It has been an interesting start to Cisco Live 2015 this year.  It is nice to see everyone refreshing friendships between people that we have not seen since San Francisco, if not longer.  It is great to see many of the old (guess that what happens as years pass) faces that I have seen over the years. Below is the official Cisco Live Facbook photo of our Tweetup from last night.


Another topic of conversation is just the overall feel of Cisco Live 2015, something just feels off when compared back to other years.  Perhaps it is the notion that there are over (rumored) 24,000 people in attendance this year, or the memories of food service from Cisco live 2014 in San Francisco with the amount of people there, or perhaps the upper level management changes that come with a new CEO, or who knows what but something just feels different.
The first thing that I, and others, have noticed is how sparse the Cisco Live bag is this year.  While it is a decent bag, nothing has been able to replace the quality and utility of the APC bag from 2004.  I think every year since has had to measure up to that bag.  The other part of the bag that is interesting is how sparse the contents of the bag are.  The only thing in the bag this year is a notepad and pen from EMC.  No swag or contest information from vendors in WoS, no buttons or pins with crazy sayings, no USB with information (sessions) on it, just a notepad and pen made out of cardboard (ok, bonus points for being environmentally friendly in California). You can see the contents of the bag from 2011 here LINK.

I still have high hopes for this years event though.  (Always an optimist!)
 
So see how it goes and see you around!