Reflections: 2024

It’s been a while! It has been a busy year or so since my last posting. I want to catch you up on things personal and professional. I also want to give you my thoughts on where folks will spend most of their time in the wide world of tech this upcoming year.

Written media is not dead. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I feel like I’ve abandoned writing in favor of video. It is something I plan to fix in the coming year. Somewhere in the course of my career I turned to blogging. I love writing and I loved writing about the things I was working on. There are great messages to get across in writing that don’t have the same impact on TikTok or YouTube. There is nothing wrong with those sites either. They let creator’s express themselves and bring their message to their audience. I plan on load-balancing my messages in the next year, a mix of video and blogging. Video has been great, but I still find it strange seeing and hearing myself online. If you have yet to check out the channel, I invite you over to my YouTube Channel. I also have to say the obligatory “Don’t forget to Like and Subscribe!”.

This October I made it to my third-year anniversary at Cisco. Time has flown. It flew so fast I had forgotten my actual start year. By mistake, I kept telling people I was three years in during year two. A quick 2024 minus 2021 calculation fixed that mistake. Time does fly when you are having fun and that is exactly what I am having as a Solutions Engineer. Supporting customers across different verticals in their Cisco journey offers me opportunities. I get to work with outstanding individuals and teams at Cisco and our customers. I am excited for the direction the company is moving in. Our clients and partners should be too. More on that in another blog entry coming up. My focus in the coming year will be to take the written Cisco Certified Design Expert certification exam. For those looking to study the CCDE, that exam is also going through some changes early 2025. The CCDE is perfect for those looking to level-up their knowledge on proper network design. You can’t apply a cookie-cutter design to networks. It requires thought and plugging yourself into the business side of the house too.

2024 was an interesting year. I lost track of the amount of times I heard the term “Artificial Intelligence”. Whether it was conversations with customers, listening to the news, or even talking to family during Thanksgiving (yes, riveting), AI seemed to be a subject that consistently came up. The possibilities of AI enhancing our personal and professional lives keeps all of us curious. This goes beyond just using Generative AI to create bedtime stories for our kids. There is opportunity for our lives to become more efficient via the use of AI. I don’t believe this is a fad, it is something that will transform organizations. Companies today are looking for ways they can incorporate AI into their business processes. They are looking for ways to bring it into the services they offer. 2025 will continue to see an exponential increase in organizations adopting it in some way, even for a small project. Teams are being formed with the goal to focus on ways AI can be utilized. However, just like other technology that makes it past our front doors, Artificial Intelligence also comes with problems. How can we secure it? How do we keep up with attackers who will also use it? What about the ethics behind AI? In 2025 organizations will continue to work on answering these questions. Security will continue to be top of mind, as it should be. Securing AI is something more people are starting to talk about. At Cisco, we are having those conversations with enterprises and that will not be slowing down in 2025.

The year 2024 flew by and I am sure 2025 will be no different. The goal will be to stay busy. I believe between blogging, recording, meetings, studying, traveling and the occasional gaming session, there will be plenty to do. On the professional side, I am looking forward to partnering with our customers and continuing to help elevate their business. Onward to a great 2025!