Eric Stewart: Running Off At The Mouth

So that time we’ve all been waiting for is (nearly, if you’re not a NetVet) here – the “My Scheduler” is open as of (as far as I can tell) today, April 19, for Cisco Live 2022.  That means you can figure out how your week is going to shape up and get your schedule worked out.  If you’ve already picked any Hands On or Seminar courses, they should already be on your schedule, and you can add “Personal Time” to cover any test you might have scheduled as well; KeyNote(s) do not appear to be autoscheduled, and neither does the Cisco Live Celebration.

If you’re not a NetVet and you try and schedule something, it should tell you you have to wait until April 26.

I always say it’s a good idea to leave yourself some time here and there, but you may not have much trouble doing that this year.  All of the sessions I’ve scheduled this year are 45 minutes (previously, we’ve seen some that go for another 30 minutes).  Additionally, there appears to be a 45 minute gap minimum between sessions.  I’m guessing there’s probably some COVID related thinking going on here; unless you’re doing seminar/hands on stuff, it keeps you from hanging around everyone else for too long, and they may actually need the time to clean the room to some degree between sessions.  With that kind of thinking in mind, looking at my schedule, it’s pretty packed; but compared to previous years, it has the feel of “a lot of short sessions where you barely have the time to absorb the info, between which you’ll be standing around waiting for the next session.”  Topics may not be covered in the depth that we’d like, and there’s going to be a lot of down time between sessions (long enough to get bored, but maybe not quite long enough to wander through World of Solutions or get involved in something else).

One thing to watch out for are sessions ending in “a” or “b” (such as “BRKENS-3096b”).  You’ll note that the session name ends usually in – Part 1 or Part 2 (for an “a” or “b”).  These are two 45 minute sessions that relate to one another and you’re likely not going to want to attend Part 2 without attending Part 1.

There are a few sessions that are available at multiple times but the number of those sessions seems a bit small.  All this is pointing to a kind of “post-COVID intimate” version of Cisco Live – the number of attendees may be quite low this year, and not only because of any lingering COVID fears, but also because Cisco may just be putting a cap on the number of attendees.

Might add more to this post later, but I think I’ve covered everything I can think of regarding the scheduling at this point.