3 Things I Didn’t Know BC (Before Cisco)

I’m a journalist; a storyteller. My job as a social media manager for Cisco requires all the same skills I honed as a news producer at television news stations all across the country.

When I made the leap into the corporate tech world, I wondered how big of a learning curve I’d face. It turns out, it’s not as steep as I’d imagined. While I’m not sure I’ll ever know all the many acronyms used here, and I’m still learning how to master the perfect snap for Snapchat, Cisco has amazing stories to tell and I’m so excited that I get to share and tell them for a career.

As I near my three-month mark at Cisco, I think I’m just beginning to understand all that Cisco has to offer me, its customers, and – quite honestly – the world. Before Cisco, (which I will now refer to as BC because I wanted to come up with my own acronym), I had no idea just how much Cisco is steeped into the fabric of people’s lives. Sure, I knew about Cisco’s history with routers and switches and knew my desk phone at my old job was a Cisco phone, but honestly that’s all I knew about this company.

Here’re a few things I’ve learned in my short stint as a Cisco employee:

1. Instantaneous connections are key.
   From a personal standpoint, I don’t know how I’d do my job in without with WebEx, Spark and Jabber. BC (remember, I’m creating my own acronyms), if I wanted to meet with someone, it would be face-to-face. While I was familiar with teleconferencing and occasionally used it for interviews, I didn’t think I’d get the same connection unless I was physically in the same room with someone. Now I realize you really can effectively communicate using WebEx and Spark. You save so much time and energy and I love how instantaneous it can be. Not to mention using Cisco’s products to do my job means a better work-life balance, something I know so many other Cisco employees appreciate.
2. My co-workers break tech worker stereotypes.
   I’ll be the first to admit, BC, I had an image and stereotype of the typical Cisco worker. While I wasn’t naïve enough to think that all had engineering or computer science degrees, I worried if I’d fit in with the Cisco culture. From day one on the job, my team smashed my fears. They are some of the most welcoming and genuine people I’ve had the joy (yes joy!) to work with and collaborate with on all sorts of projects. They bring great ideas to the table and quickly come to the rescue when I’m stumped.
3. Cisco tech is around you more than you think.
   You wouldn’t think about Cisco when you think about mining, but by innovating equipment, Cisco has made some of the most dangerous jobs in the world safer. Or, you wouldn’t think of Cisco when you order Starbucks on your mobile device, but yep, that’s us too! There are so many ways that Cisco transforms the world, and I’m psyched I get to share what we do and how we do it.

And this all brings me back to my job as a storyteller. I want to know the great things you are doing to innovate and make Cisco as relevant today as it was back in the early days of the co-founders Len Boswick and Sandy Lerner (That’s a shout out to the New Employee Orientation for doing a fabulous job of schooling me on Cisco’s history).

What’s your Cisco story?

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