Telling IT's story from the people who run IT
How Cisco IT stepped out from behind the server room, onto the big screen at Cisco Live and on air.
Hear the work
- Client
- Cisco IT
(Cisco on Cisco) - Programs
- IT Management Program (ITM) at Cisco Live, IT Roaming Reporter, Beyond the Network, The Voice of IT
- My role
- Multimedia content producer, or as our podcast host once put it, "IT's creative director"
- Services
- Event video, daily recap films, podcast sound design and branding, production equipment, creative community building
Nobody walks over to IT hoping to hear a great story
Most people picture their IT department as a help desk ticket, a forgotten password, or a laptop that refuses to cooperate five minutes before a big meeting.
And yet Cisco IT had some of the best stories in the company. As Cisco's "customer zero," the team tested and deployed Cisco's own products long before customers knew they existed. They lived through every struggle, every late-night workaround and every hard-earned win first.
The challenge was getting those stories out of the back office and in front of two very different audiences.
IT leaders at ITM
IT managers, directors, VPs and CIOs at a premium add-on program. Technical, time-starved and quick to spot a sales pitch from across the room.
Cisco IT employees worldwide
Teams in every office and time zone who needed a shared voice that made them feel like one team.
Both wanted the same thing: the real story, told by people who actually did the work.
Film by day. Edit by night. Premiere by morning.
ITM began years earlier as a single breakout session in a small room. It grew into a multi-day program that sold out year after year, drawing around 2,000 IT leaders at its biggest events. My job was to capture it as it happened and hand it right back to the people living it.
Day
Keynotes, breakouts and hallway conversations. The nod when a speaker admits a project went sideways. Strangers realizing they fight the same battles.
Night
When everyone headed to dinner, my second shift began: shaping hours of footage into a tight recap of the day.
Morning
The recap played for the whole room before the program picked up again, so the energy never reset to zero.
Night and morning images are AI-generated illustrations.
Think of it like a morning newspaper, except the headlines were the attendees themselves. People saw their peers, their questions and their own faces on the big screen, and that turned a conference program into a shared experience.
I wasn't the only one holding a camera
We brought together IT employees from across Cisco to work as videographers, photographers and graphic designers at Cisco Live events around the world. We ran it for six years, and it proved something I still believe: the people closest to the work often make the most honest storytellers.
Giving IT a voice, on air
Two podcasts, two very different jobs.
Beyond the Network
"One company. Countless stories." Hosted by Arthur Woo.
- Intro theme song
- Outro
- Episode editing
- Recording equipment
Featured episode: "From the Back Office to Center Stage," with ITM leaders Bram Van Spaendonk and Sara Sousa.
The Voice of IT
Made for Cisco's own IT teams. Identity built from the ground up.
- Intro and outro bumpers
- Music and theme songs
- Label design
- Episode email format
It gave a global organization a sound it could recognize the moment an episode started.
"You don't need a pencil to draw solutions. All you really need is your mind."
Creativity isn't reserved for artists. It's the willingness and the courage to think differently, and IT is full of people doing exactly that every day.
The scale
attendees at a typical ITM
every year since ITM began in 2010, according to Cisco's own 2019 podcast
attendees came back as returning guests
of the IT Roaming Reporter program at Cisco Live events around the world
These numbers belong to the whole ITM team. My part was making sure every attendee walked away feeling like they were part of something bigger than a single session.
"Just tell your story... that's when people lean in."
That line sums up everything this work taught me. Technical audiences don't need more polish, more slides or more buzzwords. They need to see themselves in the story. When that story is told quickly, honestly and by people who actually lived it, trust follows close behind.
It's the same approach I bring to every client at Ikigai Creative.
Engineer's brain, storyteller's heart.
Your story is next
Does your audience understand what you do, but not yet feel it? Every company has stories hiding in plain sight. Let's find yours.
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