Below is a list of the technology-related podcasts that have been my go-to when driving the many miles I travel per month. Most are networking-related, but some cover information on security, cloud, virtualization, etc.

There are more out there, but these are the handful I always seem to gravitate to. I’d love to get your recommendations for podcasts I should be listening to, so please let me know in the comments.

Heavy Networking on Packet Pushers (networking)

A standard for the industry, the weekly Heavy Networking podcast from the Packet Pushers dives deep into networking technologies from both an engineering perspective and with a practical mindset.

Clear To Send (wireless)

A podcast devoted completely to wireless networking including shows discussing real-world scenarios, emerging wireless technology, and wireless networking industry news.

Network Collective (networking)

A collection of mostly technical podcasts centered on networking, whether that be technical deep dives into a beloved routing protocol, industry news, historical accounts, and career advice. Industry experts are brought in regularly to share their experiences, their knowledge, and their perspective on industry news.

Security Now (security)

Under the This Week in Tech (TWiT) umbrella, this podcast with Steve Gibson focuses on various aspects of information security including both consumer and enterprise, regulatory issues and industry news.

The CTO Advisor (virtualization, cloud, etc)

A series of podcasts with a distinct business-oriented perspective on cloud technologies, virtualization, big data, and the occasional career show. Keith provides a very practical perspective to applying technology in the real world.

Zigbits (networking)

A solid podcast on networking, careers, and emerging technologies led by Zig Zsiga, a high level networking pro, who takes deep dives seriously and discusses networking topics in the context of their real-world applications.

Virtually Speaking (virtualization)

A weekly show with industry experts focused primarily on virtualization with VMware.

On-Premise IT (variety of technology areas)

A shorter show, the On-Premise IT podcast brings in voices from the community to discuss a wide range of technology including networking, storage, cloud, emerging technology, careers, and industry news.

Cisco Champion Radio (Cisco networking)

A podcast series sponsored by Cisco and the Cisco Champions program on Cisco networking, emerging technologies, Cisco cloud, infosec, etc. Episodes are found on iTunes.

The Cloudcast (cloud technologies)

A podcast focused on cloud technologies including integration, emerging technologies related to private and public cloud, security, tools, and careers.

For my very last class, I chose not to cover anything in the textbook or any of the bullets on the syllabus. Instead, I introduced my students to systems and network automation. What may seem old news to you and me was brand-new to my class, and I don’t believe this is the exception.

There is a huge  gap between what’s happening in classrooms and in real-world IT, and colleges aren’t preparing students effectively.

I believe the history of technology is important to learn, and I believe understanding foundational concepts is also critical. However, these elements need to be taught within the context of what’s happening in information technology right now. This way, even obscure computer science principles become relevant to the actual work a student can expect to perform in their career.

I know there are exceptions, of course. Students that plan to build careers in pure research should stay focused more on deep concepts and less on how to create a new VM in ESXi. But the majority of young people graduating colleges with two and four year IT-related degrees are getting jobs as sysadmins, network engineers, developers, help desk analysts, and so on. Knowing the foundational principles is certainly important, but does it also prepare them to configure a core switch or create new storage for the applications team?

Some two and four year schools advertise degree programs in network administration, cybersecurity, etc, in what I assume is an effort to provide a more relevant education. Some advertise they utilize the Cisco Networking Academy and Microsoft Online Labs.  But after working in the trenches in some of these programs, I don’t think they are nearly as relevant as schools think they are. And frankly, I believe this is doing a disservice to tuition-paying students.

During my last class, I gave students an overview of systems automation and introduced things like Chef, Puppet, Ansible, and Powershell. We discussed the difference between on-box and off-box management. We talked about what programming languages they should learn on their own, the importance of getting familiar with navigating a Linux file system, and what changes are going on in the industry today.

None of my students knew what the “cloud” was. None knew any programming languages other than the little bit of C++ and Java they learned earlier that semester. None had any idea about virtualization, a 20 year-old technology.

There’s a big gap between what’s being taught and what employers are looking for, and I believe teachers and those who write curricula are the ones to address the issue head on. Administrators have no clue about what’s going on in our industry, and college advisers at best have only a cursory knowledge of what a hiring manager wants to see on a resume.

Colleges need to hire teachers with solid industry experience. They need to prefer adjuncts that are working in the field right now, and then pay them enough to keep them around. Curricula needs to be modified, or in many cases just thrown out. As much as possible, a course’s curriculum should reflect what’s going on in the industry. As budget allows, labs need to be built, and industry news publications need to be part of the course reading list.

This may not be applicable to many departments at a typical college, but it’s vital in IT. Our field lives and breathes change, and it doesn’t need a new generation of job candidates that have months of experience configuring VTP but little else.

For me, it’s not about explaining DNS, OSPF, or what a hypervisor is. It’s much more about helping bridge the gap between someone learning these things for the first time and making the leap to a productive member of an IT department. Sure, that means memorizing well-known ports and learning about data structures, but it also means discussing DevOps, cloud computing, containers, or whatever technology is immediately relevant.

I left my teaching position for several personal reasons, but I hope to get back there one day. I love being in the classroom, and I love working with young people starting their own career journeys.

A real joy for me was making every three hour evening class as relevant and meaningful as possible, and sometimes that meant abandoning the five-year-old textbook and reviewing a recent blog article instead.

Thanks,

Phil

What I’ve learned is that there’s incredible value in actually engaging with whatever community is relevant to you. Yes, there’s value in passively consuming content, but actually participating in the community has impacted my life and career much more than any sort of passive interaction.

I use the term “community” loosely, perhaps more loosely than other bloggers. I see the community as fluid and dynamic – always changing and adjusting. Remember that the community of network engineers is actually a vaguely connected group of actual people which means there are introverts, extroverts, people my age, people much older and younger, some total jerks, and some amazing souls I wish I could be neighbors with.

In other words, it’s complex just like any group of people.

For several months you may find several voices more dominant than others, and after a while they may fade into the background as others engage more and produce more content. There are small circles, large circles, technology-specific groups, and plenty of overlap.

The community is not a fixed entity but is a dynamic ebb and flow of people.

I believe it’s very important to participate regularly at least in small ways. Maybe that means tweeting about networking from time to time, or perhaps that means finally buckling down and getting that blog post out there. Regardless of how you participate, I believe the value is tremendously greater to be an active part of the community rather than a passive one.

For me, this translates to getting a blog out once in a while and tweeting about networking a couple times a day. Because of the trials and tribulations of life, the level of my participation ebbs and flows as well, but I look at this as part of my career which likely has several decades left. In that sense, I can tolerate an ebb and flow so long as over the long term I participate from time to time to provide something meaningful to others.

I don’t believe there are any rules, either. If you’re reluctant to write, tweet, record videos, or speak, remember that many of the influencers creating all our favorite blogs and videos are out there cranking out network projects just like any other engineer. Your experiences are likely similar in many ways, and your contribution to the community is therefore just as valuable. In fact, I know many influencers who are influencers only because their jobs are so slow they have the time to write and create content.

If you’ve never participated, your voice still counts, and I want to hear it.

Too many times I’ve googled something for a project only to find an incredibly helpful blog post from someone I’ve never heard of and who rarely posts articles. Even if you’re not operating daily at a senior level, I promise you have something meaningful that we can all learn from. And after you take those first few steps of participating in the community, in your own way, in your own time, you’ll also find that in addition to helping others, you’ll actually learn so much as well.

Just after the new year in 2018, I struggled with a Cisco ISE project to the extent that I stayed up hours and hours reading blogs and watching YouTube videos to figure out how to get through my technical roadblocks. The next day I remembered my friend, Mike Zsiga (more commonly known as Zig), was extremely proficient with setting up ISE in even very complex environments.

I met Zig through online communities, and we stayed in touch despite the ebb and flow of both our lives. I sent him a note asking for help to which he responded almost immediately. Zig got on a Webex with me while he was in a hotel somewhere and walked through the configuration with me for hours – I think until after midnight if I remember correctly.

This is an example of how participating in the community has helped me directly in a very tangible way. Sure, I can learn a bunch reading blog posts and watching videos, but because of Zig’s and my participation in the networking community, we were able to develop enough of a nerdy relationship that my project was successful.

I’ve also met some folks that I’d never be friends with. This is the reality of any community that’s made up of actual human beings. Yes, there are some jerks, but they are very few and easy to spot and strategically ignore.

The great majority of people I’ve interacted with are fantastic and willing to help at the drop of a hat. But remember that the community isn’t all about you. Just as much as there are people willing to help you in your networking journey, you can be a help to others as well. Even one blog post about some entry-level technology will find it’s way to someone’s desktop, somewhere in the world, in the middle of a cutover.

Engage on twitter. Start a blog and try to stay somewhat consistent. Don’t worry about following any rules about how to engage, and remember that even if you’re a level 1 helpdesk technician, you almost certainly have something valuable we can all learn from.

And in the end, after we’ve completed our projects under budget, after all the right prefixes are being learned by the right routers, and after all end-users can authenticate to their shiny new wireless network through ISE, you also gain a bunch of new friends.

And coming from someone who works alone from home most of the time, that may be one of the best benefits of all.

Thanks,

Phil

Here’s the website: http://thenetworkcollective.com/

The header image was used with permission from Michael Nelson who was one of the Twitter participants during the first show. Check out his site here.

One day, instead of unpacking our favorite Shakespearean sonnet, I was sidetracked by a student who asked me how we know anything about electrons and how they orbit the nucleus of an atom. Apparently he asked his physics teacher the period before and got a pithy “electrons are the essence of a negativity.”

That made no sense at all to my student. It didn’t to me either. It didn’t answer the question, and in and of itself is a ridiculous statement. After making a Zoolander-esque joke about electrons being the essence of negativity, and negativity being the essence of Mr. Treuber’s physics class, he asked me the same question. So I went on for a minute about mathematical equations I didn’t understand and how it’s more an electron cloud than electron orbits. I didn’t know how to answer, either.

Because English class can lend itself to discussions of philosophy, metaphysics, human nature, and the more profound questions of life, my students were accustom to this kind of departure from whatever literature we were studying. I enjoyed it, too, but saw it as an opportunity to encourage them to respectfully ask their teachers how they came to their conclusions and how some indelible nugget of truth came to be known. I encouraged my students to respectfully ask their teachers, “how do you know that’s true?”

Many moons later, I program routers and play with computers all day. I read a lot of blogs, browse through reddit once in a while, and follow several technology publications. I also get to participate in an amazing social community of network engineers and technology professionals.

The community likes to joke about vendor hype which is both fun and poignant because it makes you think critically about the marketing from all our favorite technology companies. But the community also likes to make evaluations and predictions of its own. I tend to take these more seriously because, by and large, these are engineers writing for other engineers. I feel there is less marketing hype and a level of technical expertise that legitimizes the arguments.

But remember that people in any social environment come to conclusions based partly on the communal narrative. For the networking community, this means there are strong statements being made that everyone sort of just goes along with without question.

Therein lies the problem for me. I clearly remember encouraging my class to ask their teachers “how do you know that’s true?” However, I don’t often apply that to the networking community which is made up of, what I consider, some of the best teachers I’ve ever had.

A few years ago I came across a long twitter thread on why having one access point per classroom was bad design. There was no reasoning I could see, just everyone agreeing in rant form how bad a design it is. I asked the person who tweeted first why he believed this, and his reaction was to defend himself. I immediately told him I was not a wireless expert and was genuinely curious how he came to that conclusion. Rather than tell me that “access points are the essence of wireless”, he sent me a whitepaper he wrote on the topic thoroughly explaining his argument using RF math (which I barely understood) and several case studies.

Now I know why wireless engineers believe one access point per classroom designs are a bad idea.

When an entire social community rallies around a set of bullet points, I get a little skeptical. Where did this come from, and how do I know if this is true? Apply this to the blogs you read and tweets that come across your screen. Rather than blindly jumping on the bandwagon, don’t be afraid to politely and respectfully ask a blogger how he or she knows what they say is true.

Be prepared, but not afraid, to explain your position as well. This is our community’s way of iron sharpening iron.