Cisco Podcast Network

SHIFT HAPPENS–EP 22: From Data to Action: Powering Partners with PXP

Every major transformation needs a backbone—and for Cisco partners, that backbone is the Partner Experience Platform (PXP).
In this episode of Shift Happens, Jeff Edwards sits down with Patrick Heenan, leader of PXP strategy and development, to explore how Cisco is redefining partner experience through co-design, simplicity, and AI-powered insights—all in support of the Cisco 360 partner program.
From turning complex data into clear actions to giving partners real-time visibility into growth, performance, and opportunity, this conversation shows how PXP is becoming the central intelligence platform for partner success.
Why listen:
• 🤝 How co-design with partners is shaping PXP
• 📊 How data becomes insight—and insight becomes action
• 🤖 How AI is powering smarter, faster partner growth
🎙️ Insight. Momentum. It’s time to make shift happen.

404 Script Not Found: Getting Hired

Ian and Kat finally let an actual expert onto the pod with their first external guest, technical recruiter Ann McCreight of Find Great People, for a wildly honest chat about AI in hiring, resumes that try way too hard, and why you absolutely should not list “English” as your programming language.
Along the way, we cover keyword stuffing, Canva crimes, interview prep with robots, four-mile interview runs (??), and the shocking revelation that Ian’s old resume… isn’t that bad. Equal parts career advice and group therapy, this is the episode for you whether you are actively looking for a new job, or your resume is collecting virtual dust in a shared drive somewhere.
If you came here to learn about Cisco SMB, we still got you here: cisco.com/content/cdc/login.html?referer=/site/us/en/solutions/small-business/index.html

AI Insights - EP. 1: Building Better AI Agents

In this month’s episode of The Cisco AI Insights Podcast, hosts Rafael Herrera and Sónia Marques welcome Giota Antonakaki, a Cisco leader in machine learning engineering, for an illuminating deep dive into a recent academic research shaping AI agent technology. Together, they unpack “The Illusion of Diminishing Returns: Measuring Long Horizon Execution in LLMs”, a paper challenging the common belief that scaling large language models (LLMs) results in only marginal gains.
 
The conversation explores fresh concepts like “long horizon” and “self-conditioning,” revealing how even small improvements in LLM step accuracy can dramatically boost performance in complex, multi-step tasks. Giota breaks down the difference between planning, reasoning, and execution in LLMs, and why reasoning-focused models outperform even the largest standard LLMs for long-running AI agents.
We also extend a special thank you to Akshit Sinha and his team of researchers for developing this month's paper. If you are interested in reading the paper yourself, please visit this link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.09677.

SHIFT HAPPENS - EP 21: The Shift that Happened w/Elisabeth DeDobbeleer & Tim Coogan

🚨 This wasn't a tweak. It was an identity shift.
This is the shift that happened.
In this episode of Shift Happens, Jeff Edwards goes behind the scenes of the Cisco 360 Partner Program with Tim Coogan and Elisabeth DeDobbeleer to unpack the human story behind the biggest partner transformation in Cisco's history. Less framework, more truth. Less polish, more courage.
Why listen 🎧
🔄 From "partner-first" to partner identity - what had to change (and why it was uncomfortable)
🤝 Co-design at scale: humility, trust, and partners shaping the outcome
🚀 Durable growth decoded: simplicity, outcomes, and why this is only the beginning
This isn't about a program launch.
It's about reinvention, trust, and building the future-together. 🔥

404 Script Not Found: Mentoring

Ian and Kat are joined this week by their white whale, Ian's mentor and Cisco's Vice President of Global Channel Marketing and Mid-Market/SMB, Stephen Tessitore. Stephen is on a mission to mentor 100 new leaders (he's WELL on his way), and shares his insights with us on how to find a mentor, how to be a mentor and how to come prepared to get the most out of the relationship.
Kat and Ian then spend the last 4 minutes roasting Ian for his Chipotle habits. Maybe something he can work on with a mentor?
If you want to learn more about Cisco's solutions for small and medium businesses (which we definitely did not talk about this week), check them out here: https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/solutions/small-business/index.html#tabs-35d568e0ff-item-4bd7dc8124-tab

SHIFT HAPPENS-EP 20: Cisco 360 Explained-Incentives, AI, & the Future of Profitability w/Fred Farges

What does it take to redesign a partner incentive program after more than 20 years—without losing trust, predictability, or momentum?
In this episode of Shift Happens, host Jeff Edwards sits down with Fred Farges, Senior Director of Cisco’s Global Partner Incentive Program and a key architect of the Cisco 360 Partner Program, to unpack one of the most significant transformations in Cisco’s partner ecosystem.
They explore how market forces like AI, subscription-based revenue, and customer adoption are reshaping partner profitability—and why Cisco made the decision to co-design its future partner model with partners at global scale.
This conversation covers:
● Why legacy partner incentives had to evolve
● How Cisco 360 balances innovation with predictability
● What partners can expect at launch and beyond
● The role of growth, adoption, and lifecycle in long-term success
Whether you’re inside Cisco, part of the partner ecosystem, or leading change in enterprise technology, this episode offers a clear, candid look at how transformation happens.

The Top Internet Outages of 2025

Join us for a recap of some of 2025’s most notable Internet outages and incidents, with key learnings for ITOps teams to take into 2026.

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CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
03:16 An Important Nuance
05:16 Global Impacts
07:44 Architecture and Failure Modes
10:05 When DNS Is The Culprit
13:05 The Importance of Looking at Combined Signals
15:54 On Configuration Change Issues
19:23 Key Takeaways
———

For additional insights, check out the links below:
Blog: https://www.thousandeyes.com/blog/the-top-internet-outages-of-2025-analyses-and-takeaways#google-cloud-incident?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=fy26q2_internetreport_q2fy26ep1_podcast?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=fy26q2_internetreport_q2fy26ep129_podcast
The Internet Outage Survival Kit: https://www.thousandeyes.com/resources/the-internet-outage-survival-kit?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=fy26q2_internetreport_q2fy26ep129_podcast
———
Want to get in touch?
If you have questions, feedback, or guests you would like to see featured on the show, send us a note at InternetReport@thousandeyes.com. Or follow us on LinkedIn or X.
———
ABOUT THE INTERNET REPORT
This is The Internet Report, a podcast uncovering what’s working and what’s breaking on the Internet—and why.
Tune in to hear ThousandEyes’ Internet experts dig into some of the most interesting outage events from the past couple weeks, discussing what went awry—was it the Internet, or an application issue?
Plus, learn about the latest trends in ISP outages, cloud network outages, collaboration network outages, and more.
Catch all the episodes on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform:
- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-internet-report/id1506984526
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5ADFvqAtgsbYwk4JiZFqHQ?si=00e9c4b53aff4d08&nd=1&dlsi=eab65c9ea39d4773
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/ciscopodcastnetwork/sets/the-internet-report
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCewXUwLMfn7Y69C6vGRVwyw

404 Script Not Found: New Year’s Resolutions

New year, new us? Probably not.
But we ARE talking all things about resolutions - from Kat's witchiness and vision boards to Ian's list of goals we share our process and take a look back at our 2025 resolutions and year-over-year (YoY) improvements - including Ian drinking less soda...shock!
We then dive into how to go about making good resolutions (~6:20 in) before devolving into Kat mocking Ian once again. Feels like this should be a resolution for her?
Short and sweet this week!
If one of your resolutions is to learn more about Cisco's solutions for small and medium businesses, check them out here: https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/solutions/small-business/index.html

Cisco SE Talks: Why Banks Are Bringing AI In-House for Security

In this episode of Cisco SE Talks, we dive deep into the practical applications of AI with many of our financial and high frequency trading customers. We’re thrilled to also bring in Sudheesh Subhash – VP of Innovation & Emerging Technologies at EPlus, Zeki Yasar - Principal Architect focusing on AI and Jake Perakis, Cisco SE - as we talk through customer financial pain points and challenges, as they embark on their AI journey.
We also take a deeper dive on how cloud with AI can sometimes be the easy button but comes with significant security challenges and cost restraints. Join us as Cisco SEs lead the way as Cisco re-defines the AI market transformation with our customers and partner!
#Cisco #CiscoSE #CiscoEPlus #AI #SELed #CiscoAI #SETalks #CiscoSETalks

Parsing Recent Cloudflare and Venmo Outages

Dig into recent outages at Cloudflare and Venmo, and the growing challenge of maintaining reliability and resilience in a world of increasingly interdependent Internet infrastructure.
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CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:50 Cloudflare Outage
06:54 Venmo Outage
12:01 The Challenge of Layered Dependencies
13:36 Outage Trends: By the Numbers
15:28 Get in Touch
———
For additional insights, check out the links below:
- The Internet Report’s latest blog: https://www.thousandeyes.com/blog/internet-report-cloudflare-venmo-outages?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=fy26q2_internetreport_q2fy26ep5_podcast
- The Internet Outage Survival Kit: https://www.thousandeyes.com/resources/the-internet-outage-survival-kit?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=fy26q2_internetreport_q2fy26ep5_podcast
———
Want to get in touch?
If you have questions, feedback, or guests you would like to see featured on the show, send us a note at InternetReport@thousandeyes.com. Or follow us on LinkedIn or X.
———
ABOUT THE INTERNET REPORT
This is The Internet Report, a podcast uncovering what’s working and what’s breaking on the Internet—and why.
Tune in to hear ThousandEyes’ Internet experts dig into some of the most interesting outage events from the past couple weeks, discussing what went awry—was it the Internet, or an application issue?
Plus, learn about the latest trends in ISP outages, cloud network outages, collaboration network outages, and more.
Catch all the episodes on SoundCloud or your favorite podcast platform:
- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-internet-report/id1506984526
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5ADFvqAtgsbYwk4JiZFqHQ?si=00e9c4b53aff4d08&nd=1&dlsi=eab65c9ea39d4773
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theinternetreport_official