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WOW!

That’s my first word if someone asks me about my trip to Cisco Live Milan 2015 last week. It was my first Cisco Live ever and I really should have been there years and years ago! All those great sessions, a lot of awesome people to have great conversations, meeting a lot of people you know from the community… Cisco Live is the place to be for every Cisco engineer / consultant.
This edition of Cisco Live Europe was in MiCo, Milano. I was really impressed by the size of the event: a lot of people recommend to bring your best walking shoes and I can only confirm this. There are 30 minutes in between sessions and if you’re unlucky, you really need these 30 minutes to find, walk and locate the room of your next session. Another very good impression was the amount of attandees and everything Cisco is doing to make the event as much as comfortable for everyone. You will find Cisco employees on every floor, on every corner to help you with all your questions: where is room x? At what time is lunch? Where is lunch?

Last but not least, I was really impressed by the wireless network in the venue (ofcourse, it’s a Cisco event, but I didn’t expect such a good network!). During the keynote and especially the Customer Appreciation Party a lot of people are grouped up into 1 room and most people have more than one device. A lot of people were streaming the live bands during the party to family and colleagues at home and I was still able to send some pictures and videos! The network was very stable during the event in every room and on every corner of the building.
As you know, I’m a Cisco Champion for the second year and I really had to say Hi to some fellow Cisco Champions who were attending the event too. It was a pleasure to meet these people!
During the event, the crew of Engineers Unplugged were filming new episodes for upcoming seasons. I had the opportunity to record one episode! More on that later, when it comes available.

Last but not least, some tips for new Cisco live attendees in the upcoming events:

• Bring your best walking shoes! You will walk a lot of kilometers / miles
• Go to a venue tour on the monday. They will show you some important spots for the events and they will guide you throug the venue
• Go to the twitter tweetup to meet some people
• Be carefull at the World of Solutions: you will find a lot of people who want to scan your batch in every booth. Don’t let scan your batch if you’re not interested in the company, this will prevent you for spam
• Take your time to visit the World of Solutions
• Use twitter / facebook to contact the social media team. They will help you with all questions  and a lot of extra information is posted online
• Download and install the Cisco Events app and use it!
• Book a session with Meet The Engineer! These people can help you with all questions and remarks over all products / technology
• Don’t bring your laptop to the event, only if you really have to. You’ll walk a lot through the venue, the laptop bag is gonna hurt on your shoulders.
• Bring your iPad / tablet (see the previous tip)
• Bring a mobile battery charger. There are a lot of lounges with power plugs, but most of these plugs are occupied or not working anymore at the end of the week

Hope to see you next year in Berlin!