>>live from Barcelona, Spain. It's the Cube covering Cisco Live 2020 right to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. >>Welcome back. You're watching the Cube, helping to extract the signal from the noise here at Cisco Live 2020 in Barcelona. I'm stupid, and my co host for this segment is Dave Volante. John Furrier is also in the house. One of the things when we look at Cisco it has a strong strength and helping users really with their careers. And, of course, education is a key piece of that Help really dig into that ever changing topic. Talk about future of work as a great hashtag. I love following on LinkedIn and Twitter Everybody's always interested in because it affects so many people. Mike Adams Welcome back to the Cube vice president, general manager of learning at Cisco. Thanks so much. Thanks. It's >>a pleasure to >>be here. Good to see you guys again. All right, so we're here in the Dev Net. Zo, we've been watching some of the move Cisco's been making heard about the New Dev Net certifications, of course. You know, leading up to and at the show, I see lots of friends talking about the prep they're doing. The course is they're taking and, you know, all excited if they pass a certification, everything. So bring us into kind of what's new in your world. Sure on, and we'll go from there. >>So the last time we spoke in San Diego, we had just announced Cisco's new certification program, the most exciting and fundamental changes we've made to the certification program in over a decade. That was the promise that we made to the industry in 26 short days. We fulfill that promise with the launch of the new certification program right, and that includes the first software certification track for Cisco. The definite certifications. But there's some other big changes that have been incorporated into the new program as well. We have continuing education credits, which we spend a little bit of time talking about last time to allow people to maintain their certifications at every level. There's a lot of evidence that there's more value in learning new things to maintain that certification than just re taking an old test again. We also have a customer success manager certification that I would love to chat with you guys about as well because there's two big fundamental changes taking place in the industry today. One of them is very technology oriented, the coming together of network and software to unleash the capability of the network. But there's a fundamental business change that's taken place is where a business model change. And that's where Cisco has pivoted our historic services organization toward a customer success, customer experience oriented model. And we're now certifying folks to be customer success managers in the industry as well. So a lot happening around certifications, >>I said in my breaking analysis leading up to the show. You know, the ascendancy of Cisco kind attract a lot of things, but there were three. The levers that I called out one was the bet on I P. The other was the mergers and acquisition strategy which panned out, and the third was training. You know, this force of advocates, which became this the secret weapon we're now seeing sort of the next wave of that Are we in the industry changes. You guys are on top of that. I wonder if you could talk about the the force of, you know, body of work that you guys have helped create as advocates and really changing the way in which people are applying technology and beyond technology. >>Yeah, so So you're right. So for over 26 years, individual engineers and technologists have bet their career on Cisco, and they have actualized that through certifications. Those certifications in the rigor and the power of those have allowed them to demonstrate their capability to get that next job to compete and earn more for their family to do things that they never would have thought they would've been able to do otherwise, regardless of who their employer is. So one of the things that's most gratifying about the role that I'm in and the work that we do as we touch individual lives. You were talking a moment ago about hearing individual people being excited about the exam they passed. That's not a B to B conversation that's a person to person conversation, right, So that opportunity to influence that historically has been powerful. And with this new certification program that we're rolling out on a lot of the other changes that are happening, we're telling folks you can now bet your next 26 years on Cisco bet your career on us and we're gonna make sure that it's equally is valuable with the new skill software in particular there. >>And it's not. The point is that you talk to the folks who have gone through the sort of against, like CCP, obviously gold standard. Yeah, it's not trivial. It's really challenging. Is going back to college finding way work hard? Teoh make it regularly with the >>value of that certification is because we maintain the integrity of that program, and that's exactly what we're going to continue to do. So maybe using that structure and integrity and rigour that we've built over the last 26 years and now injecting new capabilities and skill into that model is really what the focus >>is. I love to hear a little bit more. Mike. You were talking about changes and different options. People have to make sure that they're not just on the treadmill of, you know, repeating the same thing. >>Yeah, yeah, I >>have to start with Dev. Net. You have to start with software skills we're hearing from our customers every single day. Fundamental networking capability and skills still critically important. But the thing they're hungry for right now is being ableto add software programming skills on top of that. And so our response to that obviously, is not only with what we do in definite here training people every day, right here behind us, but now allowing them to be able to demonstrate those skills that they have earned through a certification. So now they can take that to their employer and say, I've actually got it. I can show you can prove it. You don't have to see me do it. So that's That's one of the one of the fundamental changes that's happening right now in the industry and why it's so important to our customers and partners. >>So what's the data show? Where you seeing what's hot? What are you seeing? The demand? It's I O T and Python. I mean, lines out the standing room only back here. But what are you seeing in the data and what are you advising, folks? Toe. Sort of lean into >>Sure. Sure. Yeah. I'm glad you asked that. A couple of things. I'll sort of back up just a little bit if I can. Even on the network engineering track, if you will. We have begun to inject and embed more programming fundamentals. More software fundamental. So one way to think about it's kind of 2080. So in the network engineering track, there's still 20% of sort of software skills that we have built into each level in 80% of that traditional sort of network engineering capability. You have to demonstrate on the software side on the DEV. Net side. It's the flip, right, so it's 80% software, but there's 20% of networking engineering capability. What that does is allow all these folks to have a common language that they speak. This is about building an I T. Team of the future. It's not about having one individual that knows everything. It's about being able to assemble teams that know how to solve these problems together. So all those skills that you mentioned are really critical, as they can unlock the potential of Cisco's new programmable platform. >>Well, the other things do is it's self funding, so it's a good business, but a >>mic I'm curious when you're building these software certification, what did you learn from existing certifications out there? I think Microsoft, of course, very position in this space. The cloud providers have sort of occasions. So what did you learn in building this? And also a lot of your customers? If they're developers, they're playing in multiple environments. It's not CCTV. I know what gear I'm working on a developer. There's many environments I will play in. So so how do you frame what you're learning and how it fits in the broader it? >>Yeah. Yeah. So we do keep an eye on the industry, of course. And what other technology companies are doing around certifications? So we went to school on that a bit. You know, the Cisco certifications have been the gold standard. I think I mentioned a moment ago. For a long time we have seen sort of the increasing relevance of other technology certifications, and that was part of why we recognize that we needed to work a little harder to get back out in front to maintain that gold standard to continue to be the flagship in the industry. So we recognize that particularly on the software side, there is a broader set of skills that need to be integrated into the certification, but always with a focus on how the leverage those skills to unlock the potential of Cisco's platforms that we're building AP >>eyes on top of >>How about the security piece? Is that fit into the curriculum at this point? Yeah, >>security's pretty hot, huh? Security's pretty >>hard, and but it's complicated and it opens up a whole can of worms. And >>so security is still a very heavy focus of the new certification program. And I'll use this is an example toe to tell you about another fundamental change that we've made around the certification program. Historically, Cisco certifications have been more technology oriented, If you will, right, we have evolved the program to be more job role focus, so I'll give you an example. So let's say you wanted to prove that you have the capability to be a dev SEC ops engineer. Back to the security question that you had you would get a CCMP in security. So you get your core examine security. You would add to that concentrations in Dev Net, WebEx and Dev. Net SEC Ops, Dev ops and then the combination of those concentrations and specialists allow you to say I have the requisite skills to be an effective Dev. SEC ops engineer. So rather than having to show that through job history, I can now show that through a mix of concentrations and the certification. >>So I know we're going to be talking to Suzy and she'll be talking about the definite 100. But I'm curious when you look at the partners and you know some of your big customers. How fast do you expect this to roll out? You know what? What should we be expecting to see anything particular you have for the Cisco Channel of the You know, it's lots of certified people in their ranks. S So how are you helping to bring your customers and partners along? Sure. >>So two things I would say Number one. We have seen a real spike in certification testing over the last six months That tells us that there's a lot of value in what we're doing. It also tells me there's a lot of people that were studying for exams that want to get that in before the exam changes. And we have seen a lot of early sign ups for the exams that are going to be released on February 24th again 26 days away. We're close. And so when Susie announced The Dev Net 500 I'm telling you, the buzz around here is crazy. So anybody who's watching right now, I would tell them if they want to get that definite 500 you better go sign up for that exam right now. Go get your name on the list today. In anecdotally, I would say that's consistent with what we're seeing. We're seeing Ah, high demand for the new certifications in General and Dev Net. Specifically, partners are particularly interested because it's a way for them to differentiate their capabilities and what they do from some of their competitors. There's a definite specialist that a partner organization can earn by having a certain number of Dev. Net certified folks inside the organization that drives a lot of demand as well. >>You know, we've noticed that little uptick quite a big uptick in young people, kids in college watching our programs. So what do you tell those guys if they're interested in becoming an I T practitioner and where do they get >>started? Sure, I would tell him a couple of things. Number one, I would tell him. Bet your career on Cisco right? folks that are maybe not early in career like myself did the same thing 25 years ago, and it's paid off for us. And Cisco is committed not only to continuing to stay in the front of technology but making sure we're taking care of the needs of individual engineers and and developers out there who want to bet their careers on this. So hopefully the certification program we're launching is evidence of that, that we're going to continue to invest in them for the next decades to come. I would tell them if they're interested in being a network engineer, it's a great time to do that if they're interested in being a developer and understanding how to build and program and create applications. On top of Cisco's massively dominant infrastructure around the globe is a great opportunity to do that as well. And certifications are a great place. >>I'm curious when we look at the general cadence of release of hardware versus software. Software tends to move a little faster, so I'm curious what things your team has in place. Is it a you know, quarterly release cycle on the software side? Or how do you start to look at that. It's >>a really insightful question you asked, right, because the need to maintain current skills, particularly around new releases of software, is very different than it was 10 15 20 years ago. So I would say a couple of things right When we talk about how we enable and train and educate, often there are different ways we can. There are there are other ways that we meet that need. In addition to certifications, right certifications, almost by definition, move a bit more slowly. We want to maintain that rigger right. We always want to maintain the integrity of the program. So the training and education that we have available to folks via the Dev. Net and via the information that you can find and Cisco's website via the extensive network of our learning partners that we have, we are working to rapidly change that as new software releases come out and we will be looking to accelerate that pace of certifications. But just to be fair, certifications are always going to like, just a little bit behind that because we need to maintain that rigor. All >>right, Well, Mike, when we meet again at Cisco live in Las Vegas. We expect you to bring along some of those newly minted certificate is certified people in the environment. Thanks so much. We're really >>excited about that. Thank you. By the time you're welcome. Congratulations >>for Dave Volante. I'm Stew Minimum back with much more coverage here from Cisco Live 2020 in but in Barcelona. Thanks for watching the Cube. >>Yeah, yeah.