

44:20

, I've got to go , like if you were to say I've got to go study

44:22

call manager for the next six months , you

44:24

are going to have the most miserable person

44:26

in the world for the next six months

44:29

. But you know , if

44:31

it's something like I said , dc networking , like

44:33

I'll dive into it and learn it , no matter what . So

44:35

you find those things that you're just didn't , latch onto them and

44:37

and then maybe dabble your toes in the

44:39

other tangential pieces that you need to cover . No

44:42

offense to any of the call manager people , by the way , but

44:45

it's just not me , sorry , sorry guys .

44:49

You're in good company . I've done call

44:51

manager , yeah yeah , accurate , very

44:53

accurate .

44:54

So , being in the

44:56

learning and certification realm , how

44:59

would you say ? Certifications

45:01

have changed over the last

45:04

10 years . Is the impact

45:06

any different ? Is it more ? Do you think

45:08

it's less ? What do you think , jason

45:10

? I'll start with you Sure .

45:13

Yeah , I still see certifications all over

45:16

job requirements . So people are still

45:18

looking for people to

45:20

be certified for network engineering

45:22

roles and I

45:25

think , startups and things like that . Obviously they're

45:27

more cloud-focused and you

45:29

need to have a more broad skill set , and

45:31

Cisco recently had a multi-cloud cert that we came

45:34

out with as well as cloud security one that folks

45:36

could definitely check out . So , I'd

45:38

say , being relevant for your certifications

45:40

, I'd say make sure you're doing technologies that

45:42

are relevant to where the industry is going , so

45:45

picking topics and

45:48

technologies that interest you and

45:51

making sure that you're putting

45:53

in the time to learn it well enough that you're able to

45:55

pass the test and all that kind of stuff . So , yeah

45:57

, it's hard for me to say exactly how they change because

45:59

, at least from my perspective , they're still relevant . That's

46:02

why I joined the learning certification team to

46:04

help get the word out there . It

46:06

helped me in my career so much and

46:08

big corporations haven't changed

46:10

that much in 10 years In my experience . Yes

46:12

, the small startups are going to be doing small

46:14

startup things , but Bank of America

46:17

, the US government , other

46:20

big corporations outside of the US

46:22

long list they're still

46:24

expecting their employees , the people , to

46:26

be certified or at least

46:28

be pursuing certifications to improve their career

46:30

in different ways if you're going to be a technical person . So

46:34

I'd say sometimes the hype train is like , oh

46:36

, certifications might not be as relevant , or

46:38

I can just do skills . You should do both . I don't

46:40

see them as exclusive . I have

46:42

small kids so I haven't been doing as many certifications . Recently

46:44

I did pass DevCore

46:46

around the new year with

46:49

a baby . It was a lot of work . So I'll just say that

46:51

Understand where you are in your phase of life

46:53

and understand that

46:55

you can do passive learning versus

46:57

like hey , I need to go for this certification depending

46:59

on what your free time looks like .

47:01

Yeah , that's such a good call out , Because I

47:03

think with social media , we

47:05

just see a lot . You see a lot of the

47:07

wins and when people do

47:09

the things that they want to get done , but you

47:12

don't always see the struggle , and I'm glad

47:14

that you framed that in

47:16

a realistic way of make

47:19

sure that you know where you're at in

47:21

your life , and not only yourself but

47:23

your family and your support system . You

47:26

can't always just look out for yourself . Yeah

47:28

, so what do you think , Quinn ? Where do you think

47:30

certifications have come in the last 10 years

47:32

and what's ? Has the impact changed

47:34

at all ?

47:35

I don't think so I don't think the impact has

47:37

changed . I still remember a conversation

47:39

I had must

47:42

have been around 2006 , 2007,

47:44

. Before the Nexus

47:46

line really hit it big and I was talking

47:49

to someone who was a CCIE

47:51

voice and they said great , you're

47:53

a route switch guy , but you've got to pick a specialty . You've got

47:55

to deep dive into something Security , you've

47:58

got to get into the voice thing . You've got to maybe

48:00

I think they saw this there might have been a storage

48:02

networking at the time or it might have been ISP dial . You've got to . Maybe , I think there might have been a storage networking at the time or might have

48:04

been ISP dial . You've got to

48:06

specialize . And

48:09

shortly thereafter I remember

48:12

the Nexus coming out and then the data center

48:14

space blowing up . This is Cisco's new

48:16

big thing , how they're going to scale the data

48:18

center . And RouteSwitch was cool

48:20

again . You could be a guy who was

48:22

completely focused in RouteSwitch

48:25

and have a very lucrative career

48:27

. And then

48:29

you've gone through the flows of hey , now

48:31

we have a lot of these different specializations

48:34

, now we've got cloud , now we've got , you

48:36

know , the integrations of security

48:39

and network , or maybe you've got cloud and security

48:41

or cloud and connecting them to on-prem . I don't think that the relevance of a certification

48:43

has changed . Let's put it that way work . Or maybe you've got cloud and security or cloud and connecting them to on-prem . I don't think that

48:45

the relevance of a certification

48:47

has changed . Let's put it that way Like

48:50

certifications still bring something

48:52

to the table that says to someone I know these

48:54

things and I can be trusted

48:57

to implement them . I think the

48:59

difference is it's okay to

49:01

not have to specialize anymore . You

49:03

can be someone who is maybe

49:05

I do a little bit of cloud , maybe I do a little bit of security

49:08

, maybe I've got some certs in enterprise

49:10

networking or whatever . Maybe they're

49:12

not all of one vendor . You

49:14

know , hey , we've got a multi-vendor environment . I might

49:16

know one wireless vendor and one

49:18

SASE vendor and one networking vendor

49:21

. Obviously it should all

49:23

be Cisco because of who pays my paycheck . But

49:28

you can diversify and not have to go

49:30

. I mean obviously , yes , ccies , they're still

49:33

irrelevant and I will never like

49:35

they have achieved a level that I

49:37

have not gotten to yet . But

49:39

it's okay to say we can be professional or

49:41

we can have specializations in a lot of different categories

49:44

, and that's okay too , and that's a perfectly acceptable okay to say we can be professional , or we can have specializations

49:46

in a lot of different categories and that's okay too and that's a perfectly acceptable

49:48

journey to say I've got some programming

49:50

skills and some security and some enterprise networking

49:53

and I'm completely okay with that . I don't need

49:55

to go all in on security because it

49:58

could die . I mean to Jason's

50:00

point , it could shift drastically

50:03

in a few months .

50:05

And the skills of networking still apply

50:07

. I mean , regardless of what company you're at

50:09

, they're going to need a network and

50:12

if you want to get into networking , certifications

50:15

I think are one of the most structured ways to do

50:17

that , if you don't already have a networking job , to be able to say

50:19

what's the laundry list of things that I

50:21

need to know to get into this industry . Like , my

50:23

wife is just getting to be a real estate agent . She passed the real

50:25

estate exam . It's that type of stuff Like it's

50:27

good to have learning pathways

50:29

that are clearly defined for people . So

50:32

so that way we're we're not gatekeeping , we're

50:34

saying anybody can come in and if

50:36

this is exciting to you , like you can contribute

50:38

. Love that , yeah .

50:40

Yeah , I love that . Yeah , yeah , I love that . I want

50:42

to take a minute because we've been talking about community so

50:44

much this episode to remind people to go check out

50:46

the us and uacom . They

50:48

are not a sponsor , we just love the US

50:51

and UA . Tim is a NUG

50:53

leader out in Nebraska . He's got

50:55

his first meeting coming up . I'm

50:57

also a NUG leader here in

50:59

Vermont . We've got another meeting coming up here real soon

51:01

. It's a great opportunity to get together

51:03

with fellow network engineers . Just nerd

51:05

out , have a good time . If you don't

51:08

have a USNUA in your area , you

51:10

should think about starting one up . Go

51:13

to usnuacom , sign up to be

51:15

a member of a local community , or you can

51:17

inquire to start one

51:19

in your area today . If you have any

51:22

questions about that , you can definitely hit up myself

51:24

or Tim . We'll be happy

51:26

to guide you along . Guys , I

51:28

cannot believe how quickly this hour has flown

51:30

by . Before we start

51:32

to wrap things up , I want to throw our favorite

51:34

question out . Is there anything that

51:37

we should have asked you or that you want

51:39

to bring up and talk about before we close this thing

51:41

?

51:41

I would say something about beard care , but I

51:43

feel like it would be lost on the audience right

51:46

now .

51:46

I'm good , I'm good .

51:51

For me , I'd say both of us , including Kareem , are

51:54

going to be at Cisco Live US . If you're going to be at Vegas

51:56

, come to the Learning Asserts booth . Check

51:58

out our Cisco U Theater sessions . We'd

52:00

love to meet you . Tell us that you heard about us on this

52:02

podcast or wherever you heard about um

52:04

, our content . Check out the cisco you tutorials

52:07

. Uh , you don't need to pay for it , but you do

52:09

need to register , and so that

52:11

that'd be my two plugs come and say hi and

52:14

go learn some new things I

52:16

love it .

52:16

I love it . Uh , we , we do talk a lot

52:18

about mental health here on the art of network engineering

52:20

podcast . I want to ask you both what

52:23

do you do to keep yourself

52:25

in balance ? You know , does

52:27

it ? You break away from tech in

52:29

your free time and do something a little bit different ? Quinn

52:31

, I know you're a bit of a photographer . I enjoy

52:34

seeing what you post . What else do you

52:36

do to help keep yourself balanced ?

52:39

It may not look like it from my figure , but I

52:41

love road cycling . I

52:44

usually do between uh , between

52:46

four and 700 miles a month . Um

52:48

, get out in the morning and and just

52:51

enjoy . Uh

52:53

, if I get out early enough , I avoid

52:55

all of the traffic in suburbia

52:57

and just put on a podcast and

52:59

and just kind of find my Zen

53:01

and cruise for a couple of hours and and

53:04

just enjoy . It's

53:06

one of those things where , where I enjoy what

53:09

I'm doing and then I look back on it it's like , wow

53:12

, I went a long , a long distance . Or I look

53:14

at the map it's like that was a , that was quite a ride

53:16

and and just get to reflect

53:18

on that and that that keeps me grounded a lot , because

53:20

it's something completely disconnected

53:22

from everything I do in my day to day .

53:24

That's great . Wow . 400 to 700 miles

53:26

a month , that's crazy , amazing , jason

53:28

. How about you ?

53:30

And I just want to add before I say mine , I

53:32

kind of pseudo-stalk Quinn in your

53:34

Discord channel because

53:41

he posts all the time about his biking in there

53:43

. It's fun for me , anyway . So my mental health for me , mental health is both

53:46

being creative and for that

53:48

I enjoy playing Magic the Gathering , and so that's like

53:50

a trading card game where you can create your own decks

53:52

and battle each other and stuff . So I play in person with friends

53:54

here as well as online , and they're

53:56

constantly coming out with new sets

53:58

and stuff . So it forces me to reinvent

54:00

the ways that I'm interacting with other players and

54:04

it's not just a little boxy , which is nice

54:06

. Um , and I've also been

54:08

enjoying Nintendo switch . I'd say that's the other big thing

54:10

. I've just been playing retro games , games from high school

54:12

that now are on the switch . Like that's been huge for me , just like

54:14

my wife and I were chilling recently watching love is blind

54:16

and and playing

54:18

, playing games on the switch . So that helps

54:21

me a lot .

54:21

I love it . Well , if our listeners want

54:24

to find more from you , where

54:26

can they find you ?

54:27

Jason , you can find me on LinkedIn for

54:29

Reno Belk , as well as Twitter X Reno

54:31

Belk , and go on the Cisco

54:33

Learning Network CLN community , and you can as

54:36

well find me . There's two .

54:37

Awesome . Quinn and I am at QSnyder

54:40

on all the socials , so LinkedIn

54:42

, twitter , x

54:44

, github , which I think is the

54:46

best social network out there , and

54:50

you can see what you can call . You leave comments and pull

54:52

requests by really bad code . And

54:55

then obviously , on Cisco

54:57

U and all the Cisco live events . I'm

54:59

more than happy . I'm usually pretty busy

55:02

running around , but you can catch me at some point

55:04

.

55:09

Awesome . We will have links to all your socials and everything that we discussed in the show notes

55:11

for this episode , so make sure you check there . Gentlemen , thank you so much for joining

55:13

us tonight . This has been such a fun conversation

55:16

, and I want to sign off by saying

55:18

I'm AJ Murray and I'm

55:20

reminding you to take the time to take care

55:22

of your mind . Thanks for joining us . Hey

55:26

everyone , this is AJ . If you like what you heard today

55:28

, then make sure you subscribe to our podcast and your

55:30

favorite podcatcher . Smash that bell

55:32

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55:34

. Also , follow us on Twitter and

55:36

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55:39

Net Eng . That's Art of N-E-T-E-N-G

55:42

. You

55:49

can also find us on the web at artofnetworkengineeringcom , where we post all of our show notes

55:51

. You can read blog articles from the co-hosts and guests and also a lot more

55:53

news and info from the networking

55:55

world . Thanks for watching .