The November edition came around so fast I was caught off guard! Luckily I have been in the company of some great resources for articles this month. I was invited to be a track presenter at the Cisco HR Talent Forum along with some great presenters and a whole bunch of Channel Partners. We had a fabulous venue at the Chateau Elan near Atlanta. I spoke about CCIE Retention and shared with the Channel Partners information I have learned about keeping CCIEs loyal. (Hey I told them to send you to Networkers now you owe me!) When attending the other sessions I was impressed by the many areas of concern raised by Channel Partners and the response from Cisco to provide experts in the various areas. So I have included members of the SRS Program in this issue to provide information about their services. We have been brought together By Celia Harper-Guerra and Cisco Systems to support the Channel Partners in their growth by providing the best resources. So take a look at theis edition of the CCIE Flyer and let me know what you think.
We spoke. We shared. We listened. We ate. We drank. We learned.
We had fun!
I golfed!!!
I arrived on the 10th the afternoon before the event was scheduled to start. I had time to say hello to and meet the event organizers from Cisco; Celia Harper-Guerra, Beth Rowland, Bill Philbrick (the Master of Ceremonies), Diane Adams, Steve Boutelle, Paul DuCharme, Mimish L’Esperance, Eden Britt, Brooke Ellingsworth, Kristen Adams, Billy Martin, Peter Joyce, and many more. I was on the schedule for the Wednesday seminars and breakout sessions as a track presenter and was really pumped up about my opportunity to support the event. So after saying hi to everyone I did what any gent in my shoes would do, I snuck off and played golf! I haven’t told Charles my boss in London yet, but I had a really great evening round of golf! What a nice course they have there and since it was a work day and I had an evening tee time, I had the course to myself. I was whacking the balls so far I was hooting like a loon as I exited the tees. If I could have sunk a putt I would have been howling nonstop, but as usual the Yin and Yang of my game balanced out to keep me over 90 and humble. Wednesday started off good with many of the 40+ channel partners trickling in for the kick-off that afternoon. This was a Veterans Day event (in the US we celebrate Veterans Day acknowledging the brave efforts of our war veterans) so it was fitting that we heard from a veteran and Steve Boutelle of Cisco and a retired CIO of the Army started things off impressively. My military time was spent in the Navy in the Pacific and sometimes in South China Sea at the end of the Viet Nam War. While I was relatively safe with my squadron of Anti-Submarine Warfare birds located on the aircraft carrier, USS Kitty Hawk, there were many who were involved in Viet Nam who fought and died. I am grateful for the time I served my country and the tools in life I carry today that were realized from that experience. So our Cisco host Bill Philbrick kicked off the event with a tribute and tip of the hat to our Veterans and our opening speaker Steve Boutelle who is involved in the newest technologies rolling out to the department of defense. I was delighted to learn that Bridge Resourcing Solutions and your CCIE Agent have actually been working on this great effort already with a leading defense contractor in the US. You can never tell who you will bump into as you tie the ends together in a project. We had a wonderful evening and I hooked up with several great channel partners but I must say that first evening playing pool with Jeff Strain, from Waco, Texas was great for me. I get homesick for Texas whenever I hear that accent and when I started talking with him about his company we put work aside and tore up the pool table talking trash and having a few brews. So a quick shout out to my new friend Jeff is in order, “thanks for the great time Jeff!”
Day two was rough for me after staying up until 2:00AM! But my topic is an important one for CCIEs and for the Channel Partners. I was very pleased to see I had the lion’s share of the attendees in my session. I shared the podium time with Gregg Smith of Chart Your Course International. Greg is an expert on retention and the subject of accelerating the work place. He has written over 350 articles and published nine books on various workplace subjects. My discussions were steeped in the knowledge gained from my constant work with CCIEs and their careers. I had a chance to validate my CCIE Summer Salary Survey results when discussions broke out around compensation and base salaries. I also had a chance to talk about the care and feeding of CCIEs and what will keep them loyal. What a great round of discussions we had. Cisco’s Beth Rowland was the MC for this breakout session and I am very happy to have her as a friend. Her focus has been on retention and she has some great experience in this area for the SRS Program and the Cisco Talent team.
I also enjoyed the presentation from Rebecca Shambaugh who helped us understand the differences in generations from Baby Boomers to Generation X and Generation Y when it comes to careers and recruitment. There are some startling differences in the way each generation thinks about work and life! She did open my eyes to something I was experiencing in my daily dealings with CCIEs. Those older CCIEs are asking different questions than the X and Y candidates do.
I attended the breakout session given by Gary Starzmann from Radford Surveys. Gary had a lot of international information about wages and compensation plans as well as benefits. I found his information to be a real education in the state of the world’s economies. Did you know that in India the salaries of the average professional are rising by 14% annually?
My presentation did open up discussions, since many partners want to know about CCIEs’ earnings, salaries, best practices for offer letters, and comp packages. I was happy to learn that the CCIEs who participated in my Summer CCIE Salary Survey were spot on with what channel partners are paying. You folks deserve a real shout out for your help. Without the many CCIEs who responded to my salary survey I would not be able to help increase the awareness about standard compensation plans and which adds power to your negotiations. So there is a method to my madness, CCIEs are now being heard and I am delighted to help spread the word! There were some great moments this week. I met with one of my competitors in the SRS program, Jeff Bloch. As the VP of Decision ToolBox his company is offering alternative options for recruitment through the Cisco Partner Talent Portal. My boss will string me up if he discovers I introduced him to some of my customers while in Atlanta! I will be featuring information about Decision ToolBox in the November edition of the CCIE Flyer. The SRS Program has a number of options for the recruitment of talent for the Channel Partners and I will help make everyone aware of them. Real important to me was getting to chat with Peter Joyce. He is the lead for the Cisco Network Academy and on my radar since I have begun sponsoring three schools in the IT Rocks program he is leading. This is a great effort which has a goal of introducing kids to IT as a career at an early age. Because we all know that IT Rocks. Thanks Peter! With the emphasis on the military I was happy to meet with Sandy Morris the CEO of Bradley-Morris Group a great company helping the military resources coming off of active duty to find work. Sandy has a real passion for what she does and I am going to tell you all about her in the CCIE Flyer this month. I am writing this first edit on a Delta flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia. My journey has been rewarding and filled with some of the greatest people you could ever hope to meet.
I don’t take what I do for granted since in a moment it can all change, but for now I know I am the luckiest boy from Oak Cliff (in Dallas) that has ever tapped a keyboard!