Podcast

EP014: Neil Moore 8X CCIE, CCDE, RHCE and all the other E’s on InterOp being what makes his career (and yours too).

Yes, this interview is with THE Neil Moore – the guy who is tied with only one other human on the planet for having every Expert level cert from Cisco – All CCIE’s and the CCDE.  I first found out about Neil through a YouTube channel he had when he was at HP doing some interop stuff with their switches.  The funny thing is, THAT EXACT CONCEPT is how Neil Views his success.  Listen in on this amazing interview, there is so much wisdom in it!

00:00 Neil Moore – Who he is started with the computer lab at Panamerican University, and a Highschool job doing PC stuff.
07:00 Refinement of the CCIE study process – from the guy who has them all.
09:00 INE and IP expert (RIP IPX [the training company and the protocol!])
13:00 Combining technologies as a superpower.
17:00 It’s not about the money for Neil. It’s about something he’s passionate about AND something he likes to do.
21:00 Making sure your training process isn’t too old, and not boxing yourself in to learning methods.
24:00 Unbidden, it’s Pillar 6!
25:00 Certs are structured learning – and Neil’s take.
28:00 Software has become like sampling songs – learning everything that you think is cool tends to pop up again and again.
30:00 Choosing a technology based on what you LIKE – so that you keep interest
32:30 Code RGV and how Neil Gives back to the next wave of tech workers
34:30 Mentoring – You can’t get off the couch and run a marathon. You have to train yourself up – Neil times zero to hero in 18 months. Pillar 1 and Pillar 6 aplenty.
41:00 Social media and showcasing your work.
44:30 Neil on moving in front of automation and commonality.
48:00 What Neil’s doing now -> Technology hop vs job hopping.
52:00 The importance of knowing people inside your company or outside who can think about a problem with you.
54:30 Neil Moore’s dedicated learning time – 1 to 2 hours per day, 7 days a week.
59:00 Min/Maxing your study time and time boxing stuff that is frustrating.

Find Neil online at LinkedIn (HERE), and on Twitter (HERE).

More can be found about Neil’s methodology about CCIE study on the How To Network blog entry (HERE).

 

EP013: Cisco NetDevOps Evangelist Hank Preston on smart people learning new things (even when it’s scary).

 

I never do quite know when I will stumble across someone who I think “I must have this person on my podcast”.  A Cisco Network Automation webinar was one such place, when I met Hank Preston, the NetDevOps Evangelist for Cisco Networks.  He had a HUGE amount of great knowledge to share with us on this episode.  Tackling Pillar 4, Explaining Automation, and talking about why people screw themselves up by not listening.

00:00 Intro for Hank Preston.
10:00 Network Programmability Basics Course (here)
15:00 What is CI/CD and Network Pipelining
17:30 Network Configuration Pipeline
24:00 MEETUP!
29:00 Deep Learning vs Wide Learning – Don’t look for unicorns.
31:00 Developer.cisco.com discussions.
36:00 Discussion on certs and their value.
41:00 SE Jobs and how listening and not snap judgment is the key.
50:00 Everyone’s favorite buzzword – IoT.

You can find Hank online at @hfpreston and @ciscodevnet. He also gives killer webinars about using programmability to automate your network.

EP011: Jeff Snyder on why coaching is not ‘Crazy Hippie’ stuff.

 

I met Jeff Snyder many years ago when I did my own pivot into Network Security from a straight networking position. I was really ‘stuck’ in making progress moving from one discipline (networking and plumbing of the network) to another discipline (security policy and implementation). Jeff gave me tips – unpaid and unbidden – that helped me shift my mindset and land my first consulting job that spanned what I knew (networking and VoIP) with what I wanted to do (Network Security). In the years that have passed since we first connected on LinkedIn, Jeff’s coaching practice has matured, and now he even has famous clients such as the producer of the Angle Free IT podcast. This episode is chock full of actionable changes we can make in our careers – defintely a must listen.

00:00 Intro to Jeff Snyder and Jeff’s Origin Story
04:30 The double sided coin of getting into security.
07:00 Phone interview skills and prep.
10:00 The ‘one’ trick for listening and answering a question without screwing yourself out of a good answer.
12:00 In person interview tricks (get a pen, pause to take notes – see 10:00 …)
17:00 Seek to ‘learn’ before you begin to ‘tell’.
20:00 Counteroffer advice.
27:00 What is a coach and how to find a good one.
34:00 Becoming a ‘Trusted Advisor’ vs ‘The Smartest Person in the Room’.
39:00 StrengthsFinder and why it might matter.
56:00 Coaching vs Motivation.

You can find Jeff at his website HERE.  I work with him and highly recommend him.  I know I have surveyed my audience and one common theme that came up again and again from more seior level people was : What now??  Jeff can help you with that.  I probably can too, but if you’re in his hyperniche of Sr -> Director or Director -> CxO, he’s your guy.

EP009: Jim Manico – Trainer from Manicode.com, Developer, and OWASP speaker on secure coding.

Jim Manico and I connected a few years ago through some of the OWASP meetings he presented at in Denver.  He was talking about cross-site scripting prevention, and in the brief training, I knew that Jim would be a great person to know if I ever needed to educate people.  Fast forward a few years, and here we are talking about secure coding and how to train the world of developers that they’re security engineers first now.  Jim and I talked about Manicode and his journey of owning his own business, and what that process has been like for him.

00:00 Intro.
04:00 Going solo and Pillar 4 makes an appearance.
07:00 How to code.
10:00 How to talk to your security folks if you’re a developer.
22:00 Software development is a team sport.
24:00 Jim’s career goals.
30:00 Times Jim’s made a pivot successfully.
33:00 Mentorship and PIllar 6.
37:00 Handling burnout.
39:00 Jim loves LEMUR – The certificate orchestration suite from Netflix.

Tools that Jim touched on: OWASP ASVs, OWASP Cheat Sheet Series, and last but certainly not least Jim’s Training website, Manicode.com.  If you need any coding training done – I can’t recommend Jim highly enough.  Fidelity is measured by small steps over many years, and Jim is who he is today because he’s the same guy I met years ago, only better.

EP008: Small Goat Farm to Massive Server Farms with Storied Developer, Author, Blogger, and Speaker Strata Chalup.

Ep-008-Strata-Chalup-Author-Blogger-Superstar-and-Speaker

 

Today on this episode of Angle Free IT I got together with Strata Chalup, who is a Developer, Author, Blogger, and Speaker from many conferences, including the LISA conference.  Strata has been an influential person in my career because of her framework on troubleshooting.  I got it from a friend who saw her speech at LISA and have gone over it many times with people.  If you’re interested, I have a link to it below the show notes.  We touch on Interview Strategies, Solopreneuring, and Strata’s dynamic career pivots.

01:00: Intro with Strata.
04:30: When to go solo consulting versus employee.
06:00: How to skill build by learning frameworks.
07:45: Strata’s how to troubleshoot presentation and what impact it had on Preston’s career. Logic vs knowledge.
10:30: Diversity and inclusion – today versus yesterday – and what still needs to change.  Talk about Pillar 1 as well.
16:30: Imposter sydrome and battling it.
19:45: Joining IT when you’re not fresh out of school.
21:00: ‘Just’ is not just a phrase. It’s a nightmare.
23:00: Conduit – the race to the bottom price and how it affects Tech. Your job is to find out what is going “to be tires” in a few years and stay away from that.
24:30: Mentorship discussions, talk about Pillar 6.
27:00: Building a brand via values.
29:00: Things to avoid when looking to interview – ‘You should be able to explain a technical answer on a subway if you have one stop’.
31:00: Thoughts on pivots, and how Strata has accomplished pivots. PM-ing vs hands on.
34:30: Guest turnover – things Strata Loves: Arduino, and Adafruit. Also – super cool book Vehicles

You can find the latest book Strata Co-Authored Here.

Later on, we talked about Arduino programming – and I found a great starter set for people interested here.  For small Arduino parts, I love the Colorado company Spark Fun, which can be found at http://www.sparkfun.com.

As well, we touched on a cool robotics book from MIT that Strata was talking about can be found here.

Podcast Automation Stuff – V1.0 – The upshot

I create and program the things, and then I work on automation.

The trajectory of most people in technology, especially those who are especially adept at moving up in the world includes automation.  It should come as no surprise to those of you who listen to my podcast, that I love my podcast, but that I HATE wasting time.  Automation and streamlining things are what comes first to my brain when I started working on my podcast.

When I first started to prep my podcast, I was a bit naive:

Yeah… About that… No – I was wrong.

I thought I would give you a peek behind the scenes of what I’m finding out is a straight up friggin’ pipeline for a podcast.

So, Imma CI/CD this thing and here is where I’m going to display my findings.

But Why?

One thing you’ll hear me say throughout my blog and podcast is “I can make more money, but I can’t make more time“.  Because I travel a lot for work, I absolutely disdain wasting my time on the weekends doing what I feel like is busywork.  And, can I share something with you:  I have about 2% passion for post-prep on audio and social media.  But I don’t want the podcast to suck, and I want to have my guests reach and inspire a greater audience.  Fortunately, I’ve done so many audio things off and on, as well as a ton of Adobe products.  So I have the ingrained skills to figure out how to do stuff, and then the iterative skills to do them faster.

So, without further adieu, let me share my work-in-progress of a flow map of how I’m starting to get everything arranged.  The automation flows are as follows:

  1. Guest Inquiry (only semi-automated at this point)
  2. Guest booking automation.
  3. Recording automation.
  4. Post Prep Audio Automation.
  5. Post Prep Graphic Automation.
  6. Episode Posting (can’t really be automated on the blog … yet)
  7. Promote via laptop.
  8. Promote via mobile (Instagram, Vero, other methods that require mobile only uploads).