Sticker Shock

I am a software engineer; I have been since my first computer, a VIC-20. 1980.

Being a software engineer, I have a few compulsive disorders. Comes with the territory.

One of them is clean equipment. Nowadays, that means a clean laptop and a clean tablet, with no stickers, no dirt, no fingerprints. Clean.

But, if there is one thing I’ve learned over these four decades, it’s that the world moves on, whether I like it or not. If you don’t get with the program, you will get left behind. First, you’re being put last on the invite list to meetings. Then, worse, you’re just plain ignored.

Which brings me back to stickers. It started a little over a year ago, my first sticker on my laptop; it was a DevNet robot design from Cisco Live Orlando. Putting it on, I thought how this will be the end of life on earth as I’ve known it—and, what a waste of time this stickering is.

I was wrong.

At Comic-Con of the same year, I picked up another few stickers and put them on my devices. Then another few from food joints and some Box Lacrosse teams I like.

Now when I travel, the stickers prove not wastes of time, but maximizers of time. People see the stickers and, bang, a conversation begins. It’s amazing how many people will stop what they’d been doing and start engaging with me on a topic that they connect with when they see a sticker that speaks to them.

At Cisco Live 2019 in San Diego, I saw a sticker about drummers on a laptop of someone furiously typing an email. Somehow that made sense. And it turned out to be a good acquaintance, John McDonough from Cisco. Conversation ensued.

The point of this rather long note is, however, not about stickers; it’s about not just dismissing new things out of hand but giving them a try. For instance, consider the new DevNet Certification that was announced at Cisco Live San Diego. Many network engineers look at it as a dilution of their skills/certification that they have, while software engineers may look at it like they are lowering themselves. It’s really neither. It’s a way for the two groups to meet in the middle and make the process of automating the network easier and more reliable. I think you’ll find that this dual program is beneficial to everyone, not only within your organization, but to our community at large.

Plus, you’ll get a sticker.