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I’m writing this from a couple of different perspectives about attending conferences.
- Cisco Live – This is written based on Cisco Live events but is useful for any vendor / technology (or even other industry/profession) conferences.
- First time attendee / non social person
- On-site attendee
- Remote attendee
I’m going to try and mold these elements together with the obvious point that there are things in person that are different remote so I’ll try and separate those into different groups while keeping a high level ideas/concepts together.
Onsite/In Person Attendance
This can be very overwhelming on many fronts. Depending on the size of the conference it’s a sensory overload. You often have some sort of show room floor like the World of Solutions at Cisco Live. It’s like being at a concert full of people you don’t know as well as a car dealership. Ton’s of conversations, and tons of selling but take a step back and breath. Lot’s of awesome can come out of it.
First off, listen! Ambient learning/queues are great. You’ll hear a lot of very smart people talking, conversations and topics that might peak your interest. Which brings Second!
Dig into that, if a conversation, topic, product, etc. intrigues you dive in. Remember you are all there for the same reasons and it’s highly unlikely you will get pushed out of or denied part of a conversation.
Third, as overwhelming as it is it’s a great way to make connections both in person and eventually remotely through the years to come. The best part is perspectives. You often get to learn different cultural perspectives as attendees come from all over the world. You can gain inspiration on the way things might be done elsewhere and once you build that connection your might even get some great recipes to try out 🙂
Don’t overdo it on learning classes. It’s easy to burn yourself out by making the entire conference about the classes offered. I’m not saying don’t do them as they are wonderful and ran by very smart individuals but you can spend the entire week trying to soak up all that knowledge and miss out on the social interactions/perspectives/fun/learning.
With that keep an eye out for things like the Social Media Hub and Certification Lounge. Let’s not forget the store where often our favorite cert guide authors do meet ups. These are great places to get in on conversations and discussions and as I’ve said there isn’t a conference I’ve went to where people turn you away.
If you get invited to a dinner/happy hour do it! This is part of why I say don’t wear yourself out on just doing classes because these events happen and again, you’ll make awesome connections and have good discussions even if you just passively listen and say a word here and there.
I guess I am trying to say the TLDR: for in person attendance is to leverage the aspect of learning (the classes/sessions) that might be relevant to you right then, but also take a deep breath in the morning, and interact. You’ll meet fellow industry colleagues, industry rock stars, and ultimately make friends and learn a lot along the way.
Remote Attendee
So the stars didn’t align and you can’t attend Cisco Live in person. That doesn’t mean you are going to miss out on all the news and hype coming from the convention center floors. There are a few key ways to stay involved.
Live Broadcasts:
Cisco Live has quite a few live broadcasts of key events such as keynotes, panels, and innovation talks. The best part is……they offer these for free! They don’t even require a login to watch! “How do I watch these?” you ask. Simply go to the homepage for Cisco Live. They conveniently have a page with the schedule and even ICS downloads so you can add it to your calendar and block that time off distraction free! To see the schedule and information go to the Cisco Live broadcasts page linked below!
https://www.ciscolive.com/global/attend/broadcast-agenda.html
There are many other broadcasts that happen during the events. Often broadcasters such as Tech Field Day and various live steamers on platforms such as Twitch and YouTube live stream within the means they are allowed. I can’t speak to any of them with confirmed streams but encourage you to check them out.
Social Media:
I can’t say this enough. JOIN. I’m not asking you to post, or be active (it would be awesome if you did though) but there are a lot of us on platforms that will be barraging twitter with the hashtag #CLUS. Also keep in mind the hashtag #CISCOCHAMPION and possibly even #CISCOLIVE. It’s been a change over the years with more platforms outside of X(Twitter) such as BlueSky, Mastodon, etc, however vendors and the conference itself leverage social media heavily during the events. You can also follow specific individuals and companies you find interesting and will get a lot of information about new technologies from both Cisco and various vendors. A lot will come straight from the World of Solutions floor as well as keynotes and sessions. Keep up with the tags and follow them to keep up on the event.
More common now with all the interactive streaming/broadcasts are rooms on platforms such as Webex and Discord. Find communities you can join and keep up on the interaction and updates from individuals that are on site or even remote but might be following different channels/websites then you.
Blogs
A lot of individuals in attendance write blog posts. While I will admit that most of the time they aren’t updated daily during Cisco Live many will post within the following week. Also, often blogs from both attendees and companies are scheduled to be published as announcements and releases are made during the conference. These blogs are often linked in social media posts and you can utilize various utilities to keep updated on new posts.
VLOG/Video Content
On top of regular text social media platforms there is a growing number of live streamers and Youtube (etc) content creators. I haven’t talked specifically to any but in years past there have been numerous daily updates from the conference on various medias. Keep an eye out for them!
INTERACT!!!!
I’m stressing this. This is why I also send pleas for you to join Twitter/BlueSky/Mastadon/etc and follow people. You will find that a lot of the most prominent posters on twitter (specifically look for #CiscoChampion) are quite happy to ask questions on your behalf or seek out an answer for you if possible. We don’t bite! We are social for a reason. Secondly, Tweet at @CiscoLive. They have some incentives for remote attendees and I’m not going to lie….that social media team is the best in the biz. They rock and will respond to the best of their abilities!
I look forward to hearing from you! Please do not hesitate to ask me questions on twitter. I can be found by following @mattouellette. Enjoy the show! Don’t forget to block out time on your calendar to watch or catch up on the events you have high interest in!
General Summary
Global ideas that cross both onsite and remote attendance:
- Don’t overwhelm yourself
- Listen and join in
- Interact whether its social, technological, project, vendor, etc related
- Make connections
- Hear experiences and share yours with your industry peers
As a bonus a fellow Cisco Champion whom many of you may or may not (okay you probably do) know, our friendly trainer & author Wendell Odom gave me permission to link his video for attendees new to/studying for CCNA with a perspective of remote attendance. Please note I did not watch this video until after I wrote this so there may be crossover but no intention of idea stealing as we share what we do because we like to help but he’s a much more seasoned veteran of this industry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfea2qOavJM
Additional tip: If you are remote you are likely working on other tasks. This is where the streams from the official event, or live content creators are great because you can have them up in the background and if something perks up your ears, you can stop for a minute to watch/note the topic and visit it later. This leads back to my previous post about learning methods and ambient learning.
