RFC 1925 – The Twelve Networking Truths is one of the less technical RFCs that are cited by the networking community. It is perhaps best known for the pigs statement, Truth #3:

With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead.

My favorite, however, is the one that follows it, Truth #4:

Some things in life can never be fully appreciated nor understood unless experienced firsthand. Some things in networking can never be fully understood by someone who neither builds commercial networking equipment nor runs an operational network.

I interpret that as what makes for a successful product manager. Within networking I’ve been a Developer, a Support Engineer, a Consultant, a Network Engineer, a Technical Marketing Manager, and, most recently, a Product Manager for a startup. And now I’m very proud to share the news of my appointment as a Product Manager at Hewlett Packard. I’ll be owning the lifecycle of HP’s Campus products portfolio. HP Networking sponsored a recent Packet Pushers show and is one of the pioneers of commercial SDN solutions. In my new role I’ll be focusing on tackling the challenge of BYOD and VDI in the ever-changing Campus networking environment. Exciting times ahead!