0:00

I can't imagine , you know , having a one year

0:02

kind of a intensive thing

0:04

and going into environment and being like , OK , these are the solutions

0:07

you need , and you know , it blows my mind that

0:09

you could even do that .

0:10

Well , and it's , it's a lot of you

0:12

know you're , you're

0:15

me , I would never walk in and recommend

0:17

something I'm not comfortable with or that I

0:19

don't understand fully . I've

0:25

straight up told some of my customers like , hey , can I lab this with you or can

0:27

I work on this more with you so I understand it better

0:29

, before we move forward . Because , again , no one's

0:31

an expert in everything , no matter how long you've

0:33

been in the field and no , quite

0:36

frankly , no , a year is not enough to

0:38

know everything under the sun . But

0:41

that's part of being an SE right Saying

0:44

you don't know when you don't know , being honest

0:46

and just being I don't want to call it like

0:48

a servant to your customer , but making

0:50

sure that they have a good experience and you're

0:52

helping them technically with

0:55

all of the resources you have at your disposal where

0:57

you can .

0:58

This is the art of network engineering

1:00

engineering

1:03

podcast

1:08

In this podcast we explore tools

1:11

, technologies and talented people . We

1:18

aim to bring you information that will expand your skill sets and toolbox and share

1:20

the stories of fellow network engineers . Welcome

1:22

to the Art of Network Engineering podcast

1:24

. My name is Andy Laptev and

1:27

tonight is a special one . Folks , this is

1:29

going to be awesome . I just felt myself

1:31

wake up . I was tired .

1:32

I'm not tired anymore . You could tell immediately .

1:34

It just happened . Tonight

1:37

, I am joined by Kevin . This

1:39

is embarrassing , is it Nans ? Yeah

1:41

, nans , we got it . Thank God , kevin Nans

1:43

, also known as the adjacent node . How are

1:45

you , kevin ? I'm doing well , I'm tired too .

1:47

It's been a long week .

1:49

The old guys are tired .

1:50

It's been a long day and we're just trying to do the podcast thing . You can't keep up

1:52

with these young kids anymore , man .

1:58

These whippersnappers on their tiki-takis got to say that

2:00

intro was a lot more intense than I expected

2:02

.

2:04

It's got some riffs on it .

2:08

Yeah , the voice that you heard . If

2:10

you don't know this person , you

2:12

have been living under a rock . We are

2:14

joined tonight by the living legend

2:17

, the one and only Alexis Bertholf

2:19

. How you doing , Alexis ?

2:21

I'm doing great , Andy . How are you ?

2:23

Good . Thank you for joining us . I know you're like

2:25

moving in the morning and you have

2:27

boxes and I really

2:29

appreciate your time that you just you know you're giving

2:31

us . To do this in the middle of your Moving's

2:33

no fun , right ? Moving's the worst I don't enjoy

2:36

it .

2:37

Yeah , it's a new start . It's a fresh start Trying to see

2:39

the glass .

2:40

Come on , that's half full , I love it

2:43

.

2:43

No , it's terrible . You can say it's

2:45

the worst thing .

2:46

It's been . Yeah , the past week has been rough , but it's fine

2:48

. Tomorrow , some people are going to come to my house

2:50

and take all of these boxes away , so that's

2:53

so nice .

2:54

That's . That's the way to do it .

2:56

Um so

3:09

for the folks living under rocks that don't ? Alexis , do you want to give us , like a high level

3:12

, who you are , what do you do , where are you at , and then we'll dig in ? Yeah , absolutely . Hi y'all . My name

3:14

is Alexis Berthoff . I'm currently a solutions engineer at Cisco . I've been here for about three

3:16

years . I support customers that are based out of the Washington DC

3:18

area in our commercial

3:20

segment and , just

3:23

because I feel like I have to say this , anything I say

3:25

over the next hour is not . It's solely

3:27

my own opinion , it's not representative

3:29

of my employer .

3:32

I always laugh when I see that on . Like the Twitter social profiles

3:34

, like these opinions are mine , and they're not like you

3:37

know .

3:37

I'm not trying to get myself fired , man , Listen

3:40

.

3:40

as a guy who said something not smart on

3:42

socials . Working at a vendor , I

3:45

get it . I don't know if that little

3:47

disclaimer would have saved me from

3:49

the dumb thing , but yeah , it's a good

3:51

thing to have

3:56

up

3:58

there . So we

4:00

have a lot to talk about , right , and I think a good

4:02

place to start would be how you got into the networking

4:05

field , because you're not a network engineer

4:07

by trade . I don't really know too much of your

4:10

comeuppance . I don't know if you were into tech

4:12

or if your family was in this stuff or if you were building PCs

4:14

, but can you kind of walk us through

4:16

. You know aerospace is in

4:18

there , right . So that's what I really want to touch on . But I

4:20

mean , how do you what's your arc look like ? How did

4:23

you get to Alexis

4:25

?

4:25

My villain origin story . So

4:28

I grew up in Scranton , pennsylvania

4:31

, if you're familiar with the office

4:33

, and I'm a first generation college student

4:35

. So I was the first one in my family to

4:37

go to school . My dad used

4:40

to sell furniture , my dad is in

4:42

, or my mom is an orthodontist assistant

4:44

and I , I

4:46

don't know . I did good in school and you know , if you're

4:48

a girl and you do good at math and science

4:50

, everyone your senior year of high school is like oh my

4:53

God , go be an engineer . And

5:00

that's kind of what I did . I wanted to get out of Pennsylvania and so I picked something

5:02

as far away as I possibly could and decided to go to school at Embry-Riddle

5:04

Aeronautical University in Florida . I

5:07

chose aerospace just because it sounded cool

5:09

. I mean , you could go for mechanical

5:11

engineering , but aerospace engineering sounds way

5:13

cooler . Yeah , of course , there was no

5:16

rhyme or reason behind it

5:18

. My family didn't travel a ton when

5:20

I was little and I always said I wanted to be a pilot growing

5:22

up until I learned that I have terrible

5:24

eyesight and being

5:26

a pilot like flight training is really , really

5:28

expensive , and so I

5:30

felt like I was kind of picking the next best thing right

5:33

. School was great . I really

5:35

enjoyed studying and

5:37

my classes and stuff . But

5:39

when I got to my senior year

5:41

I had a couple internships

5:43

during school . I was super lucky

5:46

. I landed great internships with GE

5:48

Aviation and the Navy and then

5:50

with Boeing , and every summer

5:52

I walked away .

5:53

Wait , wait , wait , wait , you were in school

5:55

already . And you just nailed those . There's

5:57

some big name like yeah , it's like

5:59

summer internships . How smart are you

6:02

? Boeing is like yeah .

6:07

I went to a school that was tailored towards the aerospace industry , right

6:09

, um , not that . Not that it was super , super

6:11

common for kids to nail those , but those were the

6:13

companies that came to recruit at our career

6:15

are you like a super math brain , like you're good

6:17

at all the math it used to it used to be man not

6:19

anymore . You lose that .

6:21

You lose that so quick her first

6:23

networking networking job was at Cisco too . So

6:25

I mean like it's not like I

6:27

know .

6:28

I went to aerospace and did an internship at the biggest

6:30

aerospace company there is . I

6:32

sauntered into networking and I'm for Cisco

6:34

. Anyway , continue

6:37

. I'm sorry , I interrupted , no , y'all

6:39

are so kind .

6:45

But yeah , every summer I just kind of walked away from my internships and I was like I don't

6:47

know if I could see myself doing this the rest of my life . And I I worked

6:49

in design and then I worked um on

6:52

a little bit of the maintenance side and then I went back to design

6:54

and I walked away from Boeing

6:56

and don't get me wrong , like what I did was

6:59

so cool . I was working on the advanced

7:01

concepts team , um , which is like the

7:03

the planes that haven't come out

7:05

yet . I like kind of bounced between

7:07

them and the . I

7:09

think it was called like the safety analyst

7:11

.

7:12

Did you meet the aliens at Area 51 ?

7:16

No , but it just it

7:18

wasn't what I wanted to do . I felt like I kind of

7:20

sat at a desk and tapped away at buttons and

7:22

if anyone is listening to

7:24

this and they kind of feel the same way in their internships

7:26

, I used to do this thing on Fridays where , instead

7:29

of sitting at my desk , I would bounce between people's

7:31

cubicles and bug them to be like how

7:33

did you get here , what was your career like , how did

7:35

you end up doing this ? And

7:37

I guess I

7:40

was yeah yeah

7:42

, If you caught me in the break room , you

7:44

know I'd catch you for like 20 minutes .

7:45

Oh , you're one of those .

7:47

Well , I just didn't want to sit at my desk , you

7:49

know , yeah , and I guess , looking back

7:51

, I was just trying to figure out , like , why are

7:53

all of you so satisfied doing

7:55

this every single day ?

7:56

Because , I just wasn't . You know , there must be some secret yeah .

7:59

They're like we're putting rocket ships in space . Right

8:02

, I mean , I went . I went back to school

8:05

and I was talking to a

8:07

couple of my friends like I don't know what I want

8:09

to do . I felt like I tried out three different

8:11

companies . I didn't like any of them and

8:14

I ended up meeting my boyfriend

8:16

now . His name's Michael and

8:18

his uncle was a client exec at IBM , and

8:21

before that I had not looked

8:23

at IT . I didn't know anything

8:25

about tech sales , like anything . And

8:27

he was like , hey , you're pretty technical

8:30

and you like talking to people . I bet you could do tech

8:32

sales and you're also six

8:34

figures in student loan debt , so

8:37

that'd be great . And I was like you know what ? That would

8:39

be great . And

8:41

I decided to pivot my entire

8:43

career . Um , basically off

8:45

of two or three conversations , um

8:47

, I think I talked to a couple of people

8:50

on LinkedIn that I met . You know

8:52

, you're applying for jobs as a college student . You

8:54

find some random people that work in that position

8:56

at the company and you message them to do a coffee chat

8:58

. Um , I , I did two or three of

9:00

those and I was like , all right , that's it , I'm going to be , I'm

9:02

going to go into tech sales . All

9:08

of my friends thought I was crazy . I

9:12

mean I completely pivoted and I was applying my senior year exclusively

9:14

to sales roles at Citrix Cisco .

9:15

IBM . I got a question Were you scared ?

9:17

Not really , you don't seem

9:19

scared .

9:19

It's kind of cool . No

9:25

, I mean , if it doesn't work out , you just find something else that does listen . I was , I'm I'm in

9:28

pa , still right , I didn't get out . But like I was from pa , I was first generation

9:30

college I wanted to be a pilot . My eyesight

9:32

was bad , like I'm just so many things are like

9:34

hitting home for me and then I think , wow

9:36

, if I had the mathematical ability to

9:38

like work in aerospace , that would be amazing . But

9:40

I'm also a person who's highly technical

9:43

. But I love talking to people and after

9:45

years of sitting at the keyboard toiling

9:47

away tech you know , tippy tacking it

9:49

was kind of torturous , so but but I don't

9:51

. What I'm amazed at is just you're kind

9:53

of courageous , like well , that's not

9:55

lighting my fire , so like I wonder

9:58

if I would have stayed in that safer

10:00

aerospace like you know

10:02

that that seems like a clear path for you to

10:04

just pivot to like , oh

10:08

, I'll go into tech sales , like I'll figure that out . You seem very courageous and you're not very scared

10:10

of making big . That's a big pivot is what I'm trying to say , right .

10:12

I think it's also easier when

10:14

I don't know . I think if I was

10:16

to pivot my career again now , which I'm

10:18

thinking about again it would

10:21

be a lot scarier , because now there is a

10:23

little bit more to lose . Right Like I'm trying to

10:25

save up for retirement , I'm paying down

10:27

my student loan , but senior year of college

10:29

you can fit all your stuff in the trunk of your car and

10:31

go wherever .

10:32

So this is all your boyfriend's dad's fault ? Did

10:34

I hear that right ?

10:36

Michael's dad worked at IBM . Yeah

10:38

, his uncle , his uncle , close . Yeah , huh

10:40

.

10:40

Wow .

10:45

So a couple of conversations with him and you're like I'm out it just it sounded like a really cool

10:47

career . There was a lot more opportunities

10:50

for growth and and

10:52

plus , if you're I mean you guys

10:54

know now that you're in the industry and

10:56

it you can really go anywhere , work

10:58

for any industry . And

11:00

aerospace there's six big names

11:03

and they all get their money from the government , most

11:05

of them in it . If you know it , industry in aerospace there's six big names and they all get

11:07

their money from the government , most

11:11

of them um , in it . If you know it , you can realistically work in

11:13

any industry in any vertical anywhere across the country . Like

11:15

there's so many opportunities , um and I . So I had the

11:18

spreadsheet . I mean I was applying to anywhere

11:20

that had a sales training program because I

11:22

didn't want to wait . Once I decided I

11:24

wanted to go into sales , I was like you know , that makes a lot

11:26

of sense . I love talking to people .

11:28

So are we looking at technical sales ?

11:30

Like somebody listening .

11:31

Who wants to follow your path , like tech sales

11:33

on LinkedIn .

11:35

There's a lot of companies that have and

11:37

I'm not talking about careerist boot

11:40

camps or some kind of like tech sales

11:42

boot camp six figures in six months

11:44

or whatever camps or some kind of like tech sales

11:46

boot camp six figures in six months , or

11:48

whatever . I mean there's actual sponsored programs from vendors like AWS , palo

11:50

Alto I know one of our partners

11:52

, ironbow

11:59

has one that my friend is a recruiter that leads , cisco has one , citrix has one . There's

12:01

all of these big name vendors that have post-graduate college

12:04

programs to help get younger talent

12:06

into tech sales roles . Traditionally

12:09

it's a role that you

12:12

have very senior in your career , for

12:14

good reason . I mean , when you're helping advise

12:17

companies make these large technical

12:19

decisions , you need a lot of experience

12:21

under your belt . You need a lot of

12:24

experience under your belt . But

12:30

as they're trying to get more diversity in the field , both in gender and

12:32

age and experience , and so what they've done is created these postgraduate programs

12:34

where it's basically a year-long

12:36

ramp or a six-month ramp where all

12:39

you do for six months is train to

12:41

go into this role and that's

12:43

what I ended up in it .

12:47

It's paid , and that's what I ended up in it it's paid and that's what I ended up in

12:49

at Cisco , so it was called the Cisco Sales

12:51

Associate Program .

12:53

It's a year-long technical training down in Raleigh

12:55

and I mean it's basically a fifth

12:57

year of college at that point . You take your CCNA

13:00

, ccnp , devnet . You do

13:02

weekly whiteboarding sessions on

13:04

every single Cisco architecture technology

13:07

.

13:07

Wait , wait . Did you just do your CCNA , ccnp and DevNet

13:09

in six months ? Is that what you just said ?

13:12

CCNA , CCNP , I think in eight months

13:14

, and then I failed DevNet and they let me slide .

13:18

Yeah , DevNet was bad .

13:19

I'm not great at programming .

13:21

I fought the NP for years and it

13:23

won .

13:27

I lost great at programming . I fought the np for years and and it won . I I lost the

13:29

battle .

13:30

That's a lot easier when it's your full-time job andy , yeah , yeah , yeah , your .

13:31

Your job is to get the certification no

13:34

, that's pretty awesome but do you do

13:36

you think , like I know it's kind of like a intensive

13:38

thing , but like , as a solutions engineer

13:41

who typically that that like

13:43

mentioned the path is like you're an

13:45

network admin , network engineer for years and years and

13:47

years is a year of

13:49

this educational program . Do you

13:51

think that really is like , gives you

13:53

everything , all the tools you need to go right

13:55

into a business and be like here , I have the solution for you

13:57

.

13:58

Yes and no and I guess , like that's the general

14:00

answer , it depends , it depends , it depends , right ? I guess that's the general .

14:02

SEO answer it depends , it depends right

14:04

.

14:06

It depends on what the

14:08

business is looking to accomplish , how

14:10

complicated their architecture is . Personally

14:14

, that's one of the reasons that I chose to go into

14:16

our commercial business . They're still large

14:18

companies , but they're not as large as

14:20

the Fortune 500s . So

14:23

you get a really good diverse

14:25

experience working with a lot of different clients

14:27

and a lot of different industries , but they're not

14:29

as large as , say , like wells

14:31

, fargo or bank of america or

14:33

starbucks . You know , um , as

14:37

as far as like getting more hands-on experience

14:39

, I mean , if I had a crystal ball when I

14:41

was 17 years old , I would have done

14:44

a year at least as a network engineer

14:46

and network admin . I don't

14:48

think it's hard to go back and get that

14:50

experience Right . And

14:52

even you know you can get as hands

14:54

on with your customers as you want . But if it's not

14:56

your network that you're responsible

14:59

for , it's like a different level of risk , you

15:01

know . So like hindsight's 20-20

15:04

. I wish I did do that first , but

15:06

I didn't . Does it make me

15:08

any less effective as an SE ? There's

15:11

definitely some things I miss in

15:14

conversations just because you

15:16

know it's over my head or I didn't do the job

15:18

. But I think

15:20

you know we've got a large team

15:22

at Cisco . Obviously there's what

15:25

data center security

15:27

, collaboration , enterprise networking

15:29

, all of the new like observability

15:32

and visibility tools they're onboarding . We

15:34

just we , they , cisco just bought

15:36

Splunk . Right , you can't

15:38

be an expert in everything and we've got

15:40

a great extended team that

15:43

I learn from every day in my back

15:45

pocket that you can call on for help .

15:48

Is it about pulling in the right resources for

15:50

the deeper conversations , pulling in the right ?

15:52

resources at the right time . Knowing

15:55

your customer , I would say , is the

15:57

most important part , like understanding

15:59

what their goals are

16:01

, not business-wise , but technically

16:03

right . Like what does their architecture look

16:06

like ? Is this solution

16:08

something that they can adopt ? Right ? Because

16:10

even when you look at the portfolio , like

16:12

Catalyst Center versus Meraki

16:15

, typically I don't walk into a customer and say

16:17

, okay , I got two options . What do you want

16:20

? I'm the one that makes the judgment call

16:22

of well , I know your team , I know your architecture

16:24

and this would be better for you . I'm the one that makes the judgment call of well , I know your team , I know your architecture and this would be better for you

16:26

. I'm not going to make you spin your wheels

16:28

looking at everything

16:30

under the sun . That's just not realistic

16:32

. Does that make sense ?

16:34

Yeah , it's just crazy to me . I

16:36

recently transitioned jobs and it took me a

16:38

good three , four months of just being

16:41

in that environment to even understand it and to

16:43

grasp what needs to be done . I can't

16:45

imagine , you know , having a one year kind

16:48

of a intensive thing and

16:50

going into environment and being like , okay , these are the solutions you

16:52

need , and you know , it blows my mind that you

16:54

could even do that .

16:55

Well , and it's , it's a lot of . You

16:58

know you're , you're

17:00

me I would never walk in and recommend

17:02

something I'm not comfortable with or that I

17:04

don't understand fully . I've straight

17:06

up told some of my customers like , hey , can I lab

17:09

this with you or can I , can I work on this

17:11

more with you so I understand it better , before

17:13

we move forward . Because

17:15

, again , no one's an expert in everything

17:17

, no matter how long you've been in the field and no

17:20

like , quite frankly , no , a year is not

17:22

enough to know everything under the sun

17:24

. But that's

17:27

part of being an SE right , like saying

17:29

you don't know when you don't know , being honest

17:31

and just being I don't want to call it like

17:33

a servant to your customer , but making

17:36

sure that they have a good experience and you're

17:38

helping them technically with

17:40

all of the resources you have at your disposal where

17:42

you can .

17:43

I'm glad you said that I was going to ask you how

17:45

do you answer the question ? Like if somebody asks you

17:47

a point of technical question , you don't know how

17:49

do you answer , Because when I was in sales years ago

17:52

. Well , yeah , like I don't know , but I'll find out

17:54

Right , and then you can pull in resources and because

17:56

it is like Kevin said , it's

18:06

it's a testament to the program and to the resources

18:09

they give you and everybody you , my own knowledge

18:11

to help you do whatever it

18:13

is right ?

18:14

Is it straightening out your umbrella instance

18:32

? Is it you're trying to upgrade

18:34

your network ? Is it you keep

18:36

getting calls at 2am because the network's down

18:39

? You don't know why ? Right , like

18:41

you know , we're just here to help . That's kind

18:43

of how I view the job .

18:44

You're lucky you weren't my SE , because I just would have argued

18:46

with you about smart licenses every day .

18:49

Yeah , I can't

18:51

do anything about smart licensing .

18:54

They're all doing it . It's fine . And

18:57

I guess that scratched your itch right , Like you wanted

18:59

more interaction with people . You like

19:01

the . I mean , I went through the same thing . I

19:03

was at a keyboard for eight years and I'm and I'm

19:05

, something was missing . And then I realized like , oh

19:07

, you know , I'm at the supermarket , like I work it from home

19:09

, I'm working on the network , and then I go to like the

19:12

supermarket for food and I'm like chatting

19:14

up everybody and they're like yo , dude , take it easy , because

19:16

I's recently . I'm like I need more people interaction

19:18

.

19:18

I miss my people . That's

19:28

exactly it , and the timing

19:30

was almost uncanny . I graduated

19:32

college December of 2019

19:35

, onboarded to Cisco halfway through January

19:37

of 2020 , and then , almost three months later

19:39

, got sent home for COVID . Sent

19:48

home for COVID . So even during that time , it was uh , it was really strange

19:50

, because even all of the current SEs were trying to figure

19:52

out how to do the job virtually Right , Um , the sales motion

19:54

, not just at Cisco , but at

19:56

Cisco Partners , Cisco Competitors

19:58

. It was for so

20:01

long like you're in person . You're , you

20:03

know , living out of your car , you know

20:05

getting breakfast with one customer , bringing donuts

20:07

to the next , grabbing someone else for lunch

20:10

and then going to happy hour day in , day

20:12

out . And the only days you were at the off , the

20:14

only days you were at home , were like Mondays

20:16

and Fridays to send me your email . And

20:18

with COVID , everything went remote and

20:20

it's still I mean , it's still so much

20:22

remote because it's easier to take

20:25

a WebEx , even from our from

20:27

, at least in my experience , the customers that I

20:29

cover either they live out of state or

20:32

they're also working from home , and it's easier

20:34

for them to take a WebEx . So

20:36

things have just definitely shifted virtually

20:39

. Which , Andy

20:41

, Andy , to your point do you get enough human

20:43

interaction ? Do phone calls count as human

20:45

interaction ?

20:46

Right , Do you do any traveling ? I

20:48

mean you get to go to customer sites a little bit

20:50

yeah a little bit here and there .

20:53

I'm definitely trying to get out more and

20:55

in person more , just because it makes the job a lot more

20:57

fun , but it's . It's

20:59

kind of funny . I think that social media has

21:01

definitely scratched that

21:04

itch too since I've started . I

21:08

know Kevin and I started on Tik TOK almost the same time , but I'm building a community

21:11

of followers and being

21:13

able to feel like I'm helping the larger

21:16

it community through the

21:18

stuff that I'm doing at work anyways has

21:20

been like really fulfilling . You're doing my job .

21:22

for me , that's the segue I've been trying to figure

21:24

out and I'm texting Kevin on the side

21:26

like , should we pivot to social media soon , right ? So

21:31

I guess , before we do that kind of

21:33

pivot because , yeah , the community building that you've been

21:35

doing in the social media , like , like , it's really next level

21:37

I've been trying to dabble in this stuff since the podcast

21:39

, we do branding stuff and all that , but you're just like , yeah

21:42

, it's , it's really amazing what you're doing . So I

21:44

want to dive into that right before we do so

21:46

. You said you're a technical person and you like to talk to

21:48

people . You've been doing the se role for three years

21:50

, so would you recommend I mean , I know you

21:52

might pivot to something else , but you seem to enjoy the

21:54

job , you get a lot out of it . It's a good career

21:56

Would you recommend it for people who are technical

21:58

but really like to talk to people ?

22:01

Absolutely , and I get . It's

22:03

funny , I get a lot of questions from network engineers

22:05

. Actually , tim , before Tim

22:08

came to Cisco , we had a call

22:10

about it and a lot of people are so

22:12

intimidated by the word sales , right

22:14

, they see sales engineer or you

22:17

know technical sales , and they're like oh , I'm , I'm

22:19

, you know , I'm an engineer . I can't work in sales

22:21

. I'm not a salesperson , I don't want to sell anything

22:24

. And , again , the way

22:26

I look at the job is more of like

22:28

I'm just a helping hand , like your

22:30

friendly neighborhood SE here to help

22:33

you do things . I'm not here to shove

22:35

technology down your throat or

22:37

it's , it's just

22:40

, it's not , it's not my vibe , you know

22:42

, um , and I think a

22:44

lot of network engineers like like

22:46

being helpful , right , that's why there's

22:49

all of the community forums and discord chats

22:51

and there's such an active community on Twitter . People

22:53

like just helping other people solve problems

22:56

, and that's , to me , the

22:58

core of what the SE position is . Would

23:01

you rather have 20 years of experience

23:03

and work on your own network , or

23:05

would you rather be able to be an

23:07

advisor to 40 different

23:09

customers and help them make

23:11

improvements to their network based on all

23:13

of your experience and all of your knowledge ?

23:15

And sales is a skill anybody can learn , especially

23:17

if you're a people person . I've told this story

23:20

before , but I didn't want to sell

23:22

. I never sold anything . They gave us candy bars . We

23:24

had to sell in high school to like play on high school sports

23:26

. I refused . I bought them all because I

23:28

had a part-time job . I'm like I am not because I was mortified

23:30

at having to do that . You know

23:33

up in a sales position and it was just a skill

23:35

that I was taught . I'm like , oh , to

23:37

your point , it was more about servicing

23:39

. Like you're coming to me with a problem , I

23:42

might be able to help you , let's

23:48

talk about it . So you're right , it's , it shouldn't be . I

23:50

can see it being intimidating , but , like , if you like

23:52

people and you like talking to people and you're technical

23:54

, right , like sales , it can be intimidating .

23:56

I was intimidated until I learned it and and you know what , it's really evident to

23:58

not intimidating . It's all relationships

24:00

. But if you've never done , it like anything right .

24:02

If you've never done it , it's like , oh , I could never do that

24:04

. Well , you probably could if

24:06

you know , if you're the type of person who likes talking

24:08

to people and I think it'd be a good , you

24:11

know , pivot to like your social media and community you've

24:13

built . But I think that it's the value that

24:15

you're creating , even in your videos

24:18

. I don't know how you and Kevin you guys

24:20

are wizards in saying something

24:22

succinctly and that's helpful in

24:24

a minute or two . It's beyond me

24:26

, my brain I joke with Kevin it takes

24:28

me five minutes just to get my thoughts together , right

24:30

, but you're not . When I

24:33

see all the content that you put out , it's

24:35

all super helpful . You are serving people

24:37

. You are there to help . You're

24:43

educating people . One of the first things I saw that you put out I was working in another vendor

24:45

and I saw you put out something about an end of life announcement , but

24:47

the way you did it was brilliant

24:50

, because every other end

24:52

of life announcement I've ever seen in

24:54

prod or at a vendor it's some awful

24:56

website that you have to register to see

24:58

and it's a wall of text and then

25:00

a bunch of like you had graphics

25:03

and videos and it was .

25:04

It was great . I think the video you're talking

25:06

about , I think it was literally the texting

25:08

sound with , like my nose upwards

25:11

that said , hey , if you're running this router

25:13

, you should probably upgrade it

25:15

.

25:15

Right , but I think you gave or maybe it's another

25:17

one , like you gave the choices like , oh , if you're on this

25:19

, you got to go to this and here's the thing , and if you're

25:21

, you know you walk through it , like if your data center here's

25:23

your thing , you got it , like it . Just it was a brilliant

25:26

, simple , graphical way to

25:28

tell your customers about an end of life announcement

25:30

which everybody complains about , right ? Nobody

25:32

likes end of life and boohoo but

25:39

and boohoo but the way you . So , anyway , that's just one of a thousand examples . So how , how did you become

25:41

this Like ? I mean , I looked up your numbers before we started like 26,000 LinkedIn

25:43

followers , like 35,000 TikTok , like

25:45

that you know and you're providing so much

25:47

value .

25:48

TikTok and Instagram are competing right now

25:50

. They're competing . It's very interesting

25:52

. So the impact you're making is amazing

25:54

.

25:54

I mean , how did that start ? Because you started

25:57

at one follower at some point right , and

25:59

why did you start for people ?

26:00

to help with their TikTok , and one of my

26:02

mentors has a YouTube channel

26:05

that he's had for

26:19

like 10 years . His name is Cisco Sal and

26:21

they had asked him to help out with the TikTok channel

26:23

and he was like hey guys , I'm 40 . Like this

26:25

is not my vibe .

26:27

But I have this mentee , Alexis Sal .

26:32

It wasn't his vibe . It just wasn't Sal's vibe

26:34

, and so he was

26:37

like , hey , I have this mentee , she might have

26:39

TikTok . Let me ask her . And at that point

26:41

I had resisted downloading the app

26:43

for two years and I

26:45

literally didn't have TikTok . But I was like you

26:47

know what ? This seems kind of like a good opportunity

26:49

, I'll help out whatever . And

26:52

as TikTok is addicting like it is

26:54

, I started making

26:56

so many videos

26:58

that were super technical and

27:01

not exactly what the

27:03

social media team was looking for . I

27:06

had all this content and I was like , well , if you

27:08

guys aren't going to use it , fine , I'm just going to shit

27:10

post on my own channel and if one

27:12

goes viral , then I can send it to you and be

27:14

like look , this went viral , now you can use it

27:17

. I proved that it was good and

27:20

that's kind of how it started . So I made

27:22

memes very sporadically . Eventually

27:24

I started making , like I said , memes that were so

27:26

specific to , I don't

27:29

know , ice Meraki

27:31

, just Cisco Live . I mean , they

27:33

were memes , straight up memes . People

27:35

would ask me questions and be like , hey , it looks like you

27:38

work at Cisco , I'm having this problem , can

27:40

you help me ? And sometimes

27:43

it was related to the meme , sometimes it wasn't

27:45

, and what I realized is there's

27:47

a whole community of customers out

27:49

there that either don't have

27:51

an assigned SE , that

27:54

don't have a good relationship with their SE

27:56

or their account team . Maybe they don't know who their account

27:58

team is .

27:59

They might be small and they can't afford all that super

28:01

support right .

28:02

Right , or they work at a super

28:05

, super large company and there's only certain

28:07

people in their organization that interact with their account

28:09

team , and so by putting

28:12

this information out there on the internet and

28:14

a lot of the content that I create , is

28:16

the same message that I'm giving to my

28:18

customers . I mean , there's only 24

28:20

hours in the day . I don't have a ton

28:22

of extra free time to go and create super

28:24

original stuff like Kevin does . It's

28:27

based on what I'm talking to my customers

28:29

about day to day . So if I'm on

28:32

a call today I was on a call about

28:34

umbrella right , I'll take some notes

28:36

. I'll learn something new that night . I'll

28:38

make a video about it . Right , if I

28:40

get an announcement in my inbox about

28:42

the renaming of a product

28:44

or something , some new acquisition

28:47

I'll go make a video about it . It's

28:49

the same service that I feel like

28:51

SEs should be providing to their customers

28:53

just helping to disseminate information

28:56

and keep everyone in the loop . There's

28:58

a ton , no matter what vendor you

29:00

work at I mean , if you've ever worked at

29:02

a vendor there's a ton of information . There's a ton

29:04

of stuff going on all the time , and so I

29:06

just do my best to kind of stay on top of it and help

29:08

keep everyone in the loop , and

29:11

that's really how it started . There was

29:13

questions that I was getting . I did not like

29:15

talking on camera . I thought my hair looked

29:17

weird and my voice sounded bad and I did

29:20

weird things with my face , like everyone

29:22

does when you watch yourself on camera . But

29:25

I was like man , like this question , I can't

29:27

answer it in 50 characters . I

29:29

need to actually get on camera and answer it

29:31

. And that's how it started . And here we

29:34

are .

29:34

You got to find that person . We got to thank them .

29:36

The question that you had to get on camera for

29:38

. Yeah , yeah

29:40

, you can scroll back and find it . And now

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31:01

.

31:02

So you recently , it feels

31:04

recently I don't know how recent it is you've

31:06

recently kind of transitioned to more of a LinkedIn

31:09

folk dist presence . Now

31:11

have you found that

31:14

to be a different animal altogether

31:16

? I feel like linkedin is a very

31:18

um sterile kind

31:21

of more boring . You represent your employer

31:23

, like it has this connotation

31:26

that it's . It's um more boring

31:28

and adultish , I guess . Less memes

31:30

, less fun , um , and I've noticed

31:32

you transition more to linkedin . So how , like what

31:35

was the reason for that and do you ? Is that accurate

31:37

or am I just reading into it ?

31:38

Yeah , so it's funny , my one

31:40

year anniversary of posting on LinkedIn

31:43

was last week .

31:44

Oh , wow , so it hasn't been that recent anniversary .

31:47

It started . So I guess , if

31:49

you want to know that again , the full journey it

31:51

started with TikTok . It started with memes on TikTok

31:53

and one

31:55

day I was like you know what ? This is pretty funny

31:57

, I'm going to post this on LinkedIn . And

32:00

so I started posting some of the memes on LinkedIn

32:02

and I didn't know I

32:04

was the same as everyone else

32:06

. I didn't use LinkedIn as a social media platform

32:09

, it was just kind of for virtual resume

32:11

job announcements . I never went

32:13

on it and I posted

32:15

a handful of memes because I thought they were funny

32:18

and I actually had people in

32:20

my DMs on LinkedIn saying post

32:22

more memes . I don't have TikTok

32:24

and I see that these are TikToks and I want

32:26

to watch TikTok , but I don't want to download

32:28

TikTok . So can you please post

32:30

more TikToks on LinkedIn ? And I was

32:33

like hey , guys , not every TikTok

32:35

is appropriate for LinkedIn . Some

32:37

of them are , but not all of them are . And

32:40

I actually had a senior SE . I

32:42

remember we had this training and this guy pulled

32:44

me aside in the parking lot and he was like hey , alexis

32:46

, see what you're doing on LinkedIn . I

32:49

think maybe you should stop . This

32:52

is going to damage your credibility

32:54

with your customers . What would a CIO

32:56

think if he saw this ? Um

32:59

, you need to be taken seriously as an se

33:01

. And I was like , nah , these are just memes

33:03

, like it's fine , don't worry about it , and

33:06

um who said that I just

33:08

kept .

33:10

It doesn't matter , but I mean

33:12

, but they were talking about linkedin right , like hey , I see

33:14

what you're putting out there . It's not professional maybe

33:16

.

33:16

yeah , linkedin's more professional , don't post memes

33:19

on LinkedIn . And I was like memes

33:21

. The thing is , people on LinkedIn seem

33:23

stuffy but it's the same

33:25

people on every other social media platform . Right

33:28

, Like , a good meme is a good meme . And

33:30

uh , yeah , it's this . It was the

33:32

same song and dance . It just kind of grew

33:35

Um the Instagram

33:37

account so the people from LinkedIn that

33:39

didn't have TikTok could watch my TikToks

33:41

on Instagram . And eventually

33:44

it just became this animal where

33:46

I would create content on TikTok

33:48

and then cross post to LinkedIn

33:51

and Instagram just straight

33:53

copy paste . Back

33:55

in the fall , I did a 100 day writing challenge

33:58

straight copy paste . Um , back in the fall , I did a hundred day writing challenge . Um , I , I

34:00

script all my videos secret

34:02

, little secret . I know Kevin does

34:04

too not to expose you , Are

34:14

you ?

34:14

reading your script . Oh , thanks , jeez , I , I memorize mine , okay . Um , I've

34:16

had to read scripts and it's really hard to read a script on the screen

34:18

and record and not have your eyes moving .

34:20

There's an app for that , andy . I can hook you up later , but

34:24

I've never noticed either .

34:25

Neither one of you look like you're reading . So , Alexis

34:27

, you memorize it . Kevin , whatever you're doing it's

34:29

wizardry , but you guys never look like you're reading

34:31

. I need to learn .

34:32

That's the point . Well

34:39

, I think they have an ai app for that

34:41

now too , where it'll actually like track your eyes , yeah , but like

34:43

it's like freaky staring at you .

34:45

So it freaks me out , it'll get , it'll get better , it'll get better

34:47

I like .

34:47

I like that you told that linkedin person to go to

34:50

hell . Not so many words . And the reason I poked

34:52

at that was I've been overly

34:55

concerned . Maybe it's an age thing , right , I'm not

34:57

trying to like sound like a funny guy here , but like I've been overly concerned . Maybe it's an age thing , right , I'm not trying to like sound like a funny guy here , but like

34:59

I've been overly concerned with my public , how

35:01

I'm perceived in the business world , especially

35:04

when I went to a vendor , I was very

35:06

careful with what I said and

35:09

how I said it and I held back 95%

35:12

of the thoughts I had because

35:14

I didn't want to offend somebody or say the

35:16

wrong thing or have somebody mad or not be seen

35:19

as the smart guy or . But you

35:21

, the way you've pulled it off is

35:24

very it really is like even the memes

35:28

. I wouldn't have the guts to do that . It'd be like

35:30

oh it's terrifying , but you're courageous

35:32

again , like you're just like . Well , this is who I am

35:34

, this is what I'm going to do , and it's people

35:36

. The followers prove that

35:39

people love what ?

35:40

you're putting out I mean , that's the vibe , andy

35:42

, it's me . I try to

35:45

represent myself online as

35:47

close as I can to me in person . If

35:50

I would say it at lunch , over

35:52

lunch with a customer , I'll post it online

35:55

. I don't care , because that's who I

35:57

am and I think it's who I am Right , and

35:59

I think it's it's

36:01

resonated really well . Like I said

36:04

, I I it's . It's

36:06

kind of funny . I remember being

36:09

in an interview I don't remember which one it was

36:11

, but someone was asking , like , what

36:20

my greatest strength is and I said I host a great party . I am a great like at my core . I am a great

36:22

host . I love entertaining , I love hosting , I love making people feel comfortable and bringing

36:24

people together , introducing people

36:27

in my life that don't know each other to each other

36:29

just for fun , because

36:32

I think if I know great people , like

36:34

great people should know each other . You

36:37

know , and that's that's kind of how I

36:39

operate , right , if you're standing in the corner alone

36:41

with a drink and you don't know who to talk to , I'm going to go introduce

36:43

you to someone to make sure you're having a great time

36:45

and I would say

36:47

hands down , that's my greatest strength and I feel

36:49

like I've almost been able to pull

36:51

that off online . Same

36:54

thing just disseminating knowledge , bringing

36:56

people together , helping everyone be

36:59

better that's I mean , that's the goal . There's

37:01

enough to go around for everyone .

37:03

So that's lofty . I

37:07

host a great party , kevin .

37:09

Hey , one day , one day , uh , maybe

37:11

at Cisco live we'll all get together

37:13

. It'll be speaking to Cisco live . Yeah

37:16

, Speaking

37:22

of Cisco live you're I heard you're're you're hosting or you're what's it called . You're presenting

37:24

, hosting . I am doing this thing presenting , presenting a session . Yeah , there you go . So

37:26

I had , um , I had a session get submitted , I submitted a session . That got accepted

37:29

. Um , I just changed the title . I

37:31

think it's it was personal

37:33

branding and career development for

37:35

network engineers , and now

37:38

it it is . I can tell you

37:40

in one second it is standing

37:43

out in a virtual world personal

37:45

branding for technologists , and

37:48

I'm going to talk all about

37:50

a little bit about my journey

37:52

online . But how you can utilize

37:54

these same technologies social

37:57

media , like not even traditional

37:59

social media , if you want to host a blog

38:02

or a GitHub website full of projects

38:04

. Basically , how to create a digital

38:07

portfolio of your work as you're

38:09

studying for certifications , as you're working on

38:11

projects , and start to compile

38:13

that throughout your career . Because

38:15

I think what we're starting to see is

38:17

that recruiters are leaning more towards

38:20

a virtual resume . Right

38:22

, and as a technologist , it's

38:24

not just enough to say that you did something . People

38:26

want to see what you did , and

38:29

so , yeah , being able

38:31

to you know , even if you

38:33

can I know , as an engineer

38:35

, you can't always tell people

38:37

exactly what you did . Sometimes things are classified

38:40

or they need to be anonymized , but if you wrap

38:42

up a big project and you can hop on record

38:44

a five-minute video talking about what you

38:46

did , it comes across so much

38:48

cleaner than a bullet point on

38:50

a resume . So I'm going to

38:52

be talking about some strategies on how

38:54

to do that , just as you go through your

38:56

career or you're studying , for

39:00

stuff to help build over time

39:02

.

39:02

I think it's a brilliant idea . When

39:05

I was a cable guy , sitting in my truck studying for

39:07

the CCNA and labbing , I started a blog

39:09

because I don't know if somebody told me I don't know

39:11

if it was a career seminar , whatever it was but you

39:13

need to start working on your

39:15

brand , your perception out there and that

39:17

. So everything I labbed I would blog

39:20

about . And then when I was in interviews

39:22

as a cable guy with

39:24

a CCNA with zero production experience

39:26

, I'm like but I have production gear

39:28

in my home lab and my rack

39:30

and I made my own cables for and I have all these

39:33

protocols . Right and I made it

39:35

. Would you like to log in and look now ? But they

39:37

, they , they took my first job

39:39

in production . The passion is the word

39:41

to use . He's like I could see that you had a passion for this because

39:43

you're writing and creating content around

39:45

it .

39:46

I mean , you know , this was years ago and

39:48

I don't even know if people are blogging anymore , but

39:50

exactly , yeah , I look back at it right when I

39:52

need stuff .

39:52

I'm like how did I do the thing , the mvpn or whatever

39:54

. So it's just a brilliant thing and I don't

39:57

know if enough people lean into it . And

39:59

you're a master at it . How do I get into that class

40:01

?

40:02

come this is it full ?

40:03

is it full ? Do you think it does

40:05

it ? Does it like focus on

40:07

early career , mid-career , or do you think

40:09

it applies to everyone ? Who you know can can

40:12

get into this and start making content and

40:14

recording everything they're doing ?

40:16

yeah , it applies to everyone . So the way I'm

40:18

writing it is for people at all stages

40:20

in your career . It's interesting

40:22

, I've had , I mean , all sorts of people

40:25

. The thing is , everyone has their

40:27

own goal and you can use

40:30

these technologies , whether it's podcasting

40:33

, blogging , writing , linkedin , twitter , youtube

40:35

, pinterest right , all of them . You can use them . However , pinterest right , all of

40:37

them . You can use them however you

40:39

want , right , there's no . If you wanted to create

40:41

a Pinterest board of your network diagrams

40:43

, you could do it . Like , I guarantee you there's someone

40:46

out there who's going to want to look at it , and

40:49

the technology is so versatile . I've

40:51

had people reach out to me who are trying to get

40:53

into leadership positions and maybe

40:55

they're not a leader today . Well

40:57

, I want to brand myself as a leader . How do I

41:00

do that ? Or I

41:02

want to get promoted , or I want to work on

41:04

this technology . How do I do that

41:06

? It's almost like Andy , you were

41:08

saying you've been very careful about how you are

41:10

perceived

41:12

. You tell people how to perceive you every

41:15

day . So if you want to be a leader , start

41:18

showing up as a leader every day until

41:20

people remember it , and that's

41:22

the thing . Like , when I started posting , it was all memes

41:24

, now it's all technology videos . But when people

41:27

think about me , they think about my

41:29

videos , because every single day you

41:31

see my face and I'm talking about the same thing a

41:33

hundred times . How ?

41:34

much time are you putting in , just like hours

41:37

of your personal time , every day ? Right

41:39

, I mean , it's a ton unless you've produced

41:41

video content and edited and

41:43

what it's , it can be a huge

41:45

time investment right it's a lot

41:48

.

41:48

Um , the past two weeks I've really slacked

41:51

off , especially with the move

42:11

and there's oh , we know I wasn't good to say that my

42:13

backlog is really sparse right now . But

42:16

typically if

42:18

you can spend a day or a couple days

42:20

batch recording things , you can kind

42:23

of start to spread it out , but

42:25

it's usually an hour , maybe two , maybe

42:27

more , depending on the day .

42:29

I feel like that's a lot for the average person . We

42:33

kind of have a goal .

42:35

Think about it , and I'll talk

42:37

about this in my Cisco live session too . You

42:40

don't need the . We

42:42

live in a bubble , kevin . You and I live

42:44

in this bubble where we're trying to be

42:47

content creators , and so we need to

42:49

push out something every day or multiple

42:51

times a week . If you're just trying to

42:53

create a digital portfolio , you can

42:55

create something once a week , once

42:57

every other week . If you take one

43:00

hour a week to create a piece of content

43:02

whether it's a video , a blog

43:04

, an article just one hour a week , at

43:06

the end of the year you'll have 52 pieces

43:08

of content , which is more than enough

43:10

to have a virtual portfolio

43:13

of anything . So even

43:15

if you're picking I mean , we work in technology

43:17

, we learn new stuff every single day , or

43:20

we should if you can take one

43:22

new thing you learned every week for a whole

43:24

year and just make it

43:26

a public note , more than enough to

43:28

have a portfolio .

43:29

That's a good point .

43:31

It doesn't have to be a heavy lift Like given some of

43:33

the stuff I've seen you do , kev like a very high level

43:35

explanation of like a VLAN , and I'm like that's brilliant

43:37

, right . I'm sitting around like , oh , what kind of content

43:39

can I create ? And you're over here explaining a VLAN like

43:41

brilliantly great . And you're over here explaining

43:44

a VLAN like brilliantly . And I'm like , ah , damn .

43:50

Kev stole another , you know good idea , the other . The other thing to think about is creating

43:52

content . If you , this is a proven thing . It's called the prodigy

43:55

effect or prodigy , I don't know how to say

43:57

it Um , if you learn something

43:59

with the intention of teaching it back to someone

44:01

else , you'll actually learn

44:03

it better , right ? Your brain

44:05

, like you , put it in a different part of your brain

44:08

because you're learning it with the intention

44:10

of recalling it . So what I found

44:12

is , going through these

44:14

little one or two minute videos , I

44:17

remember things better because

44:19

now I'm learning the topic , I'm doing

44:21

research with the intention of remembering it , I'm scripting

44:23

it out in my own words , I'm recording it and then I'm watching the topic . I'm doing

44:25

research with the intention of remembering it , I'm scripting it out in my own words , I'm recording

44:27

it and then I'm watching myself present . So

44:30

I know in my brain how I

44:32

would say it if there's things I want to improve

44:34

, because one of

44:36

the only ways to become a better presenter is

44:38

to watch videos of yourself presenting . Like

44:40

I said , when I first started , I had all of these weird

44:42

tics . I moved my hands too much

44:45

and I didn't like the way I squinted or

44:47

like there was all these crazy things

44:49

that you notice about yourself when you're watching yourself back

44:51

on video , but

44:53

you get better by doing it .

44:56

Yeah , I've also found like doing the research , like you said

44:58

, I can explain what a VLAN is Like

45:00

. If you're a network engineer , you know what a V a vlan

45:02

is . But to say like I'm

45:04

going to make a two minute video or a one minute video on it

45:06

, I want to make sure everything I say is absolutely

45:08

correct . So I will go back and do more research

45:11

to verify everything that I think I know I actually

45:13

know and I will inevitably learn

45:15

something new from doing that . Um

45:17

, it makes me a better you know , a better engineer

45:19

, a better networking person .

45:21

So it's just another style of learning

45:23

I think .

45:23

Think that's really good advice too to just start . You

45:26

know , I've historically

45:28

like analysis , paralysis and they over plan

45:30

and I , like you , just have to put out content

45:32

. We interviewed Keith Barker , who's like one of the

45:34

best CBT nuggets instructors right , we all love

45:36

Keith , he's amazing . And when I

45:38

was talking to him he's like oh yeah , my first I don't know

45:40

10 , 20 , 50 videos , they were hot garbage

45:43

. So

45:45

, but my first I don't know 10 , 20 , 50 videos , they were hot garbage . But you have to start . If you're

45:47

going to be a beginner , you have to begin and you will get better over time , and

45:49

that just really helped me . Like it unlocked something in

45:51

me like , oh OK , like I can put out

45:53

stuff that isn't perfect because

45:56

I'm a beginner .

45:57

Realistically . Think about it like this we

45:59

live in this almost attention economy

46:02

, right , you have . If

46:04

you look at the retention graph on

46:06

any video , you have less than

46:08

a second , you make that decision

46:10

. If you're scrolling through TikTok

46:13

, through YouTube , you make that decision in

46:15

less than a second or two . That's not even enough

46:17

to get a word out , okay

46:20

, and your

46:22

content , realistically , is 15

46:24

seconds of someone's day . It's not that

46:26

deep , no one cares that much

46:28

. Yes , when you start posting .

46:30

So you're spending two hours a day of your personal time for

46:32

15 seconds of someone's attention every day

46:34

.

46:35

Hey Andy , but I'm on this podcast , aren't I ?

46:37

No , no , totally Well right , I'm

46:39

asking that question for a reason , right Like it's

46:42

, because the short , the

46:44

short form I've I have like

46:46

a brain hang up about , because

46:48

you're talking to a guy who's been doing long form for

46:50

years and I really struggle

46:52

with the short form and one of the reasons

46:54

is how do I get somebody's attention quickly

46:57

? How can I explain something technical

46:59

in 60 seconds so I can cross post to YouTube

47:01

shorts Cause , why the hell not ? And if I

47:03

get a second of somebody's time

47:05

, I mean God , how do I

47:07

compete with that ?

47:09

Think about what we just talked about . It's not

47:11

. I mean , yes , it's for the audience , but it's

47:13

also for you , so that you understand

47:15

it and you learn it , especially when you're first

47:18

. I mean , when I first started again

47:20

, I started with zero followers

47:22

on any platform . When

47:29

I first started posting , it wasn't for the audience or it wasn't

47:31

for the likes , it was because , hey , I made this meme and I think it's

47:33

kind of funny .

47:33

You know it was yeah , then it was hey , I'm going to post

47:36

this video and I'm going to learn this better

47:38

.

47:38

You have to have other reasons outside of the . You

47:41

know the little dopamine hits to do it .

47:49

And I don't know how the algorithm works , but to your point , you get a second and

47:51

you might grab them . But then I mean , you started with one and now you're where you're at and

47:53

Kevin the same . So over time , you know , it's how I found you , alexis , online

47:55

, oh my God , like wow , that's really good

47:57

and smart . And then you come up again somehow . Right , the algorithm

48:00

does the thing . And the next thing I know I'm seeing you

48:02

every day , right , so it

48:04

goes well . But I

48:06

never would want to . But it goes from a second to

48:08

like . So , yeah , I , I guess it's

48:11

compound .

48:11

I guess that's just how ?

48:12

yeah , right it's . It's like compounding , it's

48:14

a compounded interest . You're not going to leave se

48:17

life , are you ? You said something about pivoting

48:19

I don't know . I don't

48:21

know , it's a big if um well , you

48:23

have to look for a job because you're moving right . So that's

48:25

kind of what is pushing you .

48:28

Yeah , so I'm like I said

48:30

, I'm currently a solutions engineer

48:32

in the DMV area , so I support

48:34

customers out of the DC , virginia

48:36

Maryland cluster . Technically

48:39

, I need to be living in region to

48:41

do that , because we should be visiting

48:44

our customers and we should be on site , and

48:46

I would love to be on site

48:48

. Living in North Carolina , it's not really

48:51

feasible for me to drive six hours

48:53

back and forth all of the time , and

48:55

so I'm looking for

48:57

either a role that's completely remote that'll

49:00

let me move down there , or a position that's

49:02

has its territory in the

49:04

Charlotte region . I'm also , you

49:06

know , the deeper I get into all of the social

49:08

media stuff . I do think

49:10

there's a big gap in the

49:12

industry for more technical content

49:15

, whether that's produced by

49:17

vendors , partners , third parties

49:19

, you know , independent creators like us

49:21

. I think that there's a big

49:23

need for independent

49:27

creators like us . I think that there's a big need for I don't want to call it technical

49:29

marketing , but just a layer in between the white papers

49:31

and hour long YouTube videos and

49:34

the simple , secure , single

49:36

pane of glass . There

49:39

should be some content that

49:41

is a more technical level

49:44

, some

49:46

content that is a more technical level , that's easier to consume , that's

49:48

more entertaining um and , you know , educational for people to learn from

49:50

um , and I'm trying to figure

49:52

out if there is a position

49:54

somewhere in the industry where

49:56

I could do that more full-time um

49:59

, instead of on nights and weekends .

50:00

there's a huge . We will see . It's not really

50:02

entertaining . Most of it's not entertaining , right

50:05

? Anything that's quasi-technical

50:07

, like

50:09

I tried , I know , but we should be able to figure it out

50:11

.

50:11

right , andy , we're engineers , we can do it

50:13

.

50:14

It's so hard to make , like I did . You

50:16

know the most technical piece I did . It was like a nine-minute

50:18

video on like NetFlow , because I love NetFlow

50:20

. It saved my bacon a million times in production

50:22

and so I built a lab and I showed the lab and I

50:24

got BGP peering up and showing the NetFlow

50:26

logs and all this stuff . I sent traffic across . But

50:29

oh my God , it was so much work and it took me a

50:31

month and like I don't know if it's entertaining

50:33

Like you can see NetFlow work , but

50:38

like who the hell ?

50:40

wants to listen to a guy talk for Right

50:42

.

50:42

Well . I mean if anybody can figure it out you guys can

50:45

, but there's definitely a need there . I

50:47

mean it would be great to have again circle

50:49

back to like Keith . I mean one of the reasons I love Keith

50:51

Barker is because he's engaging and he's

50:53

energetic and there's a story and it's

50:55

engaging . No-transcript

51:15

.

51:16

That's how I felt when I was taking my CCNP too .

51:20

My first videos on TikTok were you

51:22

know me at a console and they did terribly

51:25

. I would set up a port channel

51:27

or something on a console and they were completely

51:29

boring . I had like 200 views and

51:31

it took me like four hours to make the video . And

51:35

so Alexis and I actually had a conversation

51:37

about how to make networking cool again , because

51:40

it's one of those things where you can't

51:42

really show the cool side

51:44

of it . When you first create

51:47

two nodes and they're talking together and you have

51:49

static routing configured like that and they actually

51:51

work , it's exciting for you , but nobody

51:53

else . It looks extremely

51:55

boring . So how do we take that feeling

51:57

that you get from doing that and share

52:00

it and have other people who are watching it also

52:02

experience that ?

52:03

And it's been very , very difficult share it and have other

52:05

people who are watching it also experience that , and it's been

52:07

very , very difficult . I

52:10

remember there was one time I took my CCMP and passed first , and then my boyfriend Michael . He

52:12

was originally at IBM and he decided to come

52:14

over to Cisco . After I came to

52:16

Cisco he was like your job looks so much cooler than mine

52:18

. I want to do that . And I was like hell yeah , you do

52:21

. I'll refer you . So we

52:23

we got him to and then he had to take

52:25

his and I remember one night we're sitting

52:27

on the couch and he was labbing . We

52:29

have some old Cisco gear in the closet

52:31

. He spun up this router and

52:34

he's sitting there at the computer . I mean two

52:36

, three hours in and finally

52:38

he looks over and he's like I did it . Yeah

52:41

, the light's green . And I

52:43

was like what'd you do ? He's

52:47

like it's working . Look , it's green instead of

52:49

Amber .

52:50

I'm like that's

52:52

the feeling I'm so happy for

52:54

you and share it for everybody . Like

52:57

it it's . The networking is so cool . I

52:59

just don't know how to share that yeah .

53:01

Yeah , that's my favorite part of talking to people

53:03

in networking is usually in their

53:05

, in their path and their story . There's

53:08

that moment when they they light

53:10

up , when they fell in love with it , like , oh my God

53:12

. So when I was a cable guy , installing

53:14

modems and routers and cable boxes and

53:16

stuff in businesses you just put stuff

53:18

on and it yeah , it connects to

53:20

a network somehow , but I don't know . But then I

53:22

kind of got bored and not challenged

53:24

and I'm like how is this

53:27

happening ? How are you getting on

53:29

the internet ? How does your cable

53:31

box know ? And when I started studying networking , I'm like oh

53:33

my God they walk you through . There

53:36

was a thing like what does your PC do

53:38

in the first minute that

53:41

it boots up ? And my head was just exploding

53:43

Like a switch or a router , like how does

53:45

any of this work ? When you start to look at it , you're like this

53:48

is freaking magic , this is amazing . Like people

53:50

figured this out , right . That that's the passion

53:52

part of it , that's the excitement . I think that could , if

53:55

we could translate that to content , because

53:57

that's amazing when you see the miracle of

53:59

it . Like the matrix is working .

54:00

Whoa , when I talk to people

54:02

um people , you know my mom's

54:05

friends . They're like what do you do ? I'm

54:07

like you know , you know your router , your

54:09

router at home that gives you wifi

54:12

yeah . Yeah , they're like yeah , and I'm

54:14

like , okay , I sell that

54:17

to businesses where

54:19

, instead of needing four people on

54:21

the network , they need 4,000

54:24

people on the network . And they're like

54:26

, oh , and I'm like , it's the internet , I

54:29

sell the internet . And they're like , okay , cool , and

54:31

then we move on yeah . So

54:37

anyways .

54:37

Are we just extra nerds ? Is that why we get so excited

54:39

? Or is it just like I

54:42

would think anyone would be excited about it ?

54:44

I think that . I think that there's

54:46

also a level of um

54:48

. The network gets taken for granted

54:50

. I've talked about this a bit on LinkedIn

54:53

, but I'm guilty of it too , Right

54:55

, I mean , I didn't . I

54:57

didn't plan to be an IT , I planned

55:00

to be an aerospace . Why Planes

55:02

are cool , Planes look cool , you

55:06

fly around and there's different kinds and they're I mean , planes are cool

55:08

. And so I picked a very obvious

55:10

major of aerospace engineering because

55:12

planes are very obviously cool

55:14

. And I ended up pivoting into tech

55:17

because I wanted to

55:19

be in sales , quite

55:21

frankly , and that seemed like the easiest

55:23

path to get there . I got laughed out

55:26

of a couple rooms at Boeing . I was like

55:28

, hey . I want to be a sales player , I want

55:30

to sell planes . And they were like , haha , you

55:32

need like 50 years of experience and two

55:34

master's degrees . And I was like , okay , I'm just

55:36

going to switch industries . That sounds much easier

55:38

. But I didn't really appreciate

55:41

the internet until I was studying

55:43

for my CCNA . I mean , I was one of the

55:46

iPad kids . I grew up with

55:48

a cell phone and Instagram and

55:50

I think I got my first phone when I was 12

55:53

. And it just worked right . I

55:55

could text my friends . I had Snapchat . There was

55:57

Twitter in high school , like it was cool , and

56:00

I think we're seeing that to an even greater

56:02

extent . You know , you have kids

56:04

that come out of the womb with their iPad . They

56:08

don't care how the Wi-Fi works , they just want to use their iPad and

56:11

that's how most of society functions

56:13

. Like no one thinks about it .

56:15

It's interesting , like you , you

56:17

chose networking just because that's where

56:19

you got the job in tech , and then you

56:21

had to , like , fall in love with networking

56:23

as you , as you learned about it . And that's interesting

56:26

to me because most of us , you know , we

56:28

we got deeper in the networking because we loved it , not

56:31

because , hey , I have a job here now . Now

56:33

I should probably learn this thing

56:35

.

56:36

Yeah , I mean that's exactly how it wasn't

56:38

, and I mean everything

56:40

there's . I have friends

56:42

that work at all levels of aerospace

56:45

. I mean , I've got friends that work in healthcare

56:47

. I've got friends that work in finance . Every

56:50

industry has its thing , like

56:52

my , my , one of my best friends I

56:55

don't think she'll ever hear this podcast

56:57

she took over her

56:59

parents' pool plastering company . Plastering

57:05

company she , her and her brother took over their parents' company . It's like a multi-million

57:07

dollar company down in South Florida and they plaster hundreds

57:09

of pools a year . They don't excavate

57:12

, they don't build the pool , they don't install

57:14

the pool . They come in with plaster and

57:16

do the finish and it looks beautiful

57:18

. I know so much about the pool

57:21

plastering industry that I never never

57:23

would have known , and it

57:26

has its own quirks . There's a there's

57:28

their own people , their own systems , their

57:30

own conferences . I mean , it's just like tech , but

57:32

it's pool plastering , um

57:35

, but I never , you never

57:37

, know , right , until you get into it , um

57:39

.

57:40

I've never thought about how , you know , pools

57:42

are plastered .

57:43

No , you know you just you just get in the pool and

57:45

go swimming .

57:45

Yeah , don't get me started about the problems

57:48

I'm having with my pool .

57:49

You triggered , andy , just

57:52

an example .

57:53

Just an example though . But yeah

57:55

, like the different types of concrete or

57:58

stones or finishes that you can use

58:00

and the types of problems that you'll have working

58:02

with contractors and I don't know

58:04

, there's all these little niche things I never would

58:06

have thought about . I'm sure it's the same

58:09

if you're in like the culinary industry

58:11

, or if you're in restaurant ownership , or

58:13

you're in like finance . Right

58:15

, every

58:19

industry has its thing , you know . They're just different , and it's all kind of aspects of life

58:22

that we take for granted and don't appreciate

58:24

just because we don't work on it every day .

58:26

I think we're nerds .

58:27

Michael Cox in the chat said you know , we are

58:29

nerds .

58:29

My wife could care less about how the Internet works , just

58:31

get on it . And my wife's the same way . She doesn't

58:34

want to know about it . If it breaks . She's like here make this

58:36

better . And like you said

58:38

earlier , the network is just supposed to work

58:40

. It's if it's working . You don't think

58:42

about it , right ? And unless you're like us

58:44

, so you know , like I used to

58:46

say , I'm like the internet plumber , or , like you know

58:48

, I build roads , right Like , if the roads are working

58:50

and you're driving on them , you're not thinking about it , it's not

58:52

a problem . If

59:01

you hit a pothole , you're are abstracting

59:03

the network away , and I understand

59:05

why . It almost seems to me like

59:08

the business you know the people signing

59:10

those POs to vendors they

59:12

don't want look at cloud

59:14

as an example right Like , just get my stuff working somewhere

59:16

so I don't have to do all this CapEx . I don't want to

59:18

buy all your iron , I don't want your licenses , I don't want , like

59:21

, just make the network go away so I can

59:23

make money , you know , selling the services that

59:25

my applications provide . So it's , it's just

59:27

something I've seen in the decade I've been in the space

59:29

is , I don't know . Just there

59:31

seems to be a push for like I don't want to think

59:34

about the network , I don't want to know what's there , just

59:36

make it , you know .

59:37

So how do we make it go away .

59:40

Honestly any of that

59:42

stuff yeah , uh . So

59:45

you know how do we make it cool ? I don't know . I mean , I guess they'll

59:47

always be nerds like us . There's always going to be curious

59:49

people . There's always going to be people who want to know how stuff

59:51

work and and are working on the network . So

59:53

maybe the content's for them , right . Maybe that content

59:55

that you're talking about it's . I don't know if we're

59:57

going to pull a ton of people into networking

59:59

that aren't into it , right . But if you can

1:00:01

create some compelling content around

1:00:03

it that's entertaining , it'll definitely

1:00:06

, you know , introduce just peeling , peeling

1:00:08

a couple layers of the onion back Right .

1:00:15

Hey , have you ever been curious about how this works ? Let's talk about it . Yeah , I get a ton of comments

1:00:17

on my videos about like hey , I'm been doing electrical engineering for the last

1:00:19

five years and I'm burnt out . How do I get into networking

1:00:21

, or you . Or how hard

1:00:23

is it to get networking ? A bunch of questions about

1:00:25

how to get entry level . Do

1:00:27

you find the same thing , alexis , that your content

1:00:29

is aimed a little differently , because you're more

1:00:32

detailed about the vendor than

1:00:34

general networking .

1:00:35

It depends . I've definitely gotten

1:00:37

those . I get a lot of , especially

1:00:40

when I post videos around my career journey

1:00:42

. I've done a couple of those . I get a

1:00:44

lot of college kids that are like , hey , I feel the same

1:00:46

way about my major , how do I do what you

1:00:48

do ? That sounds cooler . I

1:00:50

also get a lot of people who are trying to pivot

1:00:53

from other types of sales careers

1:00:55

, whether it's solar or

1:00:57

car sales or pharmaceutical

1:01:00

sales , people who are in other

1:01:03

types of sales that want to get into tech sales

1:01:05

usually . And it's it's

1:01:07

so hard right , because I

1:01:09

I mean , I really feel like

1:01:11

I got the golden ticket with

1:01:13

Cisco going into that postgraduate

1:01:16

program and it was . It really

1:01:18

was an accelerator and I wouldn't be where I

1:01:20

am today without it . But it's hard

1:01:22

when people ask me because I feel

1:01:24

like I got in the fast

1:01:26

lane . But if you don't

1:01:29

have a technical background or how do

1:01:31

I be a sales engineer ? I want to be a sales engineer . Like

1:01:33

you , I sell cars . Well

1:01:35

, you kind of need to be an engineer first

1:01:37

or you need some level of technical knowledge

1:01:40

. You can go into normal sales , but

1:01:42

sales engineering is a little more

1:01:44

niche and it's it's really hard to

1:01:46

like it breaks my heart Cause , like I don't

1:01:48

want to tell people no , but you do

1:01:51

need to be an engineer .

1:01:53

Yeah , and then that um that

1:01:55

Cisco course that's only available for

1:01:57

graduates like recent grads , like I

1:01:59

can't go into it now and be like yeah pay me to

1:02:01

get my CCMP .

1:02:02

That sounds great , I'll do that for a year and

1:02:04

then I'll become sales .

1:02:05

That's perfect .

1:02:06

They're opening . I think they're

1:02:09

expanding the program a bit to people within

1:02:11

the first five years of their career At

1:02:14

least they did now . But , kevin , at this

1:02:16

point you wouldn't need it . Man , and

1:02:31

again , if anyone is listening to this and they've ever been curious about about being a solutions

1:02:33

engineer at any vendor , not just cisco , if you have 10 , 15 years experience and you can talk to

1:02:35

people , that's all you need you . There's no secret sales tactic or closing tactic or way to

1:02:37

structure a presentation like there's no secret . There's

1:02:40

no secret , it's just I imagine it like friendly

1:02:42

, tell me this pen no be

1:02:44

be friendly be friendly

1:02:46

, be helpful , show up

1:02:48

and when you don't know , say you don't know

1:02:50

, and just share

1:02:53

your love of technology with

1:02:55

your customers .

1:02:56

That's , that's all it is how technical

1:02:58

is the the interview

1:03:00

for that position ? It depends it's

1:03:04

, it's all right know .

1:03:06

Well , because the thing is , there's so

1:03:08

many different layers of solutions

1:03:11

engineering you can go into , right

1:03:14

. I'm currently a generalist , so I

1:03:16

cover every single Cisco technology

1:03:18

route switch , wireless , data center , security , cloud

1:03:20

thousand eyes like all of it . And so

1:03:22

my interview was

1:03:25

do you know route switch wireless ? Okay

1:03:27

, cool , can you talk a little

1:03:29

bit about security , like just a little bit . But

1:03:32

if you're going to be a solutions

1:03:34

engineer who specializes in security

1:03:36

, right , you might need to be very

1:03:38

deep in firewalls , very deep in ice

1:03:41

, very deep in like

1:03:43

umbrella or DNS protection or how

1:03:45

would you structure a security architecture

1:03:47

, right ? It'd be much more technical . I mean , those are

1:03:49

the people that I go to for help and

1:03:52

you can be an architecture specialist

1:03:55

. So it really

1:03:57

just depends on the position .

1:04:01

I'm amazed how much you have to know , like when you just

1:04:03

said there's like 15 products .

1:04:04

I'm like oh my God bit . It's

1:04:06

a little bit everything .

1:04:08

Alexis , I could talk to you forever , but

1:04:10

we're over an hour here and we should probably wrap

1:04:12

. Thank you so much for coming on

1:04:14

the show . It was amazing . I wish you luck in

1:04:16

your move . I hope that none of your stuff gets broken

1:04:19

on the way I hope

1:04:21

so too .

1:04:22

I hope so too , i'm'm sure , if

1:04:24

something can go wrong at will . But

1:04:26

knock on wood .

1:04:28

Well , thanks so much for coming on the show , kevin . Always

1:04:30

great to see you . If you love this show

1:04:32

, we have a bunch of cool stuff that

1:04:34

you can hop in and check out . Aj

1:04:37

created one of those link trees , so if you go to the art

1:04:39

of net engine link tree , there's all kinds of cool links

1:04:41

in there . You can go to our website

1:04:43

, artofnetworkengineeringcom . Make

1:04:46

sure to check out the Cables to Clouds podcast

1:04:48

. Those guys are rocking . They

1:04:51

just celebrated a year . They're kicking butt in all things cloud , network-centric

1:04:55

, cloud conversations . We have some new

1:04:57

stuff up in the merch store . You

1:04:59

can join the . It's All About the Journey Discord server

1:05:01

. We

1:05:07

have a few thousand people in there that are picking each other up . It's a great community

1:05:09

studying together , patting each other on the back when they win , picking each other up when they fail

1:05:12

and just all that kind of good stuff . So you can check the in the show

1:05:14

notes . There'll be a link in there so

1:05:16

yeah , that is the show . Thanks so much , alexis . Kevin

1:05:19

, great to see you and we'll see you next time on the Art

1:05:21

of Network Engineering podcast . Hey

1:05:25

everyone , this is Andy . If you like what you

1:05:27

heard today , then please subscribe to our podcast

1:05:29

and your favorite podcatcher . Click that

1:05:31

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1:05:33

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1:05:37

of Net Eng , that's Art of

1:05:39

N-E-T-E-N-G . You

1:05:41

can also find us on the web at artofnetworkengineeringcom

1:05:45

, where we post all of our show notes , blog

1:05:47

articles and general networking nerdery

1:05:49

. You can also see our pretty faces on our

1:05:51

YouTube channel named the Art of

1:05:53

Network Engineering . Thanks for listening . Outro

1:06:02

Music

1:06:16

.