Why You Should Attend Tech Conferences

Kevin

Most IT teams are managing networks stitched together from years of acquisitions and vendor contracts, and nobody's accountable when something breaks. Meter delivers the complete network. Hardware, software, and services delivered as a predictable subscription.

Upgrade credits, a fully managed install and deployment, and 24-7 support make the transition easy. Companies like Lyft, Mr. Beast, and Bridgewater have already made the switch. Go to meter.com slash liu to book a demo now. That's m-e-t-e-r dot com slash liu to book a demo. Welcome to Life in Uptime, the show where we talk with the people behind the networks that keep our world connected. I'm Kevin, joined by Alexis and Malina this episode because this a little different.

We are talking Cisco Live this episode. Cisco Live was a couple weeks ago, and really, we have a different perspective of maybe a typical network engineer who's going to it because we have a wide variety of people in this group who attended. We have me, the engineer who has been to, what, eight or nine Cisco Lives.

We have Malina, who this was her very first Cisco Live, so I'm really curious to see her expectations, her experience here. And then we have our beautiful, wonderful Alexis, who this was her, what, fourth or so Cisco Live, but she had a unique experience in that she presented in the leadership track. And she also was on a panel, I believe, right?

The panel?

Alexis

Yep. Yeah.

Kevin

Yeah. So she was on a panel and presented, and I'm really curious about her experience here and how she got into presenting and how that actually transposed, transfolded, transpired. Transpired is the word I'm looking for.

I love it. It wouldn't be an episode if I didn't screw up a word.

Alexis

Yeah, we thought it'd be cool to come on and just talk a little off the cuff about how the conference went for each of us. We get a lot of questions. Obviously, Kevin and I, me in particular, I've been on a trade show circuit this year.

I think I've been to eight or nine in the past 12 months. And we just, we get a lot of questions about it. Is it worth going?

What did you think? Do you actually learn things? It looks like so much fun.

Is it really? And we thought it'd be cool to just dive into that. So Melina, it was your first big tech conference.

It's also Melina's first time working in technology. She doesn't have a very technical background. So what was your initial impression from what you expected versus what you experienced?

Melina

I don't know what I expected. Physically, just from watching you guys' TikToks about Cisco Live Amsterdam, that is what I kind of, just watching your memes you make. And that's all I really had to go off of.

So fun wise, I'm like, oh yeah, that looks like a great time. Actually being there is like a circus. First of all, I was not prepared for what it actually is.

Second of all, I know absolutely nothing about the tech world. So to just like look around and see all these words that I've never seen or heard before was terrifying. Times the thousands of people that are there.

Times when I'm with you guys and people are like, oh my god, digital fight, adjacent notice that you. It was so overwhelming. Plus having to walk across like a state basically is what it felt like.

I don't know how many steps I got a day. I didn't even want to look. My feet hurt.

My back hurt. I just wanted to go to bed. And I'm 22.

I don't know how these people do it. But did you learn anything? I don't think so.

I would have liked, so I mean, you were trying to push me to go to the keynotes. And looking back, I kind of wish I did. But I didn't have time for that.

Alexis

To caveat this, if you are a normal, not normal, but if you're an engineer and your work is paying for you to go to a conference like this, typically the expectation is that you attend sessions. Melina was attending this as my EA and I did not force her to attend sessions. So just a caveat there.

Kevin

I feel like you should have, though, like at least I'm like intro networking some of the 100 level classes, like maybe the intro to CCNA or something like that, where she tried to make me go once.

Melina

And I was like, I think it was the day where we were absolutely dead and I could not get out of bed. And I looked at Chloe and I'm like, screw that keynote.

Kevin

So I'm curious, how would you describe Cisco Live? Like you said that you didn't really have an expectation, but that like when you were there, it was crazy. Nerdfest.

Nerdfest. Okay. Nerdfest.

Superbowl.

Alexis

That was, yes. That was for caption on Instagram. It was Nerdfest.

Shabang.

Melina

Shabang. It was, I don't know how else to explain it. Like, how else do you explain like a room full of, I'm using the word nerd lightly, okay?

Like.

Kevin

Oh, I don't. I say nerds all the time. I love it.

It's a term of affection. Like, we're all nerds. We all know we're nerds.

We nerd out.

Melina

As not a nerd, feeling like I'm using the word nerd feels disrespectful. So.

Kevin

We've taken it back. We've earned it now. It's cool.

Melina

Right. Okay. So a world full of nerds, literally, what do you guys call it?

The WOS? The world of slurs and nerds?

Kevin

The WOS.

Melina

It's literally.

Kevin

I've never heard anyone call it the WOS. Is that a thing?

Melina

So I'm not a fan of the WOS. And I was like, we've reached that point where you're pronouncing the acronym.

Alexis

Oh, God.

Melina

So yeah, that's what I see it as. A world full of nerds.

Alexis

I will say going to Cisco Live, some people, my first time, someone referred to it as a summer camp for nerds. And I was like, ah. And after being there, I think this is my fourth or fifth.

I lose track because I was a Cisco employee for a while. And so we also did our internal sales kickoff in Vegas, which is very similar to Cisco Live. And going back to Mandalay Bay, and you're at all the same bars, and people hold the same party every year in the same place.

And then you're like, ooh, what does the forward network booth look like? They always do a good job. What kind of candy are they handing out?

There's some things that you just start to expect from the different organizations or vendors or the ecosystem that's there. And so I walk back into Mandalay Bay, and I'm like, yeah, we're back, baby. Who are we going to see this week?

What's going to happen? Because it does kind of feel like summer camp.

Kevin

It does. And I think the part that feels like summer camp the most to me is that I see this group of people one time a year, and it's only for a week. So I've never been to summer camp.

I never had that experience as a little kid, but that's how I picture it. Yeah. No, my parents were teachers and we couldn't afford stay-away camps.

So this is my reliving my childhood where I have a bunch of friends, like I would say maybe a dozen people that I see every single year, like clockwork there. And I literally get so excited just to see these people because this is the one time a year a week to hang out, have a beer, catch up, talk about our kids, talk about the things that we missed. And it has nothing to do with networking, nothing to do with tech at all.

It's just reconnecting with these people. And that's the part that feels like summer camp to me. We happen to be at a conference, we happen to be there for work or whatever, but it's really the people that I get super excited about.

So that's the part that like, that's summer camp to me. And also this hat is.

Alexis

I was going to say, you can take that off if you'd like. You want to keep it on? No, but to me, that's the most valuable part.

When people talk about going to conferences, I always encourage them, don't just go to one, go to multiple or go every year, because it is part of maintaining that connection and maintaining those relationships and being involved and being a active, participating part of a community, whether it's the Cisco community, whether it's a different community. There's all sorts of other groups that meet at Cisco Live as well. It's not just Cisco people.

But you only build those relationships over time. And that means you have to continuously invest in them. I think at this point, like I'm so deep, even if I wasn't going to Cisco Live for work, I think I would still go just to hang out and see people.

Like you said, it's my chance to catch up with them.

Kevin

Yeah. Even if I wasn't going for classes and for my day job and all that stuff, I would get an Explorer Pass just to hang out with people and, you know, do the world of solutions and just socialize. Because that's the best part of it for me.

Alexis

Kevin, I'm curious. I developed, or at least I feel like I developed a lot of my relationships within the Cisco ecosystem because I was an employee. Like I'm not just meeting.

Well, now when I go back, I see my old customers that I used to support. Like we run into each other and we're like, oh my God, how are you? But also old co-workers, my old sales specialists or product specialists.

I see people from my old team there that I'm catching up with. It's not just Cisco champions or Cisco customers or people in the community. It's actual employees themselves that I work with.

So if you are going to a Cisco Live and maybe you don't have that, you're coming in brand new, what do you think the best way to make some of those connections are? And how did that start for you?

Kevin

So my first probably two years of Cisco Live were terrible. Like I'm an introvert. I'm not very social.

I won't go to someone and just start talking to them and be like, hey, what do you do? This is what I do. I'm the guy that sits in the corner alone at a party, like a vendor party and just goes there for the food and the drink.

Then I leave. That was me the first two years. And I would say like Cisco Live was like, okay, I learned some stuff, took some good classes, got some CE credits, took a certification test.

That was the main thing that I was going for. And I really didn't feel like I wanted to go back because it was just like, okay, this is pure work. There's no fun in this whatsoever.

And I've done it a couple of times and that's enough. I'm good enough now. And it wasn't until I started getting involved with more of the social aspects, like Twitter.

At the time, it was Twitter, the Twitter gang, where people would tweet about what they're doing, where they're at, and hashtag at the time, Klus, C-U-L-U-S. And now I think it's just Cisco Live. And they had a whole social media lounge where you could just literally just go and people would just hang out who were mostly in the social media realm, like the Twitter and the people who were just very vocal blogging and that kind of stuff.

And just hanging out there, you start seeing people who are there over and over again. Tom Hollingsworth was a big one where people recognize his voice. He's just very bolsterous when he talks.

And he's a big name in that social sphere. And I just started hanging around those people and being in their vicinity until I got the courage to introduce myself. And it wasn't until I joined that group of people that I really started getting the benefit of Cisco Live.

Alexis

Cisco Live.

Kevin

Because they give you access to things that you would not normally have access to as just someone who's observing. What people don't realize with Cisco Live and Cisco is it's kind of a small world where everyone kind of knows everyone. And the customers and the people who are very involved with going to Cisco Live every year, we know everything that goes on in the vault.

We know what's up. We know what's up. But we know the employees behind the scenes too.

The social media person, she's gone now. But Kristin Mudge, I think was her name? Kathleen Mudge, thank you.

Where she ran the social media side of the Cisco Champions and all that stuff.

Alexis

When you say social media, Kevin and I are talking about what we do in terms of information on social media. Back when X was Twitter and it was a very active technology community, they used to have a live stream of the tweets that people would tweet during Cisco Live. And they had like a little contest for who could get the most points.

I don't really remember.

Kevin

It was just this nice quantity of points of posts. And every post you would do would give you a point. And there's like a leaderboard.

And everyone who was kind of like on that leaderboard or trying, kind of knew each other because they were competing. Like, oh, who's that adjacent node guy? I don't know that guy.

But like, I can see his face up there. And then they see you in the social media lounge. Like, oh man, you're really catching up to me on points or whatever.

It was a way of social lubricant, basically. An easy way of getting involved with people. But once you get involved in one of those groups, it's amazing because that person will connect you to another person, will get you to another person.

And your social circle just grows organically just from being around those people.

Alexis

I even remember one of my old customers from Cisco. The first time he went to Cisco Live, he said that he didn't know anyone. The second time he went to Cisco Live, I was there.

And I was like, oh my God, well, we're going here. We're going there. I want to introduce these people.

And like, I just kind of brought him around on the third week. And at the end of the week, he was like, this was so much fun. 10 times better than the first year when I came by myself.

He was like, thank you so much. And I was like, what do you mean? Number one, I'm your solutions engineer.

It's my job. Number two, he's like, yeah, but you know, you know where all the parties are. You know where all the people are hanging out.

I was never alone because you would just sit at a table and just start talking to people at lunch. And he's like, I don't know if you knew them or if they were strangers that you just started talking to. That's how I felt with you.

Yeah, he was like, right. I'm like, he's like, I couldn't tell if these were friends of yours or people that you literally just picked up up off the street. And I'm like, I mean, it was crazy.

But having someone like that, that you can piggyback off of, Kevin, maybe you and I, maybe we need to start like, I know AWS when reInvent goes on, someone had started like a master list of all the events and like side parties and things going on, like a master calendar. Maybe you and I could start one of those for next year. People would text me or DM me on Instagram, be like, how did you know all of these existed?

And I'm like, I don't know. It's just kind of word of mouth. Like people just DM them to me or text me or I know that it happens because it happens every year.

Kevin

Yeah, well, I know Cisco Live has like an app, like their Cisco Live events app has like a way to connect with people. I know, I know. Well, I'm still getting there.

So they have all the people. But Tom Hollinsworth, when he was big into the social scene, I think he's like super involved in tech field day now. And I don't think he's as involved with the social media stuff anymore.

But he used to have a list of, you can sign up with your Twitter handle. And anyone who's going to Cisco Live had a list of all the Twitter handles of people who are going. And so you can connect via Twitter through this giant list of people.

And I think we can like, I don't think he's still doing it anymore, but we can take that back off again, where people can sign up with their social handles, maybe like what they do and like have a list of all the parties that we're going to that are available, the invite links, all that kind of stuff. So that you can kind of like have our own little crew of however many people going to each party. So you have like a built-in friend, a built-in someone to start that lubricant, that social media or that social lubricant.

But...

Alexis

That's such a weird, I don't like that.

Kevin

You don't like the social lubricant name?

Alexis

You say like find a buddy.

Kevin

I don't know, like look...

Alexis

You need someone to be social lubricant for you.

Kevin

Yeah, be my lubricant. What's wrong with that? I'll be your lube.

It's fine. For like car engines and like, you know, things, gears that work together better. I gotta go.

That's what I'm talking about. What are you guys talking about? That's what I...

Lubricants are... Anyway, because we're all part of one engine and we're all gears on an engine. We gotta need that lube so that we can all work together.

We're too deep into this now. We got a bad trip.

Melina

He's digging himself in a hole. And he just keeps going.

Kevin

I stand by it. I like the word lube when it comes to social lube. Because it is a lot of friction when it comes to being social.

And lube is a valid way to describe it. Anyway.

Melina

Great. Anyways.

Kevin

Yeah, so what I find... So a little story here. And I don't know, I didn't get permission to tell this story.

But I don't think he'll mind. Is I made friends with a guy who follows me on social media. And his name is Brody.

And this was his first Cisco Live. He had never been to one before. And I invited him out to the AWS party.

Or was it AWS? No, it was the NVIDIA party. And I invited him out to like, Hey, come on, I'm going to this party.

You should come too. That way we can meet in person and say hi together or whatever. So I get there.

And Melita, you know, the way Alexis and I... If we're in a gathering of people, we get pulled a million places. It's like we're, you know, I don't know, Stretch Armstrong, where I'm like talking to these people.

And this guy comes up to me, I gotta go over here.

Melina

That's exactly how I saw it.

Kevin

Yeah, it's insane. So you don't really get a chance to really talk to someone because you're being pulled. Well, I brought him over.

We said hi together. And I was like, Hey, you know, I had to go talk to this other person because my agent was there. Anish was there.

And I gotta talk to this person. And then I'll come back and talk to you later. And I look over and he's sitting at a table eating by himself.

And he's just like, you know, eating the buffet, having a drink, sitting by himself, looking all sad. He probably was not sad. That's probably me projecting my own insecurities.

My first two years of doing Cisco Live, where I was like, this sucks. I'm just eating by myself. But I looked over.

So I saw that. So I go and grab him. And I'm like, you know, it's actually illegal for you to be sitting by yourself at a social event.

It's part of the rules. You're gonna get kicked out if you don't come over here and socialize. So I brought him over.

It's a joke. He knows I was joking. That's my awkward, my social awkward like thing.

Like, you know, you gotta do this. So I brought him over and introduced him to some customers from Alexis from when she was an SE. And I was like, hey, this guy's cool.

You guys are cool. You guys should talk to each other. And so I was kind of like playing matchmaker.

And then they ended up spending the entire week together. They hit it off. They love each other.

Like they were friends. And Brody now has instant friends at Cisco Live whenever he goes. And I feel like that's all you need is one person to go, hey, you come over in this group and be part of it.

And from there, you guys can take it over. And you need that social transition.

Alexis

You need a friend, an extrovert.

Kevin

I said transition. You should be proud of me.

Alexis

Yeah, great. No, I think like you said, sometimes that's all it takes is one plus one equals. A group of friends and not just three.

I mean, that's also something I'm something I'm. I wouldn't say struggling with, but when I'm looking to make friends, when I travel, walking up to a group of people is intimidating. It's so intimidating.

If you just if you just tell people like. I am I am on a hiking trip right now. And there was a group of hikers sitting at this table.

They all clearly knew each other. They're not even speaking English. They're speaking German.

And I was like, I have the option to sit alone or I can just walk over to them with my food and be like, hey, do you guys mind if I hang out with you for a minute? Nine times out of 10. They're like, oh, what are you doing?

You're clearly not from here because you don't speak German. What are you doing here? Are you hiking alone?

I'm like, yeah, I just, you know, creepy. Well, no, but you're by yourself.

Kevin

Excellent.

Alexis

Especially if it's in a more casual setting, having the courage to go up and introduce yourself to a group of people. Most of the time, even if I'm in a situation where I'm with a group of friends at a bar and someone comes over and they're like, hey, we're not alone. Do you mind if I hang out with you guys?

Yes. The answer is almost always yes. And especially at a conference where a lot of people are traveling alone or traveling with maybe one other coworker, they're going to say yes.

Kevin

Nine times out of 10, people are not jerks. You know, the vast majority of people are nice people and they will welcome, even if they don't really want you there, they'll still say yes and they'll still try a little bit. And you can tell pretty quickly if that person's actually like a social person or just like saying yes to be polite.

But nine times out of 10, you still won't get rejected. So that's always a benefit.

Alexis

Here's something most IT leaders know but rarely say out loud. The legacy network model is showing cracks. You've got five vendors with none of them accountable to each other.

Renewal cycles tracked on spreadsheets and an IT team spending cycles managing infrastructure instead of moving the business forward. The problem isn't that no one wants to fix it. It's that switching can feel risky and overwhelming.

Kevin

Meter was built to solve exactly that. It's a full stack network with hardware they designed themselves. Firmware, software, support, all in one.

They support the migration, offer upgrade credits for existing gear, and the financing is flexible. Companies like Lyft, Mr. Beast, and Bridgewater have already made the switch. If your team is ready to stop managing a patchwork network and start enabling the business, go to meter.com slash liu.

Alexis

That's m-e-t-e-r dot com slash l-i-u to book a demo.

Kevin

Okay, so I also want to talk to Alexis about you presented. That must have been number one freaking terrifying because not only are you presenting, but you're presenting the leadership, like the leadership track. So these are all like big wig executive people who know their stuff pretty darn well.

And now you have to present to them. And you were on a panel. Yeah, they were both scary.

Both terrifying, right? And so I want to know your experience there, how that all happened, how you became a speaker. And then I also want to know, if someone else in the audience is listening and they think they have something they want to talk about at Cisco Live, how does someone get started in doing that?

How does that process work?

Alexis

Yeah, I also want to caveat this with, again, my experience was a little bit unique because I am deeply plugged into the Cisco ecosystem because I worked there for almost five years. This was actually my second time presenting at Cisco Live. So my first time was two years ago.

I did a breakout session. I think it was called Standing Out in a Virtual World. And it was basically a 45-minute workshop on personal branding for engineers, how to tell your story, how to build up a digital portfolio, how to talk about your career, your achievements to help promote yourself internally within your organization.

And it was a really valuable session. I got a distinguished speaker, my first time ever speaking, which was crazy.

Kevin

You're welcome. They used one of my reviews. So you're welcome.

Alexis

I think I gave it to like 100. I think it was like 120 people. That's that first session.

And the thing with public speaking, one of, it's so funny. I remember the second time I spoke, I was giving a keynote. It was about making network engineering cool again and talking about IT careers.

And I was flown out to Malaysia to deliver this keynote at a conference called Apricot. And I was freaking out. I think that one was to 1,000, 1,200 people, something like that.

And the founder of the conference came over, or the chairman of the board. And he was like, you know, Alexis, just think about it this way. Everyone watching is an engineer and they would be freaked out to be on that stage too.

So anything that you can do to get up there and share knowledge with them, they'll be appreciative of. And I think about that to this day. Most people working in technology are afraid of presenting, are afraid of being up on that stage.

Kevin

It's the number one fear. Like people would rather die than publicly speak. They would rather jump out of an airplane without a parachute and hope for the best than publicly speak.

It is the number one fear in America.

Alexis

Right. So getting that in your head that you have something valuable to share, you are doing the best that you can with the tools you have available. And the audience is just going to be appreciative that you are trying to share that knowledge with them.

That's the frame of mind that I take whenever I present now. We all want to do good, right? You want to get up and you want to crush it.

You don't just want to do good. You want to crush it. But even if you get up there and you just do your best, as long as it's coming from a really authentic place of trying to share knowledge and help the people you're talking to do better, they will appreciate the effort that you took.

Even if there was some parts that could have been polished a little bit more. So that's kind of how I went into this. As far as how I got selected, if you are presenting within Cisco, I think that there is a form you can look for internally.

If you're presenting outside of Cisco as a customer speaker, you need to work with your Cisco rep and they can help you apply. I'm not sure if there's just like a gated form on the website. I haven't seen one of those.

But typically it goes through like a couple of rounds of review of committees as they're selecting and building out these agendas. And that's exactly what I did is I emailed one of the people I knew at Cisco and I said, hey, I would love to present again this year. I know the cutoff date is next month.

If I submit a couple of abstracts of things I'd be willing to talk about, is there any way that you could help put me in touch with the committee? I'm just not really sure what the process is since I'm external now. And they cc'd me on an email with someone that cc'd me on an email with someone else and then it just kind of got carried.

And then I found out a month later, they were like, yeah, we're going to give you 10 minutes on stage in the leadership track. And I was like, I thought I was going to do a breakout. Again, here we are.

Kevin

So was that scarier, like being in the leadership track? It's only 10 minutes. Because before you had a breakout, that was what, 45 minutes or something?

Alexis

I'm so much more comfortable in a classroom setting. So much more comfortable because in a classroom setting, think about it. I mean, even if it's the breakouts at Cisco Live that have like 80 to 100 people in it, it's still a classroom setting.

You're not on a stage. You're up in front of a room. Everyone's seated at desks.

And you run a workshop. I've run several workshops like that now. I'm so much more comfortable because it feels like it's peer to peer.

When you're on a stage with lights and a microphone, that and the 10 minute talk track is almost scarier than the 30 minute. The 30 minute you can like add some personality in and, you know, make some jokes and kind of not be you.

Kevin

It's almost the difference between like a YouTube video and like a TikTok, you know?

Alexis

Yeah, the 10 minute video, you're in, point, point, point, message out. Like there's no...

Melina

You still added your humor in there, though. You had the crowd laugh like three different times. You have an entire thing that says Cringe Mountain.

Like you added your humor into it. I practiced like 15 times. I know, I was like there half the time.

Alexis

And I had very detailed speaker notes on a confidence monitor in front of me.

Melina

Yeah, but you can't say that you couldn't add humor into that because you didn't.

Alexis

You definitely can, but it has to be much more buttoned up. There's less room for error because especially when you're presenting, I mean, the IT leadership track at Cisco Live, I think they had like 2,500 people registered and things are down to the minute. It's down to the minute.

You get your time slot when it's over, you get the hook. And so you're really under pressure to get in, make your points, get out and make sure it's super short, executional, tactical, clear.

Alexis

That's it. It was fun. I would do it again.

Kevin

After all that, it was horrible. I was scared. It was terrible.

But I'd do it again. That's public speaking in a nutshell.

Alexis

100% I'd do it again.

Alexis

I think it's a good way to especially, we talked in the last episode about advocating for your career and becoming the guy or the girl that everyone's known or being known for something. And I think that public speaking or volunteering to present, what was that?

Kevin

My badge is getting stuck on my desk.

Alexis

Just take it off.

Kevin

But then the... Yeah, through Medicare. Now I'm stuck.

And that's a whole thing. All right.

Alexis

So we talked last episode about becoming the guy or the girl or being known for something. And I think that public speaking is such an effective way to do that because it's refining for a group of people, more skillset, and teaching others about something that you care about. So when you're talking about building your brand or building your reputation, Kevin and I obviously talk a lot about social media.

And I think social media is a really, really valuable tool. But giving in-person presentations, putting your hand up. I mean, there's all sorts.

When I worked at Cisco, there was all sorts of workshops that we were constantly looking for speakers for. Not just the giant Cisco Live kind, but the local beers with engineers or the customer field day. There's all sorts of NOGs, NUGs, community groups you can get involved with across the industry who are always looking to prop up new up-and-coming engineers, looking for people to present on interesting technology or use cases.

If you're doing something unique in your organization and you want to share it. We just opened... We're running an event for Megaport again called Connect.

And we opened a call for papers about engineers who are working with cloud networking. Are you doing something interesting in your organization that you can bring to our event and share? Because we want to help elevate voices with how customers are actually using technology in the industry.

Same thing, I was just at Network Automation Forum. It was a three-day event all about network automation. Talk about being lost at an event.

I can make my way around Cisco Live. And again, I am not the most technical engineer. But I can make my way through a conversation about enterprise networking.

Okay, start talking about Yang and Netconf and YAML and API calling and automation frameworks for infrastructure. Yo, I mean, that was... It was a rough week for me.

I tried my best. I went and talked about LinkedIn, which was great. But especially programmability stuff, you want to talk about needing a quiet place to sit down and really put your head in a book.

That's kind of what I need there. It's a different world. But same thing, they were looking for presentations for how people were using automation in their network.

How have things changed? How are you using AI? How did you implement this?

And at the end of every session, they had open questions for customers to go. And it's very peer-to-peer. But there's those types of opportunities all over the industry.

If you're looking to get into speaking or just flex your skills and help someone new.

Kevin

And I would say there are opportunities usually inside of organization to start small. Like you don't have to start on a stage at an event. That seems going from zero to 100 very fast.

But there are usually inside internal trainings that you can hold or something internally that you can just say, hey, two weeks from now, I'm going to be in a conference room and I'm going to go over, you know, how I set up ICE in this environment or how I set up the wireless LAN controllers. And you just present that to your peers or your boss or whomever. And that gives you kind of an intro into talking in front of people in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming that you're talking to a thousand people or a hundred people even at first.

And I would start there personally. I guess that's the entry level.

Alexis

You can also tell your boss this is something that you're looking at getting better at. That was a big conversation that I had with my boss at the beginning of last year. My goal was to get on stage five times this year.

I would like to deliver five public facing presentations by the end of the year. I am at four. I need one more.

Kevin

Why? What is your end game there? What is your end goal?

Alexis

I think that. Yeah, I mean, put yourself in uncomfortable situations, learn, grow. I think that from a career perspective, being or having the confidence to get on stage in front of a group of people and effectively communicate and deliver a message is a skill that you'll be able to use throughout the course of your career.

Being able to stand up ad hoc in front of a boardroom and convey your ideas and not be afraid of standing up and speaking to a group of 30 people because you've already spoken to a group of 800 people. It's more of a. What's the word?

Alexis

I don't know, like. Oh, what's the word for, like, doing something really scary?

Alexis

Exposure therapy. It's like exposure therapy. But it's just something.

It's a skill that I would personally like to get better at. And I think that. If you have knowledge that's valuable sharing, you are obligated to share it.

And that might mean putting yourself. It might be. What else is it for?

You're learning all of these things for what? For you to keep in your head?

Alexis

What's the point?

Kevin

Some people would consider that, yeah.

Kevin

Like for your own personal use, your own personal gain. I'm not advocating for that. I'm just, I'm just saying.

Alexis

Great, you learned this thing that sits in your head. How is that going to help you unless you share it with the world? I don't know.

Kevin

Valid point. I was just. That was a strong word of like.

That is your responsibility to share.

Alexis

Yeah, it's like Spider-Man. With great power comes great responsibility. If you learned and understood how to do something really cool.

You need to share it with people.

Alexis

Because it's cool. You spent time learning it. I'll get off my soapbox.

Alexis

But that was one of. That was one of my big goals this year was to give five public facing presentations.

Kevin

Yes. Are you going to make your five this year?

Alexis

I don't know.

Kevin

Need one more, right?

Alexis

I mean, it's June. I have six months to find one more. And every day I open my inbox and there's something interesting there.

So who knows? I did want to close out this episode. I thought it would be really fun if we could all do our favorite memory or standout moment from Cisco Live.

We can take.

Kevin

That's hard.

Alexis

10 seconds to think about it. Mostly because if we wait longer than 10 seconds, we're going to be bored.

Kevin

Well, we always have this.

Melina

Would be you calling me out on stage. Yeah, that would be mine.

Kevin

Well, so if you didn't, if we did, if there were people who did not watch Alexis. I don't even call it a performance. It was a performance.

I have kids and I'm used to my daughter being up there at her dance recital. Like it's a performance. I don't know what you'd call it.

You're like my little sister to me. So like, it's hard to.

Alexis

It was a panel discussion.

Kevin

Okay.

Alexis

And Melina sat right in the front row.

Melina

And she called me out and I went like this and everyone's like, there she is. That one right there. And I was like, stop.

Never again. I'll be in the back next time.

Alexis

I side a little aside there. Melina was at the Megaport happy hour. It was like the first or second day of Cisco Live.

It was her first ever vendor happy hour. She's like wading through the crowd with her one martini. And she comes over and I'm like, what do you think?

And she goes, I don't know what to do. I'm walking around and I can hear people behind me going. I think that's Alexis's little sister.

Melina

I wish I had like a really like deep hat where you just couldn't even see me. I just wanted to hide in a corner.

Kevin

Like, okay, so this is an aside. I know we were talking about our favorite moments, but I have to ask. So you're being pushed into the limelight now of social media and this group of nerds, right?

Were you ready for that? Did you expect this when you become the EA, when you became involved in all this?

Melina

No, not at all. I didn't even like expect to go to Las Vegas or Cisco Live with Alexis. I was just like, okay, I get to work from home with my cats.

And I'm like in the middle of Las Vegas, dehydrated, surrounded by thousands of nerds. And I'm like, where am I? What am I doing?

Kevin

Does it feel good to be recognized or is it something that you're shying away from?

Melina

I don't want to be recognized. I want to be like the person that's in the back where they're like, I recognize her name. Don't know what she looks like.

I know she does this. That's it. I don't want people to be like, I think that's Alexis's little sister.

That was weird for me. Okay, that was really weird. It was weird enough watching her get recognized for four days straight.

Like we talked about it every day. We're like, it just gets weirder and weirder. I was with you guys and someone was like, oh, I need you in the picture too.

You're Alexis's little sister. I'm like, I don't want to be in the picture.

Alexis

I think what people don't understand or maybe don't realize is that in my family, it is a running joke. Like when my siblings want to make fun of me, they call me digital bite as a joke at the grocery store. As a joke, there's a running album.

It's been like this running joke. And so for Melina to come out to live and people come over and be like, are you digital bite? And out of the corner of my eye, I see her like bent over holding back laughter because she's like, no way this is actually real.

And I'm like, I tried to tell you.

Kevin

Yeah, no one understands it until you actually see it in person. My wife was the same way. It wasn't until I got recognized at breakfast one day.

I was sitting with my kids and my wife and we're just eating breakfast. And this guy comes over and like, says like, you know, I know you, are you a Jason Node? And my wife was like freaking out.

She's like, people actually do that? People actually know you? I'm like, I'm telling you, yeah.

Melina

What do your kids think of that?

Kevin

Oh, they think it's the coolest thing ever.

Melina

Like, literally, I have a... Do you like a superhero? They have to.

Kevin

So I have a quite a large following of 16 year old girls on my socials now because my daughter sent out my username to all her friends and like, you gotta follow my dad. You gotta follow my dad.

Melina

So she has to be the most popular girl in school.

Kevin

But yeah, it's cool. It's really cool for her to be like, you know, my dad's an influencer online. I love that.

Yeah, I'm not a hero in their lives because like, I'm a great dad or I spend a lot of time with them.

Alexis

I talk at your house. We make sure Minecraft works.

Kevin

Yeah, none of that matters. I'm an influencer and that's cool to them. So that's why.

Alexis

That's so funny. So funny. I do want to say, I think, I mean, anyone who's listening to this that ever came up to the wheat, which also, hang on, side note, Malina and I were sitting eating.

I think we were like hunkered in a corner. I was trying to send something to one of the brands I'm working with. And her and I were talking and the guy next to us looked over and said, I hope this isn't weird.

Are you on packet pushers? I recognize your voice.

Alexis

And we were like, that's hard again.

Melina

That was a first. Oh, weird. I was like, what?

Just off my voice.

Alexis

I have a shitty microphone too. Holy shit. That was great.

That was crazy.

Kevin

That was, you know, we're working so hard on this podcast thing. This is taking a lot of time. Like, literally, I spend more time on this podcast now, I think, than I do in my social media stuff, just because it's huge blocks of time.

And so to hear that people are listening and actually like, you know, enjoying this thing is people and like getting value out of it is huge for me. Like the social media stuff I'm used to, but this podcast, yes, people are listening.

Alexis

It's a new frontier. But what I was going to say is, I mean, huge kudos, anyone who's come over to Kevin and I and said hello at a conference. I know how intimidating it is to walk up to someone.

I've been at other influencer events. I've been at, I remember one time I saw one of my favorite fashion influencers in Dallas. I like passed her on the street and I was like, I didn't have the audacity to walk over and be like, hi, are you?

No, I was scared. I looked from a distance and I was like, there she goes. That was definitely her.

But I love when people come over and say hi. When we're talking about this, like please don't let that stop you. It's so lovely to get to meet and shake hands and have a conversation with people that follow us and support us.

And it just makes it all real. I mean, after a while, it's really easy to look at the likes and the comments and the numbers on engagement. It's really, really freaking weird to think about every single one of those being an individual human.

And it really helps me put that in perspective when I'm able to go to events and shake hands and get to chat with all of you guys in person.

Melina

It's just weird on my end to actually see it knowing it's Alexis and Kevin.

Kevin

It is weird because you don't, you know, it's like personally to me, to us, you're just like, you know, whatever, but it was a little weird.

Melina

When I was like before Alexis went to college and I could see her sitting on the couch, reading a book and I'm like making fun of her all the time. Like if someone told me this was going to be Alexis, what, 10 years ago, I would have been like, you're so funny. Like that's hilarious.

Alexis

If someone said I move fast to Scranton in with Malina and we talk on a daily basis, I don't think anyone understands. My siblings, I would say I use the term light bullying. It was like heavy on the light.

Yeah. Anyways, we're doing great now.

Kevin

All right. So it's kind of boring now that you said it, but like memory. Yeah.

My favorite memory was like talking to all those people. And, you know, I actually have, I have a story I want to talk about real quick because they reminded me of something you said. And this is actually not about me or my favorite moment at all, but it's actually about David Bombal.

All right. So I met David Bombal for the first time that this is go live. We've been in the same sphere for a long time and I've seen him at conferences, but he's always been busy, like in his little cube, like his little David Bombal jail.

And I like kind of wave at him, but he's like super busy. Doesn't see me at all. So I've kind of made fun of it.

I've kind of made fun of it on social media. Like, oh, him and I are best friends. And like, but he has no idea who I am, that kind of stuff.

But so I met David Bombal the first time. Great guy, super down to earth, just talked. But I want to tell a story real quick that we were walking together and at the world of solutions.

And there was a guy staring at him from like a couple of feet away, maybe like 10 feet away or so, just like staring, like he stopped and was just like staring at David Bombal. And David Bombal was, we were in a conversation together and he stopped the conversation with me, looked over, it was like, hey, do you want a picture with me? And the guy was like, yeah, please, please.

And he took time to stop, take a picture with this guy, talk to this guy for a couple of minutes and then continue on. And I was like, you know, that, that is a real person like that. I never want to lose that part of what I am doing, all this stuff where I noticed someone who may be too scared or doesn't want to interrupt or is being kind and doesn't want to take that moment.

But I want to be that person to always be like, hey, I see you're looking at me. Do you want to talk? Do you want to have a picture?

Like, do you go out and reach that? And I thought that was freaking amazing of him that he's got millions and millions of followers. He's been involved with Cisco.

He's a CCIE. He's this big wig guy, but he still takes that five minutes to talk to someone who's just like in awe of him. And I think that was amazing.

And that was one of my favorite parts of Cisco Live that does not involve me, but I thought it was really cool.

Alexis

It was such a wholesome story.

Kevin

Yeah.

Alexis

Man, I want to rethink my memory now. I was gonna say something stupid and maybe kind of funny.

Alexis

Man, favorite moment.

Alexis

So there, I guess this is also a little bit wholesome. The one that comes to mind, there was a number of people that we brought to the conference this year that had never been to Cisco Live before. Anish, our talent manager, Melina, my EA, Chloe Platt, my social media manager at Megaport, and then Megaport also let us bring two of our videographer friends to help us create some content.

And for Chloe, Melina, Chris and Cody and Anish, it was their first proper tech conference, their first Cisco Live. They had no idea. And watching all of them walk in and be like, I literally have a video of Chris looking at the Cisco sign mouth open with his video camera in hand.

And he goes, the hyperlapse is gonna be so good. Kid in a candy shop. And so I think being able to share something that I love and get to almost like re-experience it through other people's eyes that I care about was really special.

Alexis

Amazing.

Alexis

Wholesome. Cute.

Alexis

Let's come up with a funny moment.

Alexis

Just kidding.

Alexis

Um, okay, again, having Melina and Chloe and I all shared a hotel room and having a little debrief at the end of the conference, like the end of every day before dinner in like that 10 minutes that you get to sit down and go, in between like the conference and the dinner parties at night, being able to sit there and recap with them. I think I laughed until my stomach hurt. I think we like cried like several times.

I haven't done that in a while. So...

Kevin

I think girl time.

Melina

So much. So much girl time.

Kevin

Well, you're solo traveling a lot, right?

Melina

Yeah. We were just making fun of Alexis for most of it, but it was just so fun.

Kevin

So she thought at home with her family, like the light ribbing.

Alexis

I'm easy to make fun of, I guess. I don't know.

Kevin

I mean, I can attest to that.

Alexis

Well, any final thoughts before we wrap up the episode?

Kevin

My biggest thing is if you're on a Cisco Live, go more than once. Go a couple of different times. It doesn't have to be back to back.

I know like travel and getting funding for Cisco Live might not always be possible or available, but to really get the best benefit out of Cisco Live, go multiple times, try to get in with people as much as possible and just try to have some fun. Don't worry about just all the classes and all the learning and all the C credits and all the certifications. Try to have a little bit of fun because that is where the magic of Cisco Live really is.

Alexis

It's about... Oh my God, it got so loud. Can you hear that?

Alexis

Yeah.

Alexis

I'm so sorry. It's all about the people. Melina, final thoughts?

I don't really have any. Okay. Okay, awesome.

Well, I have a back-to-back meeting.

Alexis

That is it for this episode of Life in Uptime. Thank you guys for hanging out with us today and we will see you next time.

Kevin

Keep your uptime high.

Alexis

Yeah, yeah, yeah.