Networking Field Day 26

I am honored to have been invited as a delegate the the virtual Networking Field Day 26 event from September 14th – 16th. What is Networking Field Day (NFD)? NFD is a series of events put on by Tech Field Day with the purpose of getting network-minded technical individuals in front of the sponsoring vendors that make products so that ideas and solutions can be presented, and the invited delegates can ask questions and provide feedback. There are also other separate, similar events put on TFD that are geared toward security, cloud, storage and AI. For NFD 26, the sponsoring vendors include Arista, Cisco, Kentik, Juniper Networks, Riverbed, pathSolutions, and NetBeez.

How do you become a Tech Field Day delegate? The easiest thing to do is to go to techfieldday.com, hover over Delegates and select Become a Field Day Delegate (or click this link to take you directly there). This will walk you through the requirements and next steps. I’ve known about TFD for some time now, but was always hesitant to apply due to the deep feeling of imposter syndrome. The delegates that I have seen selected are either seasoned IT professionals with lots of deep experience on what is being presented, or very strong up-and-comers. I haven’t felt that I really fit into either category. That all changed when we had the opportunity to interview the one and only Tom Hollingsworth on episode 57 of the Art of Network Engineering podcast, that I encourage everyone to check out. To summarize, Tom gave some very encouraging words that TFD wants a diverse group of experience and skillsets to attend these events. Plus, they go through an in depth selection process, where they research the potential delegates. At a high level, they want individuals that have a strong technical background, or are working toward building that strong technical background, and have a means to communicate what they experience at the event (in my case, this will be my blog). So, once they go through that process, if you are selected, they WANT you to be there (sorry for the all caps, I try to keep that to a minimum) and the imposter syndrome should be out the window. That really resonated with me and shortly after that episode recording, I was invited to join in on NFD26. Hopefully, this will give you some encouragement to check out TFD as well, and apply to be a delegate. Stay tuned for my updates on the event!