The Cisco traffic jam continues to harm the reputations of Cisco party planners. I have a few friends who work at Cisco and they are — more than a week later — still livid about how their company handled their annual party. One worker there told me she was stuck in traffic for more than two hours and decided to simply turn around and go home.
So, what happened? Well, 11,000 Cisco employees were told to go to Shoreline for its company meeting. The thing is Shoreline isn’t designed for that kind of traffic inflow during rush hour. It messed up the commutes of many people, particularly those who work at Google.
But internally workers are still stewing. It’s amazing that they took an event that was supposed to generate postive morale but turned it into really negative feelings toward the company.
Lesson for other companies who are thinking of doing parties or corporate meetings? Get busses. Don’t schedule stuff like this for rush hour. Make sure there are plenty of traffic controls. Microsoft gives lots of incentives to take busses to its events in Seattle.
Ahh, the drama that goes on in Silicon Valley.
Almost makes me wonder why we didn’t have big parties at Shoreline on behalf of Microsoft?
Anyway, I wonder if the Del.icio.us party on October 3 in Sunnyvale will cause similar traffic jams? Probably more cause Del.icio.us is a cool way to bookmark your favorite stuff.
Scobleizer 
Cisco is also not very good with routers.
See this “The evidence we were seeing all pointed to one of the two routers as the primary troublemaker so we focused on that one. Configurations were changed with some improvement but without resolving the main issue. Ultimately, 6 separate Cisco support engineers and a Cisco Certified Internet Engineer were all unable to determine the cause of the errors we were seeing on our routers.”
From here: http://blog.dreamhost.com/2006/09/19/anatomy-of-a-disaster-part-2/
LikeLike
Cisco is also not very good with routers.
See this “The evidence we were seeing all pointed to one of the two routers as the primary troublemaker so we focused on that one. Configurations were changed with some improvement but without resolving the main issue. Ultimately, 6 separate Cisco support engineers and a Cisco Certified Internet Engineer were all unable to determine the cause of the errors we were seeing on our routers.”
From here: http://blog.dreamhost.com/2006/09/19/anatomy-of-a-disaster-part-2/
LikeLike
Microsoft may give incentives to take the bus to events in Seattle such as today’s company meeting at Safeco Field, but it still screwed up the traffic for three hours.
LikeLike
Microsoft may give incentives to take the bus to events in Seattle such as today’s company meeting at Safeco Field, but it still screwed up the traffic for three hours.
LikeLike
Scoble: “Microsoft gives lots of incentives to take busses to its events in Seattle.”
Hmm, as I understand it, a ‘buss’ is a kiss. Surely you meant ‘take buses’?
On the other hand, where can I get an invitation to one of these MS love-ins? š
LikeLike
Scoble: “Microsoft gives lots of incentives to take busses to its events in Seattle.”
Hmm, as I understand it, a ‘buss’ is a kiss. Surely you meant ‘take buses’?
On the other hand, where can I get an invitation to one of these MS love-ins? š
LikeLike
You’re painting the wrong picture here Robert.
This was not a “party”. At 9 AM? This was a scheduled well in advance company all hands meeting. They take place several times a year.
Cisco employees were invited to the company meeting at Shoreline. No one was told that this meeting was mandatory (except maybe the AV crew). The entire meeting was also available via IPTV and conference call for any employee who could attach to the network. Many, many folks watched on large screen in conference rooms across the campus (and in remote offices around the globe).
The meeting started at or just before 9 AM. Many folks arived at 6-7 AM and reported virtually no traffic.
Cisco also pays for all employees access to the Light Rail which runs right down the center of campus; and have their own shuttle service between buildings.
Blaming Cisco for traffic in San Jose / Milpitas or on 101 is just wrong.
LikeLike
You’re painting the wrong picture here Robert.
This was not a “party”. At 9 AM? This was a scheduled well in advance company all hands meeting. They take place several times a year.
Cisco employees were invited to the company meeting at Shoreline. No one was told that this meeting was mandatory (except maybe the AV crew). The entire meeting was also available via IPTV and conference call for any employee who could attach to the network. Many, many folks watched on large screen in conference rooms across the campus (and in remote offices around the globe).
The meeting started at or just before 9 AM. Many folks arived at 6-7 AM and reported virtually no traffic.
Cisco also pays for all employees access to the Light Rail which runs right down the center of campus; and have their own shuttle service between buildings.
Blaming Cisco for traffic in San Jose / Milpitas or on 101 is just wrong.
LikeLike
Hanan,
Good job using Scoble’s blog to try and deflect your networking problems to a vendor! Reading your post you acknowledge that there were power problems. I suppose Cisco created those? Or maybe you and your co-workers couldn’t do the math to figure out how many devices to plug into a circuit?
And then you point out that Cisco support was supposed to come in and save the day by fixing your design. In the end it sounds like you and your co-workers pooched the configuration. But that’s Cisco’s fault right???
Great job at finger pointing there. That blog post is a resume builder if ever I saw one. Good luck.
LikeLike
Hanan,
Good job using Scoble’s blog to try and deflect your networking problems to a vendor! Reading your post you acknowledge that there were power problems. I suppose Cisco created those? Or maybe you and your co-workers couldn’t do the math to figure out how many devices to plug into a circuit?
And then you point out that Cisco support was supposed to come in and save the day by fixing your design. In the end it sounds like you and your co-workers pooched the configuration. But that’s Cisco’s fault right???
Great job at finger pointing there. That blog post is a resume builder if ever I saw one. Good luck.
LikeLike
Every big company should have a Chief Hospatility Officer, the problem here was that someone decided to celebrate and delegated the job to someone else who hired contractors so that in the end no one was in charge or responsible for what happened.
LikeLike
Every big company should have a Chief Hospatility Officer, the problem here was that someone decided to celebrate and delegated the job to someone else who hired contractors so that in the end no one was in charge or responsible for what happened.
LikeLike
Brian: no one in surrounding businesses knew about this. Shoreline had to apologize to the San Jose Mercury News, saying that they parked more than 6,000 cars which is twice what they get for an 18,000 attendee concert.
I’m just passing along what four Cisco employees told me. They said it was an unmitigated disaster.
Company meetings are mostly parties. Let’s be honest, here, OK? If you don’t need to party, why hold it at Shoreline? Why not just do a video from the CEO and tell everyone what they did right and wrong?
LikeLike
Brian: no one in surrounding businesses knew about this. Shoreline had to apologize to the San Jose Mercury News, saying that they parked more than 6,000 cars which is twice what they get for an 18,000 attendee concert.
I’m just passing along what four Cisco employees told me. They said it was an unmitigated disaster.
Company meetings are mostly parties. Let’s be honest, here, OK? If you don’t need to party, why hold it at Shoreline? Why not just do a video from the CEO and tell everyone what they did right and wrong?
LikeLike
Brian:
Lots of people reported that the traffic backup extended from the Shoreline Amphitheatre *all the way to Milpitas*. (Quoted article mentions “traffic from San Jose to Redwood City”) I don’t know what made everyone at Cisco decide to go, but they did, and there were no buses, no carpools.
I can say that Shoreline in Mountain View backed up to Central Expressway, and lots of surface streets were all messed up.
WTF does light rail have to do with anything? Are you saying Cisco could have run buses from the Light Rail station in Mountain View to the Amphitheatre to inexpensively but slowly take care of the mases, but didn’t even bother to do that?
My question: how many hundreds of thousands of dollars did Cisco cost themselves, and how many did they cost the Silicon Valley economy?
LikeLike
Brian:
Lots of people reported that the traffic backup extended from the Shoreline Amphitheatre *all the way to Milpitas*. (Quoted article mentions “traffic from San Jose to Redwood City”) I don’t know what made everyone at Cisco decide to go, but they did, and there were no buses, no carpools.
I can say that Shoreline in Mountain View backed up to Central Expressway, and lots of surface streets were all messed up.
WTF does light rail have to do with anything? Are you saying Cisco could have run buses from the Light Rail station in Mountain View to the Amphitheatre to inexpensively but slowly take care of the mases, but didn’t even bother to do that?
My question: how many hundreds of thousands of dollars did Cisco cost themselves, and how many did they cost the Silicon Valley economy?
LikeLike
Light news day was it.
FFS – the blog you linked to the main gripe appaeared to be I had a 35 min commute rather than a 10 min.
Lots of people would kill for a 35 minuite drive to work.
LikeLike
Light news day was it.
FFS – the blog you linked to the main gripe appaeared to be I had a 35 min commute rather than a 10 min.
Lots of people would kill for a 35 minuite drive to work.
LikeLike
I guess I’m at a loss as to what you expect Cisco should have done here? Should they notify surrounding businesses that they rented out Shoreline? Put up signs saying “Watch out for the Company Meeting”? Would that be a valid reason for a Googler or otehr San Jose / Milpitas worker to stay home? Is it the business that rents out the Shoreline facilities responsibilty or should the Shoreline staff have known better?
Given your views on traffic I would guess you’ve never been to NY when the UN General Assembly meets or the President comes to town (that was this week).
My comment about the Light Rail was intended to point out that a “sort of” alternative existed. I believe that previous Cisco meetings were held at the San Jose Convention Center which is right down the road from Cisco via Light Rail.
If you think that a company meeting is “a party” I question your definition of “a party”. Live a little.
LikeLike
I guess I’m at a loss as to what you expect Cisco should have done here? Should they notify surrounding businesses that they rented out Shoreline? Put up signs saying “Watch out for the Company Meeting”? Would that be a valid reason for a Googler or otehr San Jose / Milpitas worker to stay home? Is it the business that rents out the Shoreline facilities responsibilty or should the Shoreline staff have known better?
Given your views on traffic I would guess you’ve never been to NY when the UN General Assembly meets or the President comes to town (that was this week).
My comment about the Light Rail was intended to point out that a “sort of” alternative existed. I believe that previous Cisco meetings were held at the San Jose Convention Center which is right down the road from Cisco via Light Rail.
If you think that a company meeting is “a party” I question your definition of “a party”. Live a little.
LikeLike
“Iām just passing along what four Cisco employees told me. They said it was an unmitigated disaster.”
4/6000 (assuming nobody carpooled) = .000666667
Draw your own conclusions.
LikeLike
“Iām just passing along what four Cisco employees told me. They said it was an unmitigated disaster.”
4/6000 (assuming nobody carpooled) = .000666667
Draw your own conclusions.
LikeLike
Microsoft’s company meeting, er, party, has dozens of buses. You’re urged to park back on campus and take a bus. From what the Cisco folks tell me there wasn’t a single bus. Shoreline isn’t near Light Rail, so don’t know why you keep bringing that up.
Also, when Shoreline has a concert there usually are dozens of cops, street closures, and lots of people directing traffic. The Cisco employees didn’t see any of that.
Shoreline blamed the mess on the fact that most Cisco employees didn’t carpool (Shoreline said they saw twice as many cars as they usually see for an 18,000-attendee event).
No matter what, though, a company meeting (er party) is supposed to make employees feel good about the company. This one just caused bad feelings all around.
LikeLike
Microsoft’s company meeting, er, party, has dozens of buses. You’re urged to park back on campus and take a bus. From what the Cisco folks tell me there wasn’t a single bus. Shoreline isn’t near Light Rail, so don’t know why you keep bringing that up.
Also, when Shoreline has a concert there usually are dozens of cops, street closures, and lots of people directing traffic. The Cisco employees didn’t see any of that.
Shoreline blamed the mess on the fact that most Cisco employees didn’t carpool (Shoreline said they saw twice as many cars as they usually see for an 18,000-attendee event).
No matter what, though, a company meeting (er party) is supposed to make employees feel good about the company. This one just caused bad feelings all around.
LikeLike
“Lots of people would kill for a 35 minute commute”
Lots of people would kill for a nice meal. And do. I’m not sure of the relevance. The point here, and it’s not anywhere near the importance of, say, HP spying, is that a company completely incompetetly set something up and inconvenienced many thousands of people, including their own employees. For no apparent reason.
Brian, what should Cisco have done? Easy.
1: Provide employee transport from their headquarters (already set up for this pattern of traffic) to the event site. And/or from major transport hubs (e.g. MV Caltrain/Light Rail + maybe a BART station–I have no idea where most Cisco employees live).
2: Schedule the meeting to start after rush hour, not at the absolute peak time. Say, 10:30?
3: Notify local businesses. Employees of those businesses (= large number of software companies with flex schedules) could chose to come in after the event start (making both event attendees and locals lives esaier), or make sure to come via foot/bicycle/motorcycle/bus if they had options.
That’s all. None of those are hard.
I’m not sure what the Amphitheatre could do besides demand a renter follow those rules if they wish to use the venue.
LikeLike
“Lots of people would kill for a 35 minute commute”
Lots of people would kill for a nice meal. And do. I’m not sure of the relevance. The point here, and it’s not anywhere near the importance of, say, HP spying, is that a company completely incompetetly set something up and inconvenienced many thousands of people, including their own employees. For no apparent reason.
Brian, what should Cisco have done? Easy.
1: Provide employee transport from their headquarters (already set up for this pattern of traffic) to the event site. And/or from major transport hubs (e.g. MV Caltrain/Light Rail + maybe a BART station–I have no idea where most Cisco employees live).
2: Schedule the meeting to start after rush hour, not at the absolute peak time. Say, 10:30?
3: Notify local businesses. Employees of those businesses (= large number of software companies with flex schedules) could chose to come in after the event start (making both event attendees and locals lives esaier), or make sure to come via foot/bicycle/motorcycle/bus if they had options.
That’s all. None of those are hard.
I’m not sure what the Amphitheatre could do besides demand a renter follow those rules if they wish to use the venue.
LikeLike
Meh, this is totally over blown and simple valley politics. I got in about 8 with no problem to the shoreline. I have hit much worse traffic in that area. I got back go Sunnyvale (I didn’t head all back to campus) with no problems at all a bit after the meeting. There was a little backup getting out of shoreline one way, so I went the other and was out almost instantly.
I think we did a shameful job of carpooling, really though I think that is about the worse that can be said about the whole deal. The backup to 237 was not bad either leaving IMO.
101 is mess all the time almost no matter what anyway (I live on the 101, 237 door step). This whole thing is much to do about nothing, don’t like traffic, don’t live in the valley. Everybody at the vent was jazzed and seemed to have fun and the presentation was all business (lunch was after but hardly a party per say).
New logo looks great against black, I’m still lukewarm to it on white.
LikeLike
Meh, this is totally over blown and simple valley politics. I got in about 8 with no problem to the shoreline. I have hit much worse traffic in that area. I got back go Sunnyvale (I didn’t head all back to campus) with no problems at all a bit after the meeting. There was a little backup getting out of shoreline one way, so I went the other and was out almost instantly.
I think we did a shameful job of carpooling, really though I think that is about the worse that can be said about the whole deal. The backup to 237 was not bad either leaving IMO.
101 is mess all the time almost no matter what anyway (I live on the 101, 237 door step). This whole thing is much to do about nothing, don’t like traffic, don’t live in the valley. Everybody at the vent was jazzed and seemed to have fun and the presentation was all business (lunch was after but hardly a party per say).
New logo looks great against black, I’m still lukewarm to it on white.
LikeLike
Personal MB I think business notification issues really should been on shoreline. They are the one’s hosting the event and working in the area it would surprise me if they don’t have a process for that. As far as mass busses go I’m not sure how practical that would be, the Cisco campus is huge and distributed it sounds nice in theory but I don’t think it would have taken. I think a effort to push light rail and car pooling would have been good but frankly having been through the traffic at peak times I think this is totally blown out of proportion and I live in the area and have had way worse traffic in that area for less reason.
LikeLike
Personal MB I think business notification issues really should been on shoreline. They are the one’s hosting the event and working in the area it would surprise me if they don’t have a process for that. As far as mass busses go I’m not sure how practical that would be, the Cisco campus is huge and distributed it sounds nice in theory but I don’t think it would have taken. I think a effort to push light rail and car pooling would have been good but frankly having been through the traffic at peak times I think this is totally blown out of proportion and I live in the area and have had way worse traffic in that area for less reason.
LikeLike