Looking for Apprentice

Design workshop in Johannesburg. Lab testing in Sydney. Migration work in Riyadh.

I've worked as Global Consultant for more than 13 years, and about 6 years with Cisco Systems. I've traveled to more than 30 countries and I've engaged with many customers around the globe. I've done projects for customers in different industries and in multiple roles.

If someone asks me to describe my work, I usually replies: it's just like what Jason Bourne does, except I don't leave dead bodies.

Take over project in Praque. Meet the team in Munich. Re-establish customer trust in Bratislava.

In the past two years I started shifting my focus to multiple social ventures. I tried to build social networking group for professionals. I founded a non-profit organization to help students in my country to prepare for global market competition. I formed CCIE Club to re-connect all Indonesian CCIEs. I created CCIE93 mentoring program using a unique online learning platform.

I still enjoy working with global customers. I love solving customer issues. I always happy to see when customers apply my design or methodology to transform their network infrastructure to grow the business. But all the social ventures I initiated are the result of my gratitude to the good life I've got so far.

Breakfast in Dubai. Lunch in Vienna. Dinner in Budapest.

And I also realize that not many people can do what I do as Global Consultant. Or willing to do what I do. Or combination of both. During my travel I keep meeting the same folks in multiple places. I see familiar faces all the time. I keep doing all these global projects with the same persons I met in the past.

Is my work too boring for most people? If it's interesting, why don't I meet many global consultants like me? Or is it because it takes much more than technical skill to do the work, and not everyone can be qualified for it?

Present at Cisco Live San Diego. Meet friends in Silicon Valley. Drive Mustang through Beverly Hills and Hollywood.

I finally tried to build a list of what it takes to become a Global Consultant. The list consists of the skills, ability and experiences for each Global Consultant must have. Or so I thought.

It's beyond hard worker, fast learner, self-motivated, achiever, able to work under pressure or being passionate with the work.

It's about the right mindset, positive and can-do attitude.

It's about the ability to connect the dots.

Here is the list:

1. Adaptability
Global Consultant must be able to adapt with the new places. With the new people. With the new situation that may occur. Basically with all the changes that may happen.

2. Communication and Presentation Skill
Global project requires ability to communicate with people from different background and culture. Global Consultant must have the presentation skill to translate the technical terminology to non-technical person.

3. Team Player and Independent
It's not enough to be a team player. Or team leader, for that matter. Global Consultant must be able to work independently as well, with minimum supervision, anytime, anywhere, as long as the objectives are achieved.

4. T-shaped Technical Skill
Technical skill matters. And it's not enough to have in-depth skill in one particular technology, but to widen the horizon by knowing the other technologies too. Think about someone with a qualification equal to CCIE in Routing & Switching, and able to embrace MPLS within the core network, to deploy security measures with policies for all devices, and to integrate the solution to the next generation Data Center architecture.

5. Broad Experiences
Having broad experience is one way to build the confidence level. Dealing with many situations in different roles can hone the skills. In fact, that's one good way to build reputation.

6. Customer Oriented and Business-Aware
Last but not least, Global Consultant must always be focusing on the optimum result for the customers. Do what it takes to bring values and help customer's business to grow. At the end, that's all that matters.

When I look at the list above, I realize most of them can be taught. Global Consultant is indeed a result of combining mindset, attitude, skills and experiences. And a well designed institute should be able to produce one.

Make photos in Venice. Climb the pyramid in Mexico. Watch the game in Barcelona.

Who wants to become the new Global Consultant?

Wait for my next disruptive idea.

Changing the Mindset with CCIE93

Some portions of this writing was submitted for my MBA assignment. I like the idea of learning by doing. Study MBA, execute my ideas to launch the social business, then analyze it as part of the MBA assignment :)

About CCIE93

CCIE93 program, created by the author, is the world first’s community based mentoring program to help its members to prepare for CCIE certification exam. CCIE93 offers a self-pace learning methodology, by giving instruction to the members to study only one specific item a day, with guidance from CCIE as mentors, and when 93 days of instruction are completed, the members are expected to be ready to take CCIE lab exam. CCIE93 program relies on the community consist of students who want to learn, and CCIEs who act as the mentors. At the time of this writing, CCIE93 program has run for several weeks and currently there are 12 active CCIEs as mentor for about 50 CCIE candidates. CCIE93 is currently available only for Indonesians.

About CCIE and Cisco Systems

The Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) is the highest level of technical networking certification offered by Cisco Systems. It is well known and accepted worldwide as the most prestigious and the toughest networking certification in the industry. For years, CCIE has been listed as the best IT certification from several third-party websites including IT Certification Master (Burnjeko 2012), and it is considered as expert certifications that command the highest salary in IT industry (Crisp360 2012).

Cisco Systems is the leading networking company that has dominated the global market for networking equipment since it was founded in 1984. It is estimated that nearly 70 percent of the Internet runs on Cisco equipment (Rhéaume 2012). Cisco Senior VP and General Manager for Routing group shared the ACG’s 1Q2012 market share report: “Cisco has gained core routing market share in seven straight quarters (and 12 of the last 13 quarters), and edge routing market share four of the last five quarters” (Panditi 2012).

The impressive number of Cisco’s market share means: more jobs in networking are related to Cisco equipment, and more people need to be certified with Cisco certification especially CCIE in order to design, operate and maintain Cisco equipment.

Consumer Analysis

The target consumer for CCIE93 program is obviously the IT engineers who work in computer networking industry. According to Cisco website (Cisco 2012) only less than 3% of all certified Cisco professionals holds CCIE certification, and this number is less than 1% of the networking professionals worldwide. Cisco has not released the latest number of CCIE holders, but the latest CCIE presentation from Cisco Live (Van de Werve 2012) said roughly 30,000 individuals ever certified. A simple calculation from the above results on estimated number of 1,000,000 non-CCIE certified Cisco professionals, and about 3,000,000 networking professionals worldwide. It is considered a big market segment.

Even with huge number of potential consumer, as mentioned by Baines (2012) we should consider the consumer proposition acquisition process while developing the marketing plan. With Cisco Systems as the market leader in networking equipment worldwide, the motive to become CCIE is obviously to be recognized with the expert network engineering skills and mastery of Cisco products and solutions. The evaluation and selection process can be simplified since there is no other alternative for mentoring program, especially with the price range as discussed in Marketing Mix section. And once the consumer purchases the product (i.e. join the program) the re-evaluation process can begin with comparing with similar product from the competitor, which is very limited at the time of this writing.

Blue Ocean and Target Market

Instead of trying to compete in the same market segment with the current solutions i.e. Bootcamp classroom and online training model from competitors, CCIE93 decided to use Blue Ocean Strategy described by Kim and Maugborne (2011) to disrupt the market by plugging a new idea of online mentoring program into uncontested market space.

The latest count for the total number of Indonesian CCIEs is only 132. The author is a CCIE himself and passed the lab exam in 2001 as the 18th CCIE in the country. This means within 11 years in average only 10 individuals from Indonesia passed the lab exam. 132 Indonesian CCIEs in total is very less compare to more than 8,000 CCIEs in Asia region.

One of main reasons why the author is focusing on Indonesians as the target market is due to his social responsibility; he has tried to boost the number of Indonesian CCIEs for many years by sharing his personal experience over social media and virtual meeting, and finally decided to use CCIE93 as different approach to achieve his personal objective.

Marketing Mix

Marketing mix is defined as a set of four decisions needs to be taken before launching any new product (Bhasin 2011), which are Product, Price, Place and Promotion, known as the 4 P’s of marketing.

Product – the product is an online mentoring program where the members or the students can access the course material over the Internet to study at his own pace. The course materials are mainly tutorial video, reading materials, quizes and practice labs supplied by the partner, and it is suitable for the self-pace learning method. Everyday the members receive specific instruction to learn one specific item, and when 93 days of instruction are completed they are expected to be ready to take CCIE lab exam. There are mentors, who are already CCIE, available to answer any queries and to track the progress of each member.

Price – the analysis to define the right pricing model has gone into several iterations. The main consideration is the price range from the alternative solutions, but at the same time whatever price to be offered has to be affordable for Indonesians.

Place – the mentoring program uses online learning platform where both students and mentors can log in anytime and from anywhere. Member can see the learning instruction for the day, and it is up to him or her to complete the instruction immediately or not. Only after he or she completes the instruction for that day he would be able to access the instruction for the next day. The mentors use the same platform to answer the questions and track the progress. The communication between the students and mentors is the key of the program.

Promotion – the promotion was only mainly over email to several communities of IT engineers from Indonesia. The unique and new idea of CCIE93 can be considered as “an offer you can’t refused” by Chris Guillebeau (2012) since the value of the program can be seen clearly and outweigh the price, and there is no direct competition that can come close.

Changing the Mindset

As described in Steven Blank’s Four Steps to the Epiphany (2007), one of the steps is Customer Creation. Piracy is so rampant in Indonesia (Mariz 2012), many Indonesians prefer to copy course material illegally. In order for CCIE93 program to success, the author must educate the potential students first about the importance of purchasing legal course material. In the beginning it looks a difficult task, but after some time all the members agreed to pay the program fee that will include the course material. There were potential students who are rejected to join the program since they insisted to follow the mentoring only while using illegal course material.

CCIE93 is also trying to change the mindset of Indonesian CCIEs; usually after someone passes CCIE lab he will be busy chasing a better career opportunity or other personal goal. Personal approach was used to communicate to the CCIEs to persuade them to be involved in the program as part of "giving back" or social responsibility to the community.

This is one key factor to make CCIE93 program successful. Sometimes creating good product is not enough, even with the good price, place and promotion. Sometimes the customer needs to be created by changing and shifting the mindset.


References:

Mirek Burnejko, 2012. The Best IT Certifications 2012 [online] (Updated January 2012) available at: http://www.itcertificationmaster.com/it-certification-2012 [Accessed 25 August 2012]

Crisp360 Editor, 2012. 7 Expert Certifications That Command The Highest Salaries in IT [online] (Updated 27 January 2012) available at: http://www.crisp360.com/news/7-expert-certifications-command-highest-salaries-it [Accessed 25 August 2012]

Louis Rhéaume, 2012. Cisco CEO John Chambers: Firms Must Reinvent Themselves Each 5 To 6 Years [online] (Updated 23 April 2012) available at: http://seekingalpha.com/article/518271-cisco-ceo-john-chambers-firms-must-reinvent-themselves-each-5-to-6-years  [Accessed 25 August 2012]

Surya Panditi, 2012. Cisco Gains Core Routing Market Share for 7th Consecutive Quarter [online] (Updated 18 May 2012) available at: http://blogs.cisco.com/news/cisco-again-gains-share-in-service-provider-routing [Accessed 25 August 2012]

Cisco Systems, 2012. Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert [online] (Updated June 2012) available at: http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/ccie/index.html [Accessed 25 August 2012]

Bruno Van de Werve, 2012. TECCCIE-8000 CCIE Routing & Switching, Cisco Live

Paul Baines et all, 2011. Marketing, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press

W. Chan Kim, Renée Mauborgne, 2011. Blue Ocean Strategy, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy, 1st ed., Harvard Business Review Press

Hitesh Bhasin, 2011. Marketing Mix – The 4 p’s of marketing [online] (Updated 6 October 2011) available at: http://www.marketing91.com/marketing-mix-4-ps-marketing [Accessed 25 August 2012]

Chris Guillebeau, 2012. The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future, 1st ed., Crown Business

Steven Gary Blank, 2007. The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win, 3rd ed., Quad/Graphics

Eduardo Mariz, 2012. What US Stop Online Piracy Act Means for Indonesia [online] (Updated 2 February 2012) available at: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/tech/what-us-stop-online-piracy-act-means-for-indonesia/495472 Accessed 25 August 2012]

CCIE93

Do you want to become a CCIE but does not know how to achieve it? Do you want to study but cannot afford or too busy to attend extensive bootcamp training model? Are you overwhelmed with number of CCIE materials to learn?

Introducing CCIE93, the world's first community based CCIE mentoring program. Designed for those who want to learn CCIE in his own pace, anytime, anywhere. Using state of the art yet simple learning platform, quality videos and practice lab materials, and guided by group of CCIEs as mentors. Follow instruction to study only specific item for the day, until 93 days, to be ready to pass CCIE lab exam!

Currently available only for Indonesians.

Himawan Nugroho
Creator and Lead Mentor
www.ccie93.com

Finally IPv6 Makes Sense

I've been helping Cisco customers (mostly Service Providers) in analyzing, planning, and deploying IPv6 in their network since 2007. I have provided both basic and advanced IPv6 training multiple times. And yet these days some people still ask question: why do we need IPv6? In more specific, if the question comes from Internet or Service Providers, the question would be: why do we need to invest in IPv6?

There is comprehensive slide from our marketing team for that. No, I won't discuss that. Nor would I discuss about the alternative like carrier grade NAT or the recommended strategy to migrate IPv4 to IPv6.

In today's reality, some customers are deploying IPv6 in the network because they are running out of public IPv4 address and they believe address translation is not the answer. Some customers are forced to deploy IPv6 by government mandate. For some, they are just following the trend to be on the leading edge. Some customers with superb business mindset are doing it because they are planning to launch new services or to open new business opportunities.

But what does this mean to you as individual?

Most mortals don't know about IPv6. They don't even care. If today you can browse the Internet, check your email, update your Facebook status, tweet your ideas, using IPv4, what different it's going to make when the SP give you IPv6 instead, or tunnel your IPv4 across their IPv6 network? Are you willing to pay more if you are using "IPv6 infrastructure" to use the very same services like Internet? I bet you aren't.

So if you think you are IPv6 guru because you are currently using HE IPv6 tunnel broker, you must be mistaken. For most people, you are just acting like a geek :)

Superb picture from my mentor to show what most people (who work in computer networking area) think about IPv6 address.

So why do the Internet or Service Providers need to invest in IPv6 while most of their users don't even care?

Because IPv6 is not for human being. It's for the "things."
All the things that need to connect to the Internet. PC, smartphones, tablets, wifi routers, IP cameras, IP phones, home appliances, sensors and any IP based devices.

In 2008, the number of things connected to the Internet exceeded human being population. Cisco predicts in 2016 the number of Internet devices is three time the population. So let's say 15-16 billion devices. And they all will need Internet Protocol (IP) address.

That's only 4 years from now. And since IPv4 theoretically can only provide 4 billion total IP addresses (if we can use them all) while IPv6 can provide 340,282,366,920,938,463,374,607,432,768,211,456 addresses, with IPv6 we can even provide 100 to each atom on the face of the earth.

Finally IPv6 makes sense.

Check out the nice infographic from Cisco for this.

And welcome to the Internet of Things.

Too Busy to Study CCIE?

I heard this many times. Himawan, I want to become a CCIE, but I don't have time to study. Either because I'm too busy with my work, my family, my bachelor/master study, my social life, my newly born baby, my upcoming wedding, my (insert the excuse here).

It's always easy to come up with an excuse.

My reply is simple: why you want to become CCIE in the first place? Always start with intention. Good intention always produces good result. What's the purpose of doing something like chasing CCIE? If the reason is worth the time and money spent to become CCIE, one will find the way to get it, no matter how hard.

But Himawan, when you took your first lab, your previous company gave you 2 months off. Yes, but that was 11 years ago when CCIE was still rare and many companies were trying to be the first to have the most number of CCIEs. And as reminder, in exchange I was ready to get fired if I fail in two lab attempts. Will you do the same?

And here is another harsh argument for those who claim want to become CCIE but like to spend more time making excuses instead of working on it:

Given enough time and resource, anyone can pass CCIE.
But,
Will you hire someone who can pass CCIE if he stops working completely and stays at home whole time just to study?
I know I won't.

Why, you may ask? Because we live in a very fast pace era where there is no more time can be allocated solely to study. Everyone is expected to do more with less. To achieve more with shorter time. To be more efficient. To be able to handle multiple tasks and assignments.

So if you want to really become a CCIE, make time. Show the world you can manage multiple tasks from your daily job, your life, as well as from your study. You need that skill to face the pressure during the lab exam day anyway. And for sure you need to be able to do that in real world.

Because that's the quality people are looking from you these days.
Especially after you get your CCIE.

PS: I work as global consultant for Cisco Systems. I lead multiple projects in several countries. I travel from time to time. I help developing CCIE content and write new questions. I speak in Cisco Live. I maintain internal certification program for new engineers. I'm a CCIE mentor inside Cisco. Outside Cisco I run a non-profit organization to help students rom my country to become globally competitive professionals. I have developers working for me to develop the platform for mentoring program and scholarship. I study MBA. I'm a father of three. I go offroading to the desert. I play snowboarding in Ski Dubai. I watch Ice Age 4 and Amazing Spiderman.
You get my point.

Are We Evil Now?

Last night I woke up at 3 am, and found that Cisco has become the new evil. The new big brother. The one who tries to control the world. At least that's how the blog post in here and here see the recent changes with Linksys routers for home networking.

To make the story short: Cisco announced the cloud service for Linksys routers. It dramatically simplifies how users connect, control and interact with their connected devices, including personal entertainment and home appliances. It also offers mobile app which provides easy access to the router using a smartphone or tablet, make it possible for the users to connect devices to their Wi-Fi Router with as little as one tap of a button or with a quick swipe, as well as the Internet content filter app to protect all users and devices from accessing content from security vulnerable sites, adult content and other non-family friendly sites.

That sounds good to me! Cisco seems to change the game, one more time, and this time Cisco shows the world how by utilizing the cloud it can bring home networking to the next level.

But for some others, they see two major issues:
1. After the recent automatic update to the latest software version that supports the cloud service, users now must login to their router using Cisco Cloud Service account. For some people they feel like Cisco is forcing all Linksys owners to subscribe to the cloud service.
2. Those who like to spend time to read a long Term of Service from the cloud service, found some confusing wording that may lead to "Cisco can monitor everything you do and sell your information" kind of thing. Or shutdown the router when the users are accessing warez and porn sites.

Perhaps Cisco should inform the users that with the latest software update their Linksys routers will be connected directly to the cloud. But accusing Cisco is the new big brother? I think it's just too far.

Many people sign up to Facebook and willingly provide their personal details without questions. Google recently changed their term of service that makes it possible to target ads you based on the information you provide. Those companies are "selling" your information in a way, because information is somehow their key product.

But Cisco?

I've been in the company for only 6 years but one thing I know for sure: everyone is damn busy. We have lots of networking products and we are so busy with them. Some of us are busy developing the products. Some are busy selling and marketing them. And some like me are busy deploying them. If you are in the company and not part of the team who either develop, or sell, or deploy the product it means you are a cost center. I don't think we have a big team, who has not generated any money hence the cost center, with daily job to monitor Internet usage of hundred thousands of Linksys owners. Heck I'm not sure even if have a big team to monitor the Internet usage of Cisco employees!

And to date Cisco still makes the revenue from the products and services. And the company focus now are with core networking, data center cloud, video, collaboration, and business architectures. I don't see "targeted advertisement" there. And what Cisco did last year by offering early retirement packages to thousands of employees and shutting down consumers division of Flip, is to become more efficient and inline with the company focus.

So I don't think Cisco is planning anywhere soon to become over-the-top technology company. And I don't see any recent jobs opening for that. Do you?

So what do I personally think about what happened?
Great idea, that introduced with small glitch.

Perhaps the Term of Service needs to be reviewed and scrutinized word by word to avoid the confusion. But that's it.

So is Cisco evil now? No, I don't think so.
At least not with this case.

Instead we are actually ahead of the game in home networking. Think about most people who don't want complexity in managing their wireless connection. Those who want to put parental control to filter Internet connection for their kids. And to monitor their home appliances from the phone.

That's. Freaking. Awesome.

Disclaimer: Yes, I work for Cisco. And yes, I'm proud to be part of the company that changes the way we live, work, play and learn. But the opinions expressed in this post are my own. I was not asked nor forced to write this post by anyone. And if Cisco wants to counter those blog posts they have much better team of writers for the job, as shown from this post.

CCDE, Shall We?

This week I'm in San Diego for Cisco Live US 2012.

It's been an amazing week. Even on last Saturday I had to fly 17 hours to reach Los Angeles from Dubai. Even then I had to continue driving 200 miles to reach San Diego. Even I didn't sleep at all during the flight, and I was able to sleep only 3 hours before my session. Even I had to deliver the 9-hour techtorial on the very first day of Cisco Live, together with the CCIE Program Manager and an expert from TAC team. Even I was completely dead and slept whole day after the session.

Other than my session, the inspiring keynote speech and demo by the CEO, all other great sessions for full week, Cisco store and all the parties at nights, I also had chances to meet many great guys. From book author to distinguished engineers. From customers in US and abroad, to one great guy who invented label switched multicast.

Two guys I met who reminded me to my past, because I used their book and guidance to become CCIE, are: Bruce Caslow, and Brian Dennis. Caslow is the author of the first CCIE book I read in 1999: Bridges, Routers, and Switches for CCIEs. Brian Dennis is the CEO and instructor from INE whom his video-on-demand and workbook I used to pass my third CCIE track.

There are many great guys I met in Cisco Live San Diego, but those two are special because they reminded me about the good old days, or the hard days, when I was trying to pass the CCIE lab. It would be complete if Halabi and Doyle came to the event too, but I guess that would never happen.

Meeting people from the past brought up some spark to my mind: how if I take one more certification, for the last time?

I'm quite excited about the new CCIE Data Center, but I know it won't be available soon. So the only option I have now is the CCDE. Yes, I failed it couple of times in the past, and it looks like I can get only one final free attempt from Cisco. The exam has been updated to version 2 now, and I heard there are some improvement from the version 1 that I hate, no, I meant, the version that was not to my taste :)

There are several reasons why I should not go for another CCDE attempt:

- I work as solutions architect for Cisco Advanced Services. I'm a tech lead in the project with Cisco customers. I do design. I always do. And I do many more than what CCDE can test in the exam: meeting real customer, capturing real customer requirements, leading design workshop, managing resources, discussing and listening, writing design document, and many other design related tasks. And I have already 3 CCIEs, I work for Cisco and I have about 13 years experience working in the same field. I don't think I need to get certified as a network design expert.

- CCDE exam test the knowledge in high level design. No low level design task. No product specific. No hardware architecture. I do low level design for real customers. I work with the details from physical link, IP addressing to low level configuration of IGP, MPLS, BGP, customer services, multicast, QoS, security and management, to migration strategy. I use best practices and the result from lab simulation and testing. I'm not sure if someone who works in low level design and such detail needs to get certified in high level design knowledge.

- As mentioned previously, I have two lives. I work for Cisco in the day, and I run my non-profit organization at night. Or probably the other way around :) But in short, I'm always busy. I travel from time to time. I also have a family I need to spend my time with, as well as all other activities like offroading on the desert or snowboarding in Ski Dubai. Every certification requires the most expensive investment we have to make: time. Time that may better be spent to do something else.

As you can see I can come up with many reasons not to take CCDE. And yet I can only come up with one reason to do it: because I'm a big fan of Cisco certification program. I call myself CCIE evangelist. I truly believe Cisco certification can help anyone to start or advance his/her career. I'm a living proof of this: everything I knew about computer networking at the beginning of my career, I had it because I followed Cisco certification.

Decision, decision.
So what's it gonna be?

My cool tattoo, thanks to Cisco Live.
Wondering if I can add another one next year.