Meet the Best Group Effort blog of the 2018 IT Blog Awards

Just a few weeks ago, we highlighted Daniel Dib, one of the seven awesome winners of the 2018 IT Blog Awards, hosted by Cisco. Since then, we traveled to beautiful, sunny San Diego to participate in all of the amazing Cisco Live US 2019 activities. This was a particularly exciting year, as the 2018 IT Blog Awards winners received a full conference pass to Cisco Live (an event which four of our seven winners attended).

While there, we celebrated all of our winners by featuring their blogs on the gigantic digital displays in each of the keynotes. Even more exciting, Cisco TV interviewed Chuck, Daniel and Kevin just before the technology keynote.  This fantastic interview streamed live to all in-person and online attendees. Needless to say, it was absolutely incredible to feel the support and excitement from the Cisco Live community.

And in case you’ve forgotten, the first-ever IT Blog Awards, hosted by Cisco, launched in November 2018 as part of our larger engagement with the technical influencer community. (Other programs include Cisco Champions and Tech Field Day.) We started the IT Blog Awards to elevate and recognize our broader community of bloggers for their contributions to the tech community.

In that spirit of recognition, it is my absolute pleasure to introduce the 2018 Best Group Effort winner, TechRebels, and its founder, Giuliano Barros, a blogging veteran who has pulled together a group of expert contributors like Rafael Bianco, Rodrigo Rovere and Mauricio Harley. Read on to gain insights into his journey, words of wisdom and what he would be if he was reincarnated as a networking product.

How did you start your career in tech? What has been your journey?
Since I was a teenager, I wanted to work with networks. I started my networking career in 2004 at Dimension Data, a Cisco Gold Global Partner. From the beginning, I was fortunate to participate in R&S projects and support for large clients. This path led me to study and certify myself as CCNA RS, CCNP RS and CCIE RS.

In 2016, I founded Control Plane – Network Services, a Cisco Networking Professional Services provider, where I act as network engineer for several clients.

How did you get into blogging?
It all started when I needed to relocate my notebooks, materials and technical books for the sake of space. While looking at all those notebooks, I came to the conclusion that I needed to review and digitize everything, otherwise I would no longer access those notes and they would lose their value.

When I decided to digitize them, I thought “why not make them public?” After all, if I spent years summarizing important information to act in my daily life, I could help so many other people who might be interested in the content, so I started to digitize my notes, reviewing the content, and posting them as articles. This is how the blog TechRebels was born.

What motivates you as a blogger?
To be able to help other people that go through the same scenarios that I did as a network engineer in their day-to-day lives.

What advice can you give to anyone interested in starting their own blog?
Start writing as soon as possible about something you like. Do not mind being an expert on the subject, because if you practice constantly over time you will become one. The most important thing is to like the subject, because only then will you be motivated to continue practicing. Writing and sharing your notes and practices will allow you to help other people with similar interests, improve your understanding about that subject (through reviews and feedback) while becoming an authority in the area of interest.

In the Best Group Effort category, “team work makes the dream work.” How do you collaborate to deliver the best blog?
Well … since the beginning we did the best to find, among all the qualified professionals we knew, the most interested in sharing high-quality IT content. Within the group each one writes about the subjects that he/she knows and has lots of experience on. In this way the TechRebels group achieves high-quality content.

If you were a networking product or solution, what would it be and why?
I would be a solution to connect people wherever they are. Because it was the idea of connecting people who started my networking career and so I’ve been working with R&S ever since.

What did you think? What inspires you? Add a comment below.

Want to receive updates on the 2019 IT Blog Awards?
Send an email to it-blog-awards@cisco.com