When Cisco’s global workforce went home to work in March 2020, a lot of us found ourselves with additional time. No commute. No happen to be partner or customer offices. No field service calls. Conversely, those that found themselves busier while juggling different demands in the home needed an activity to get some balance. Leadership encouraged us to utilize the found time and energy to develop new skills also to volunteer through Time2Give, a Cisco program with paid time off to volunteer and create a positive impact. We swept up with some of our Customer Zero employees to discover what they’ve been doing through the lockdown.

Professional development through DevNet

“My technical focus is cloud and data center, and I could take a week-long trained in software-defined WAN through DevNet,” says Mike Duarte, person in the technical staff. Cisco DevNet is really a program to greatly help developers also it professionals figure out how to write applications and develop integrations with Cisco products, platforms, and APIs. “We’re seeking to build our knowledge always, and Mike is among the many employees who completed DevNet certifications to obtain stronger within their current jobs or prepare to improve roles,” says Jon Heaton, senior manager of IT Customer Value Engineering. Especially popular may be the intro class, which covers the basics of coding with Python, network programmability, and collaboration technologies.

Andy Del Hierro, senior IT engineer, studied by himself to learn a fresh coding language-Golang. “I’ve ideas for using Golang to automate the network via APIs whenever we return to any office. Our high programmability of Cisco products can make this especially fun,” he says.

Volunteering through Time2Give

Many employees did volunteer work through the lockdowns, getting paid through Cisco’s Time2Give program. Mike Duarte, for instance, create live streaming for his church and counseled parishioners via Cisco Webex.

Andy Del Hierro used Time2Give to create facial masks along with his wife, utilizing a 3D printer in his garage. “We visit a grocery store inside our low-income neighborhood and give away the masks to people using tissues or t-shirts,” he says.

Carolyn Philippe, senior IT program manager, volunteered with Black Girls Code, a non-profit. “We helped 200 middle school girls from all around the U.S. develop a simulation game about spreading disease,” she says. “Managing 18 middle school girls with just one single other person gave me an appreciation for how teachers and students are fighting a remote learning environment.” Carolyn also volunteered at a middle school in Harlem, a fresh York City neighborhood. Trip to a virtual career, she shared her technology and educational background with girls thinking about STEM.

Professional development and stretch assignments

Cisco employees may take on “stretch” assignments outside their usual responsibilities. Some are listed, and employees may also create their very own. Carolyn Philippe, for instance, is developing her leadership skills by mentoring computer science students from Columbia University and Cornell University in addition to high school students.

< h2>Virtual briefings and events

Instead of cancelling events held personally traditionally, we virtually held them. Our Global Partner Organization conducted well-attended virtual partner sessions in the Asia Pacific (500 attendees) and Americas regions (800 attendees). Jon Heaton gave a presentation on Cisco IT’s implementation of two Cisco DNA technologies-SD-WAN and Cisco DNA Center. Carolyn Philippe attended the virtual US Cisco Live conference held June 16-17, 2020. “This season my first-and since it was virtual, more attendees could participate,” she says. Over 880k live views occurred over each one of the broadcasting channels.

The Cisco Sales force does an annual conference called “Cisco IMPACT”. Carolyn Philippe was also in a position to attend this year’s conference virtually. It had been a terrific way to learn about our services and sales technique for the brand new Fiscal Year.

Getting creative at home

Work that you can do from your home has continued. “We’re shifting time and resources toward things we are able to do,” says Mike Duarte, who’s managing early field trials (EFTs) for emerging cloud technologies.

Automation and retooling are popular projects because they’ll ensure it is more responsive when people go back to any office. “We’re taking forced time from the office to save lots of time whenever we ramp back up,” Mike Duarte explains. One of is own team’s undertakings is creating a pipeline that automatically creates webpages from content, while evaluating and deploying services for Cisco IT’s Customer Zero program. (Customer Zero implements emerging technologies into Cisco’s IT production environments of product launch ahead. The united team has an IT Operator’s perspective once we develop integrated solutions, guidelines, and accompanying value cases to operate a vehicle accelerated adoption.)

Folks are getting creative. On campus, Andy Del Hierro ran a “maker’s room” with a 3D printer. “I came across myself going there when I acquired stuck,” he says. “Taking a couple of hours to tinker around with something apart from my usual work helped me re-center.” He replicated that maker’s room in his garage in the home, where he’s working projects for the client Zero program. One project: redesigning the network monitoring probes we’re developing for early knowing of issues.