andy lapteff 0:16

This is the Art of Network Engineering, where technology meets the human side of IT. Whether you're scaling networks, solving problems, or shaping your career, we've got the insights, stories, and tips to keep you ahead in the ever-evolving world of networking. Welcome to the Art of Network Engineering podcast. My name is Andy Laptev, and I am in person at the venue that is hosting NFT 40 starting tomorrow in San Jose with the man, the myth, the legend, the inventor of all the things. Tom Hollsworth.

tom hollingsworth 0:48

Hi, Tom. It's good to be back, Andy. It's good to see you. It's good to see you.

andy lapteff 0:51

I think the last time we were together, I confidently said that network engineering was a dying field, of which I would not recommend anyone to go to. And I think it performed pretty well.

tom hollingsworth 1:00

It did. Might have been one of the best podcasts we've ever done. Who knew?

andy lapteff 1:05

We tweaked the algorithm. I believe I stole some thunder though from Dagoda Snow, where credit is due. I think he had said something similar previously, and I'm like, oh yeah, that's a good one.

tom hollingsworth 1:14

Let's do that. These things are all cyclical, right? Like I feel like we could have the same conversation every five years, and someone's gonna come out there and leave the same comment that they left five years ago.

andy lapteff 1:23

So I am here as a uh presenter tomorrow for my employer for Networking Field Day. And Tom is the guy. Like, do you run it?

tom hollingsworth 1:31

I am an event lead, which means that I have topic areas that I'm kind of the person in charge of. So I get all the cool stuff like networking and wireless and mobility and security. And then we have other people that handle AI, AI infrastructure, cloud, any one of a number of things. But I do what I know the best. So that way when I'm talking to people, I'm like, yeah, that's that's really cool. We could totally do that. Or like, no, that's not a good fit for this.

andy lapteff 1:56

I'm glad you just said AI and networking as different things because as we all know, oh, AI is in all the things. So I'm wondering, this isn't where I want to go, but we're going there because it's interesting to me. If all of the networking field day presentations are becoming AI presentations, does that present a challenge?

tom hollingsworth 2:17

It can, but the challenge that we have to do is we have to, you know, do what we do at field day, which is dive in and say, okay, why is this important? Because you've got two different areas that AI really touches. And you'll hear some variation of this if you watch the the field day stream. There is AI for a thing, which is I'm gonna use algorithmic computing and models and stuff to improve something, right? So the big thing is analytics. I'm gonna feed all this data fire hose into something, and I'm gonna use AI to pull out the stuff that is important to me. And then you have something for AI. And this is the stuff under the hood, right? Where you've got these giant Ethernet-like networks that you're building to do data transport, or you're building these super fast storage arrays on the back end, or you have AI manufacturing people that are threatening to buy every stick of RAM that's ever been invented since the beginning of time. So there's you have the infrastructure pieces that have to be accounted for. And that's why we actually segmented it field day. We have AI field day, and then we have AI infrastructure field day. And my my thing is always coming down to do you build models or do you build stuff to run models? And that's where we okay. Well, then you need to go to this one or that one.

andy lapteff 3:32

So I know the last time we had you on, we talked about tech field day. And five minutes before we started, because I'm super prepared, I'm thinking, how are we going to differentiate this? I may have visited the restroom and Chad GPT'd. What did we talk about last time with Tom? And I'm like, oh, NFD. But what occurred to me is how good these shows go, the tech field days. And I think it's because of the people that you have, yourself, your team, and then the delegates that you also bring in. There are other places that I've seen where vendors pay for access to audiences and pitch things that aren't what you're doing and what your team is doing. And I don't know if there's like a secret sauce, but I'm fascinated. We were talking right before the show about how you pick delegates. And so I'd love to dig into a little bit of what you know, how is the sausage made? How are you doing? And again, maybe this is like yo proprietary, somebody's gonna steal our stuff, but it like you're the only game in town that does this. And in full fanboy transparency, you when you invited me on when I was out of work, thank you, um, it was a huge boost for my self-esteem, for the fact that I could go participate in networking after feeling like I wasn't participating in networking, and and it ultimately turned into after two or three into a wonderful job I have now. So you not only curate a team that puts on fantastic uh shows and creates amazing content, which is valuable not only to vendors, but also to the networking community, which that's a tricky line to cross, I think. Like we are selling the thing, do the thing, but then you have these delegates who can so I would just love to hear how you do what you do, how you elevate people like myself to dream roles by participating in what you do, what makes a good delegate, what makes a good presenter. I may also be selfishly asking because at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning, showtime for me, and you know, help me succeed here.

tom hollingsworth 5:30

So there is secret sauce, if you want to call it that, but just like in an Alberger sauce, it's it's not really a secret. Uh it's by the way, it's two parts mayonnaise to one part ketchup and some sweet pickle relish. But that's but but they do it really well, right? Like it's it's like Ferrari. Ferrari makes a car, Apple makes a laptop, but they do it really well because they sweat the small stuff. And I feel like that's one of the things that we've always done that set us apart. So there's three things you need to make a good conference, if you want to call it that. You need content, you need an audience, and you need logistics. Well, you're where the content comes in because if you didn't have anything interesting to talk about, nobody would want to listen. So we we bring in people that have a good story to tell, but a story in a way that people want to learn more. And that's one of the things that excited me about the very first time I came to Field Day as a delegate, is I was getting exposed to all these technologies that I had never even seen before. And I wanted to learn more. I was hungry to understand how these things work. And that gave me opportunities to grow as a person because I was a network engineer in Oklahoma, not exactly a tech bastion. But by knowing what people were working on, then I could go out there and research it, right? When you're networking, your track pretty much is if there's a Cisco Press book for it, you're gonna learn that thing. And you know that you've kind of reached a pinnacle of your career when they stop writing Cisco Press books that you can learn from, or you you end up going to interview the guy who would be writing that book or something like that. The content has to be credible because we know a lot of companies that when you kind of strip away the veneer of what's going on, you're like, there's not really a whole lot of substance under here. Like I feel like you could do more with this. And I've had a number of companies over the years that have said we use tech field day as a forcing function because if you can't explain it to tech field day delegates, then you don't know it. We want that kind of precision in what we talk about. Speaking of which, so you've got content, that's where the presenters come in, then you have an audience, and we're very careful about the audience. I have tried to fill like a 300-person symposium room before, and it is maddening to do that. Here's a pro tip, by the way: don't offer free tickets. Charge $5 for a ticket. Because if you offer a free ticket, nobody will show up because there's no skin in the game. But if they paid $5 for the ticket, they will be there because they actually had to pay something. You're not going to make any money off $5 tickets, but you will have people in the room. We don't have a live audience. We have a group of people who sit around a table as experts in a field to kind of ask the right questions. And if you've listened to any of Andy's podcasts over the years, you know that he's really great at asking the kinds of questions that make people want to keep talking. The worst question you can ask in the world is something that can be answered with a yes or no. And and we know that. But think about the way that a good podcaster leads somebody to a point. Could you tell me a little bit more about what this section of the demo does? I'm really curious about your waiting for this algorithm. Can you give me a little bit more detail on that? That's a big flashing sign to the people at home going, talk more about this part because it's really exciting to me. And a good presenter will pick up on that and go, yes, let's talk some more about that. Even though it's not in my notes, I feel like we should be talking about that. And we get a group of people in the room who understand that. But as we were talking about before we got on to the show, there's there is a formula to it because if you bring in the same nine or ten people to everything every time because they are the experts in the field, that gets stale really fast. And it's hard because when they've heard everything, what are you going to impress them with? Yeah, I've I saw that briefing last month. I've talked to this company six times in the past two years. I know all this stuff already. So what we do is we bring in some people who are kind of veterans of the industry, people who understand the way that this all pulls together. And then we'll go out and we'll find some people that have never been to field day before. So, for example, uh for this event, networking field day, we have three delegates who have never been to Field Day before. They might be really well versed in the network technology, but they don't know how this works. And that's exciting to me because I wrote something about this several years ago. When you have done a job for so long that everything feels like you're doing it from rote memory, you forget what it feels like to be a beginner again. You forget the things that people take for granted. And in the blog post, it was funny because I was talking about studying for my CCIE and I had bought the CCIE cert guide. And as I'm flipping through it, I'm like, man, they present this information in a much more digestible fashion for me. I should have started with this instead of studying for the C CNA. And it wasn't until later on that my brain kicked me and said, No, you idiot, if you had picked that book up first, you wouldn't understand anything going on in it because you needed the background to understand why that's more digestible now. So sometimes we forget what it's like to be a beginner. That's why we bring in people who say, Well, I don't know what any of this means, but here's my opinion on it, here's my perspective on it. And kind of going back to the area of having the content, the presenter who makes you excited to want to learn more. We're hoping to do that for them. We're hoping to reach out to them and say, you know, there is a wider world out here that you could be in more involved in if you're willing to jump up and kind of grab that brass ring, so to speak. And I love hearing from people who say, you know, because of you, I tried something different or I applied for that job knowing that I'm gonna have to study my butt off to get it, because that means that people are willing to stretch themselves, people are willing to grow beyond who they are and take on roles that could be super beneficial to them.

andy lapteff 11:38

How do you pick new people?

tom hollingsworth 11:39

There's a couple of ways. One is word of mouth. So we are always like listening, and and I've always said this to people if I invite you and and you're like, you know, you need to talk to this person, you need to talk to that person. I look at it like this. If you're willing to let that person have your seat at the table, then you believe in them. So one of the delegates at this event came as a recommendation from another delegate, and they said, you really should meet this person because they're super smart, they're really well versed in some of these areas, and I think that they would make an excellent addition. And, you know, a phone call and some chit-chat and things like that. Sometimes it's a no-brainer. You're like, yeah, how did I not know that this person existed before? And then the other thing is kind of keeping an eye on what other people are talking about and seeing people like you and people like other podcasters, people that are known in the industry that will promote somebody else's work and say, oh, this is a really good article about this really complicated subject. That's a way of shining a light on people to say you should be reading what they're writing. And that's actually what what started the whole tech field day thing with Gestalt IT was this idea of exposing people to the wider community through the content that they're creating and giving them a platform to just kind of be visible.

andy lapteff 12:54

I know I asked you this, but I have the memory of a goldfish. So you were on the show before, and I'm sure this is an Andy 101 question, but when you said you were a delegate, I'm like, oh, I forgot you were a delegate, which then makes me think, well, how did this thing get started and why did it start? So was it Steven who had some brilliant epiphany?

tom hollingsworth 13:12

Yeah, if you've ever done any kind of work with analysts or PR, they'll fly you in for things a lot. Like before I got involved with Field Day, I had got invited out to uh I think it was VMware Partner Exchange one time, and the PR company flew you in. And you basically go and listen to their stuff. So I don't know, pick a company, uh Ford Motor Company. You go and you listen to like three days of Ford Motor Company presentations, and they're gonna tell you all about this amazing car that they've got and all these cool technologies that they've got. And they invite a cross section of people because what they're hoping for is they want people from different disciplines to write about that. You know, maybe somebody's gonna write about the tire compounds and somebody's gonna write about the Blue Cruise uh system that allows them to do hands-free driving. That's great. If you are a fan of Ford Motor Company, what if you wanted to learn more about Chevrolet? What if you wanted to learn more about Lamborghini? I don't know. This came from uh a blogger day that Steven was invited to for the original HP, you know, before they split into two parts. And the guys were all sitting around the table at night and joking. And they said, Man, wouldn't this be great if we could do this whole event but not have to listen to HP stuff the whole time? And everybody else kind of giggled and, you know, got another drink from the bar. Steven got up and walked outside and called one of his friends who worked in the industry doing event logistics and said, Hey, I've got this crazy idea. I want to do an event. And the friend said, Cool, when do you want to do it? Like three, four months? He goes, No, next month. And like, uh, can we do that?

andy lapteff 14:43

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tom hollingsworth 15:35

Because Steven is amazing at looking at those ideas and saying, yeah, we can do that. And that's one of the things that kind of drew me to it when, you know, because I I started getting involved with this actually right around the time of the very first networking field day. I was on social media, I was talking to people, I was interacting, having fun. And then Steven and I started talking, I think it was about Amiga computers just out of nowhere. And lo and behold, like three weeks later, I get a direct message from him and he said, Hey, do you do you want to come to the next tech field day event in February? And I remember I was, I was uh doing something, I almost drove off the road. I was like, uh, I need to fill out the forum before he realizes who he invited. Uh I have the best job in the world because I'm friends with my boss. And he and I kind of have similar ideas about things, and we kind of grew into that. And eventually it led to me taking the job here. And I think I was employee number three or four in total. And and at the time, like I went from being a senior network engineer at a reseller to a person who edited video and called hotels and complained when the coffee wasn't right, and it was a very distinctive shift in the way that I did things. But I also kept up with networking and and all of those other things because I wrote a lot and all of that.

andy lapteff 16:54

Beats maintenance windows.

tom hollingsworth 16:56

Man, you know, it's funny because there for the maybe six months after I got done, like part of me was like, I feel like I should be working on something. I feel like I should be like building a thing. And then someone would call me and I'd I'd help them out and be like, Yeah, I don't miss this. I I don't miss being up at 2 a.m.

andy lapteff 17:12

because call managers are experiencing normal, yeah, non-production career.

tom hollingsworth 17:17

It's amazing how many people have a nine to five job that they log into a computer and work on Excel all day and they're not up at midnight because that's when the cutover has to happen. Who knew? It's unique in that somebody saw a need and addressed that need. It's just like every other startup that you've ever seen, right? When you when someone comes up and goes, Wow, why didn't I think of that? Well, because somebody did and built a system, a company to do that. And that's where the third pillar of the whole conversation comes in is logistics. If you've ever done anything, if you've tried to organize a family barbecue, you know how ridiculous the logistics can get. Now, multiply that by a thousand, because like our operations manager Matt Garvin and I joke about the fact that like we load all the delegates' uh flights into the app Flighty, uh, which is amazing, by the way. And when you have 12 people plus your staff that are all inbound, and like the entire map of America on Flighty looks like like a sortie from the Air Force. And we have to track every one of those flights and make sure that all of those people get picked up from the airport and delivered to the right place at the right time. And which meals are we going to do this week? And how are they getting back to the airport? And what happens if their room isn't ready or something goes wrong? You're probably sitting there thinking, oh my God, that's crazy. How do you do that? Because we find the right people to focus on those things because we know how important that is. If you get that wrong, then it doesn't matter how good the content it is. It doesn't matter how smart the audience is. If you didn't get any sleep last night because uh somebody was banging on your hotel uh the roof, you're not going to be able to perform, for lack of a better term. And so we do that. We make sure that people understand how valuable they really are. If a company comes to me and says, I didn't feel like that was a valuable use of my time because of whatever, that happens, right? Any any customer in the world can tell you that I don't think your product is valuable. And I get that. But if I ever have a delegate come to me and say, that wasn't a valuable use of my time, and I just don't think I'm gonna come back, I would be heartbroken because I don't want people to feel like I'm wasting their time. And if I do, then that's when I have to do a lot of introspection and go, what was it about this that made it not valuable? You don't know it unless you've been to field day, but we send out a huge survey at the end of every event and we're like, I want you to tell me what you liked, what you didn't, and what we can do better next time. If uh if you've ever been involved in something like thorns, buds, and roses or start, stop, continue, it's that idea. What can we do to make something better so that this doesn't happen next time? And I take all of that to heart because I want to make sure that this is an experience that makes people want to come back.

andy lapteff 21:20

The logistics are impressive. I've been on both sides of it. It's I can't imagine, and you just have me wondering how deep you your team goes. Like you probably don't put delegates, you know, next to an elevator. And like I I wonder how deep you guys, you know, no, we can't have our people there and can't be next to the pool or the bar, you know. You guys really seem to have it.

tom hollingsworth 21:41

It's a well-oiled machine. Well, little things that you don't even think about. So people ask us, well, how many people are going to be there from the delegate panel? There's gonna be a dozen. Why? Because six isn't enough and eighteen is too many. And we've tried both of those in different times where it's like, well, what if we did put a lot of people in the room? Well, when there are 18 people in the room, nobody wants to ask a question because there's too many people. But if there's only like four people in the room, nobody wants to ask a question because they're afraid to speak up. You know, why do you do it over three days? Because four is too many. We found that out a long time ago. When you have an extra long event, people get drained. And especially when you think about the fact that a lot of the people that work in tech have introverted personality characteristics where they're literally expending energy to be around others. By Friday, they feel like they've run a marathon, and you have to give them that ability to kind of recharge. It's not always easy. And there's all this different personality that you have to deal with. Kind of on that point, we were at a networking field day event many, many years ago, and we were having uh just kind of sitting at the bar, me and and several of the delegates, and we all kind of felt like we had the thousand yard stare, right? Like we're here, you're here, I'm hanging out with you. And one of the other delegates, who was a screaming extrovert, was running around and talking to everybody, and then came over and saw us and said, You guys don't look like you're having a good time. Like, and one of the delegates like volunteered, I am physically hurting to be around this many people right now, but I'm here for my friends. You, as an extrovert, Love being around people. If you notice earlier in the day when you weren't around a lot of people, you were kind of withdrawn and quiet. And now it's the exact opposite. And you learn personality quirks like that. You you learn how to work with those people so that you can give them what they need to feel better and succeed.

andy lapteff 23:36

For the record, I was not that into it. No, it was true.

tom hollingsworth 23:38

It was not Andy, but it was funny that you you tend to see those same kinds of things over and over again where it's like you can usually pick out the extrovert in the crowd pretty quickly.

andy lapteff 23:47

I didn't know if I was an introvert or extrovert for a very long time. And that was due to I used to have some pretty significant social anxiety. So I would really enjoy being around people, but the discomfort in getting to those people and being in the environment, I would just drive myself crazy. I've I've worked on it since like it's pretty much gone now. But I had a friend, he's like, Oh, yeah, you're an extrovert. And I'm like, I don't think I'm an extrovert. Like, I really like alone time. It's very painful for me to get there. And he asked me, Well, when you're in a room full of people, are you energized or are you depleted? I'm like, I love people. He's like, Well, then you're an extrovert. I'm like, oh, okay.

tom hollingsworth 24:24

It's the the lines are blurring because a lot of people, especially me, uh, if you'd have met me 20 years ago, you's shy. Why are you talking? Like, if you don't like talking to people, I have to be extroverted for my job a lot and you know, podcasts and things like that. But when you think about at the end of the day, when you are completely drained of every ounce of energy you've got, what do you do to recharge? If you're a person who likes playing computer games or reading books or just sitting in a dark room staring at a wall, introverted. If you are someone that wants to call a friend, talk to your spouse, be around somebody to kind of gain that energy, probably a little bit more extroverted. Where the line falls is finding the group of people that don't require you to expend energy. You have one or two or three. They're probably what you would consider your close friends or your best friends or things like that. When you can be around them, being completely yourself, like not putting on a social mask and feel refreshed. Feel like you're not going out of your way to do something. And I feel like that's where a lot of people kind of get really weird about the line between introvert and extrovert. They're like, but I like being around people. I'm like, do you like being around strangers or do you like being around your people? And generally introverts are like, no, no, no, no, no. I hate strangers. I want to be around my people.

andy lapteff 25:50

It's probably a continuum too. Like, I'm I love people, but man, I really love when my wife and kids go to bed and it's quiet. Yeah. And I stay up way too late as a result because I'm like, ooh, now it's like my time to, you know, and I'm a little like I'm a touch neurodivergent here and there with some stuff. So like I love people, yet they overstimulate me. And then when it's quiet, I can breathe. It's this weird kind of combination of both, which is I've never been able to figure out what I am, but it, you know, we're we're all we're all dynamic creatures, Tom. I wanted to ask you before I forget, how did Steven find you? Were you a content creator? I know your blog was a big thing.

tom hollingsworth 26:26

I got on Twitter because that's what people did back in 2010. And I just I started writing my blog, uh, it was September of 2010. So it was it was right around that time. Made some funny posts, did some stuff, but then I used it as an opportunity to learn, right? So I was tracking some of my CCIE study stuff, but also I was digging into certain things that I thought were really fascinating. Because in my job, like occasionally I'd run into a problem and I'd be like, no, man, I gotta figure this out. And through that, through a a great network of people that I made friends with that were sharing the things that I wrote and telling people how great that was, that helped me to become exposed to people like Steven and others who said, This is a person who is knowledgeable in their job, is not afraid to tell things like they are, and seems ready to ask the right kinds of questions. And so that's, I think, how I got involved with that in the first place is you know, you knowledgeable person who's curious to learn more. That's almost like the template for what makes a great field day delegate.

andy lapteff 27:34

Say that again. Knowledgeable person who's curious to know more.

tom hollingsworth 27:37

Yeah. So think about smart people in your life because we all know people who are smarter than us. They fall in a lot of categories, but there's generally a category of people who are smart, but they are done learning. I know everything I need to know, and I don't want to learn anymore because my brain is full. And then there are the other people who say, I have learned a lot, but there's still a lot more that I can learn and know. You know, these are the kinds of people like me who are like, oh, I can pick up a totally new hobby. It's totally fine. But that drive to want to study, to want to dive into things. I tell people all the time when I got my CCIE, like the run-up to the final passing attempt, my kids would go to bed at like eight o'clock at night and I would fire up my lab and I would start doing lab work. And I had a TV on in the background. And when Craig Ferguson's monologue got done around midnight, I knew it was bedtime. So, you know, I get solid four hours of labbing a night. When I passed, and I I was deliriously happy. The next Monday, I was sitting there in my office at about 8 30 doing nothing because I didn't have anything to do, right? There was a little voice in the back of my head and it said, You should be studying right now. And I'm like, wait a minute, why? I don't have anything to study. Yes, you do. There's more to learn. And I, you know, I ignored it for a little bit because I'm like, I don't need to study. And then it finally, you know, it got me again. I'm like, no. What if I learned more stuff? And and to me, the excitement was there's more that I don't know. Networking, you know, I I'm an expert. I have a plaque that says I'm an expert in wired networking, switches and routers. How does an access point work? I don't know, but I'm gonna find out. You know, how does this work? How does that work? And when you start learning those things, the world opens up to you. And for me, part of it is learning how the connections get made between all of that stuff. I remember I was working as an intern for IBM and I could never figure out why uh website addresses had forward slashes in them. I was like, that's dumb because Microsoft puts backslashes everywhere. And then I got this great book from the IBM library, and it told me that web servers run on Unix and Unix file systems have forward slashes. And I'm like, oh, now it makes sense. And that was actually when I first got exposed to Linux, and that was a fun rabbit hole that I got to dive into and and learn a lot about, and that was 25 years ago.

unknown 30:50

Oh man.

andy lapteff 30:51

I think two things. I apologize to the viewers and my guests for all the noise. We're apparently next to a kitchen. Hopefully, our editor can get rid of it, but every door slam and cart goes by and that's another part of logistics, is like figuring out where you can cover up those things.

tom hollingsworth 31:06

Folks, uh the sober or tray going by the hallway. That's an easy fix in post. But uh fire alarms going off, that's a lot harder to fix.

andy lapteff 31:14

So as you were talking, I'm thinking about, and and I think all of us, all the people I've met in tech and networking, we all seem to have curiosity in common. So that kind of seems part and parcel to just our personality makeup. And to your point, uh it's a good thing to have, I guess, because technology never stops evolving. There's always a new thing. And to your point, you can reach expert level. And I don't know what the thing is where the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. I'm sure there's a term that I, you know, some smart person came up with. But if you are curious and the more you learn, you realize there's like it, there's a never-ending level of minutiae, for lack of a better term, that you can you can dive into. But where I'm going with this curiosity thread is I think questions can be really powerful and impactful. Like the questions you asked on your blog and the questions you probably put out on Twitter that got people's attention, the questions the delegates ask. So for me, I have all the questions, and I think it's because I'm so curious. I want to know things, and fortunately for everybody, I forget half of what I learned, so I keep asking so you know, we we circle back, but I'm guessing a good delegate asks good questions. And I'm wondering, and you kind of touched on this a little bit earlier with like what makes a good delegate. So I think I'm thinking more of the noobs, like the Ethan Banks and the and the like these guys who've been around and like they get it. They know, you know, their their questions are stellar. For someone new who wants to come in, like my hope is somebody new. I think you have to show communication to differentiate yourself. Even if you're an introvert, even if you don't like writing, make a YouTube video, whatever. But if you can get your voice out there and you can show that you can communicate and you are intelligent, it broadens your world and it exposes you to people like Tech Field Day who can then notice you like Steven noticed you, and you have no idea you went from like the guy studying around the clock, killing himself in maintenance windows, to like the best job in the world and the dream job. But and you know, if you never started writing and if you didn't put yourself out there, and Keith Barker interviewed him years ago and he said, Andy, my first 25 videos were hot garbage, and he's one of the best trainers out there. But everyone who starts isn't good, right? Like we all start at crappy, and you have to. So for the new people that I would love to have you find someday who might be listening to this, what do you how do they get on your radar? How does a new person get on Tech Field Day someday?

tom hollingsworth 33:42

We have a website where people can fill out a form and say, I want to be a field day delegate. And and it's a great opportunity, but there are a lot of fields in there, and those fields are important because I need to know who you are. Personality goes a long way in in this community. Are you the person who likes to ask lots of questions? Okay, that there's there's a spot for that person. Are you more of the sit back and collect your thoughts and then maybe the day after the presentation write a lot of that down? There's a spot for that too. Or are you the one, the uh the mastermind who picks up on the hidden thread between all of these things and creates this magnum opus of like grand unified theory of AI networking? And you're like, oh, wow, I never thought about that. There's a place for those people too. But I have to know that about you before we can say that's what I want to bring. And how do I know that about someone? So I I've told this story a few times, and it's it's one that's always stuck with me. When I got out of college, I had a degree in MIS when the dot-com bubble burst, which means I was basically unemployable because you're one of those computer nerds and we don't need those right now. And in in my rush to find a career, I put in an application at the FBI and didn't think anything about it until two years later when I got a phone call and they said, Hey, do you still want to work for the FBI? And I said, Yes, sure. They flew me out for an interview uh to Kansas City, and the first part was like an essay test. I'm like, cool, I got this. But the second one was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. I walked into a room with a round table that had four chairs. There were three special agents sitting around the table, and I took the fourth seat and they started interviewing me. Not the whole um, you know, are you familiar with this law? Are you familiar with that law? You know what they asked me was a bunch of logistics questions. How would you plan a wedding? How would you deal with this? How would you deal with that? And remember, this is almost 30 years ago. Shy Tom, who is very, very, very modest, not giving them complete answers. And I distinctly remember after kind of fumbling through something, the lead agent doing the interview, a woman, slams her hands down on the table in front of me, looks me dead in the eye, and says, Son, I don't know anything about you except what's written on this application. And if you don't start telling me about yourself, you are not gonna make it. And it was like a light bulb went off in the back of my head. And I said, I need to tell people who I am. And from that point forward, everything else went well. I actually ended up passing the interview, but uh ironically enough, I didn't give into the FBI because I can't run. I'm much better at it now. But you're a runner, Tom. But well, back then I wasn't. And uh, you know, they one of these days I'll have to tell you about the crazy, the physical stuff. But it made me understand that if I don't tell people who I am, they're never going to know what I can do because they're gonna have this idea of who I am. And thankfully, now after man, 15 years of writing a blog, most of who I am is out there through social media. Most of the person that I am is pretty easy to pick up on. Now, my blog and and some of my social handles are very tech focused. There are a lot of people who know me from the stuff that I do with Scouting America. Uh, and they see a different side of me. It's it's funny because when Scouting America people figure out that the Scoutmaster for this troop is also the guy who wrote that really crazy blog that one time, and they put two and two together. They're like, wait a minute. It's a way that you can bridge boundaries. One of my best friends from college, I went up to visit him in Seattle. We were going to DockerCon, strangely enough, and I flipped like a day early to hang out with him. And we he was taking me to all of his favorite spots around Seattle. We we went to this little uh cafe that had board games and everything. And I was sitting there enjoying a beer. We were playing some board game, and I was talking to him, just he's my buddy. I've known him forever. And some person walks over and says, Are you Tom? Like, yeah, hi. And he goes, I listen to you all the time on this podcast. And I just wanted to stop and say, You've done a lot for my career. Thank you very much. And immediately at that point, I'm going into, yes, that's great. I I love that you listen doing the things that I normally do when someone says that they recognize me from a podcast. And then I turn around to my buddy and his wife, and their jaws are on the floor, and they're like, random people in my hometown know who you are and just come up and start talking to you. And I'm like, Yeah, is that not happening to you? But but it's that that community, that my voice and my knowledge that I shared with somebody impacted them, and they felt that they could come to me comfortably and say, I appreciate what you've done. That is why I continue to do this. It's why, as you said, I have the best job in the world because I get to do what I love, I get to never stop learning, and I get to impact people who might not have had that opportunity without us giving them a platform to launch from.

andy lapteff 39:02

Yeah, when you get to help people on the regular basis, especially in like, I mean, not not say like corporate whatever, but you know, with vendors and money and the fact that you're helping people, it feels so good, right? I can't wait for the day that somebody comes up to my family and I and recognizes me because I keep telling my my wife and kids, like, oh yeah, people know me in social, you know, certain circles, like sure, dad, just pass the pass the potato chips buddy, nobody cares.

tom hollingsworth 39:28

Yeah. And it's funny for me because my wife is a teacher. So everybody where we live knows her as a teacher. And then every once in a while, somebody will know me, and it's so weird because they're like, Oh, yeah, you're that guy. And the the first time I ever took my wife to Cisco Live, it was hilarious because we spent like the whole Sunday like walking around, and like everybody wanted to stop me and talk to me, and we had like all these places to go. And I remember we got back to the hotel room at like 8:30, nine o'clock, and she just collapsed on the bed, and she's looking at me and she goes, I'm so tired. I don't know how you do this. And I said, Honey, I'd still be out if you weren't here. Like, I still have more people that I need to say hi to. She's like, I I don't, I don't care.

andy lapteff 40:09

When you were telling your FBI story, going from a shy kid to someone who realized, like, oh, you have to tell people about yourself. It reminded me, I was in a crappy band in the 90s, and we refused to like send our demo anywhere, to play any shows. And it was because, at least for me, I was terrified of being vulnerable enough to face rejection, to go play in front of people to songs that meant the world to me and have them tell me they suck or walk away. And I never made a dime in in music. Now, fast forward to you know, networking years later, I started to put myself out there and give my opinion and and write and make videos. And and I guess the point I'm trying to make is I was also someone like that kid in the FBI seat who just couldn't face being judged or whatever, right? And and the difference in my career, I think, is once I started just putting myself out there. You can hate this, you can say I'm dumb, you can say it sucks, but I like communicating and I love the industry we work in and I want to talk about it with other smart people, but you're definitely, you know, if you're an introvert with not the highest self-esteem in the world, turning that corner, and I don't know how for those folks out there, what's the equivalent of the FBI agent slamming her hands and saying, you know, get it together, buddy. I don't know.

tom hollingsworth 41:26

It's hard for people because when you're younger and you don't know anything other than what they taught you in school, the only way you can express yourself is through music and writing and poetry. And that is really hard for people because if you create something that you really strongly identify with and you put that out there in the world, and people are like, this is dumb. Like, like you can't rhyme those words, your your your beats all off. Like that crushes someone, which I think is how we end up with a lot of accountants. But when you know things, when you've gotten to a point in your career where you understand the facts that you know them well enough that you have an opinion on them, that's a different kind of thing because you're not as tied to your opinion. Well, how would you build this data center? Well, I'd do it like this and I put these things in here. I I don't think that's a good idea. Why don't you do it this way? Oh, yeah, you know what? You're right. And my my eldest son, who is in college right now, he came to me a while back and he goes, Hey dad, do you know that there are people that get paid to just talk about stuff? No, son, please tell me more. He goes, Yeah, there's like there's people on the internet who like they'll talk about a thing and they'll just give their opinions about it. And like people pay them. And I said, What do you think your dad does for a living? Really? How how do I how do I do that? I'm like, first of all, you're like 18. You know nothing at this point. Your got job for the next 10 years is to learn everything about one subject, and then and only then will you know enough to form an opinion that people want to listen to. But when you get to that point, you have to put that out there and you have to be ready to listen to criticism. One of my friends uh that I do scouting stuff with, Dr. Justin Power, told me years ago, he said, feedback is a gift, but you have to wrap it in a bow. You should be ready to accept feedback. But if you're a person who's giving it, you need to make it constructive. I'm not talking about like overly sweet, like you know, chat GP telling you that you're amazing for writing this theory of everything. It's actually kind of garbage. You need someone who's willing to kind of strip off the veneer and go, there is an element underneath here that is solid, but you need to package it better. You need to consider these things, you need to read this book before you're ready to comment on this, because those are the kinds of people who are not afraid to tell you the way that it is and help you grow to get to a better place. I'm not talking about the saccharine sweet, you know, you're the best writer in the world. And I think that's one of the reasons why to dive into that for just a second. I think that's one of the reasons why AI LLM feedback, there needs to be a different calibration because it doesn't need to be like brutally honest. This is the worst thing I've ever seen, and you suck for writing it. But I also don't think it needs to be like kindergarten teacher suite. We're like, this is adorable. I am so glad that you drew this dog with four ears and eight legs. You need to find a happy medium. You need to be willing to tune the algorithm to say, yeah, that's great, but have you considered this? And that's why I think that people are still going to win out in the long run. Because if you think back to the story of the Roman generals that were going down the plaza with their triumph, and all these people are like, you know, waving at them and telling them how great they are. And then they had a servant in the chariot with them that said, Fame is fleeting, they'll hate you tomorrow. You have to remember that there's always something that you can improve. Just like a field day. We're always looking for things that we can improve. Did something go wrong? How do we fix it for next time? Was it good? How can we make it great? Uh it's the Japanese idea of Kaizen, right? Always make things a little bit better next time. And that way, if you're always improving and you're always growing, you're always changing, and you're on the path to the kinds of growth that make you a better person.

andy lapteff 45:14

If you ever get a feedback form saying we should do the next one in Hawaii, you'll know who it's from. I I want to go to Maui.

tom hollingsworth 45:22

I would love to do Tech Field Day Hawaii. I just need a few companies that are based there, and uh we we need to buy a jet.

andy lapteff 45:29

Yeah. We'll we'll we'll get there. All right, lightning round. I know you have to go. You have a delegate dinner soon. So uh you got your big start on Twitter, as did I. I think I was able to amass a very nice community there. And then, you know, people fled for for reasons. And so where are we now? I think we went to places, but then people went back to places and Are we all on LinkedIn now? Like where should people go? I'm gonna start writing, Tom, and making content. I'm gonna do what you're saying and put myself out there. Where do I reach?

tom hollingsworth 45:55

Right now, I do it on LinkedIn. LinkedIn has reach for everybody, and the article platform that they had they bought and integrated makes it real easy to touch a lot of minds very quickly. As far as social media, like I'm on Blue Sky more than anything else, but I know a lot of people kind of went to Mastodon. The community will kind of dictate where you are. Like security, Mastodon. Like the InfoSec Exchange server is top notch, second to none. You've got to find the place where the people are. I think that's one of the hardest parts about replicating what Twitter was prior to all of the kerfuffle is that you couldn't replace it because it's where everybody was. You won't get that again until you find the place that everybody wants to be.

andy lapteff 46:38

Do you think? Next question. Uh, AI everything all the time. Woo! Someone trying to get in. My advice to people trying to get in or upskill continues to evolve because things seem to be changing quickly. What do you tell somebody today? Are we studying networking AI infrastructure yet? Are we studying machine learning? Regarding the new thing, AI, how do we instruct people on like there aren't certain for it yet, right?

tom hollingsworth 47:03

There it's still being formed, right? If anybody who lived through the great SDN effecation of networking in 2013 will tell you, well, what it ended up happening. We're still doing networking and we're still doing it a lot of the ways we did before. We're just using different things to do it. The fundamentals still matter because even AI doing it automatically is still implementing the fundamentals that we learned. A packet's a packet and a frame is a frame, and an IP address is an IP address. And you have to know that to be able to tell the AI to do something on your behalf. Otherwise, you're screaming into a void black box and hoping that it comes up with the right answer. Yes, do you need to know the new systems? You're gonna have to, but you still need that grounding in what makes them tick. Last two questions.

andy lapteff 47:54

I'm presenting at NFD 40 tomorrow. The last time I was here, I tried to memorize a script. I got halfway through, I lost my place, and I had a panic attack. I'm not sure if anybody called on to. And fortunately, thank you for your staff. They had cut away from my face when it happened. So I met up with my wife in San Fran after. She came out to visit, and I couldn't watch the replay. I told her, I'm like, I can't, like, I ruined my career. I can't believe this. And at night, because I couldn't sleep, she was I looked and you guys cut away, and it was just the slide, and it was no big deal. It was just 10 seconds of silence looking at a slide. So I say all that to say that tomorrow I'm gonna do it again. What advice would you give someone presenting at field day for the first time? What makes a good presenter?

tom hollingsworth 48:40

You don't have to memorize what you're gonna talk about. I I teach public speaking to teenagers, everybody has a five-minute story in them. Tell me something that matters to you. And when it comes to presenting on technology to a group of technical experts, you need to be involved in that story. You need to know not the words, but the themes. You need to get that across to people. Why is this important? Why does this matter to you? Yeah, I can I can read a bullet point list with the best of them. Just give me a teleprompter and I'm ready to go. But I'm not gonna put any emotion into it. Think about the best performances that you've ever seen if you're TV show fans. Think about Captain Picard on The Next Generation. When he's just reading orders to Wharf, I don't care. But when you ask him how many lights are behind him, that's a powerful performance because he put everything into that. Now, I'm not saying you have to sit there at the camera and scream, there are four lights, but you have to be involved in the material that you're giving. Connect with your audience. Story's a good trick.

andy lapteff 49:49

Tom, it's always a pleasure. Where can people find you? Where should they go for all things Tech Field Day?

tom hollingsworth 49:54

Well, if you want to see my Bruce Wayne job, uh, that's techfield.com. We just got a brand new website, uh, Fresh Coat of Paint. Everything looks and sounds awesome. Uh, we have uh Tech Field Day on all the socials. Our social media manager, Corey Dirig, is amazing. He he makes these shorts for the stuff that I do that make me sound really smart. So thank you, Corey. I appreciate that. If you want to check out my my Batman job, the thing that I do after hours, uh, networking nerd.net is my blog. I I still post there, uh, not as frequently as I used to, because I have a lot of writing to do now. Uh, and then you can follow me, networking nerd.net on blue sky. Uh I it's funny because every once in a while I'll come up with a a genuine nugget, like, you know, hating on airline boarding policies that everyone's like, oh, this is so great. Uh yeah, yeah, it's observational humor. That's kind of how that works.

andy lapteff 50:44

Tom, thank you so much for being on the show once again. Thank you for the work that you and your team does uh at Tech Field Day. I, in no small part, owe you and your team a debt of gratitude and a thank you because in no small part I have my dream job now because of uh you folks pulling me in and naming me a delegate and letting me cover the company that I now really love, you know, working at and for. So you have helped my career. My family and I, thank you, sir. And you're helping the community. So just keep up the great work. Thank you so much for all the insights. Uh for all things, Art of NetEnd, you can check out our Linktree at Linktree forward slash Art of NetEng. Check out the Discord server called It's All About the Journey. Thousands of folks trudging this road of happy destiny together, helping each other, lifting each other up after they fail exams and congratulating each other when they uh pass one and get their their next big search. So as always, thank you so much for watching and listening, and we'll catch you next time on the Art of Network Engineering podcast. Hey folks, if you like what you heard today, please subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher. You can find us on socials at Art of NetEng, and you can visit Linktree forward slash Art of NetEng for links to all of our content, including the A1 merch store and our virtual community on Discord called It's All About the Journey. You can see our pretty faces on our YouTube channel named the Art of Network Engineering. That's YouTube.com forward slash Art of NetEng. Thanks for using.