[Feedback] Meraki Presentations: They can be better

[Mr_IT_Guy]

So I'm sitting at Cisco Connect in Virginia Beach and was excited that Meraki had SD-WAN presentation. Unfortunately this presentation is similar to many Meraki presentation I've experienced in the past: a 45-minute sales pitch with a 5-minute discussion on the topic I was actually interested in with a short demo. I understand that Meraki wants to get the word out on its product line, but Meraki needs to also think about cutting down the sales pitch so that those people with the gear currently can get value from these discussions.

[Uberseehandel]

Probably we need a new "line" of technically based presentations, even make then CMNO/CMNA exclusive, and provide real people to interact with.

[Mr_IT_Guy]

I like that idea!

[MerakiDave]

I would say that's uncharacteristic of typical Meraki presentations, which are usually the opposite, much less slides and much more demo.  Then again, depending on who was in the audience (always a mix) you may have some highly experienced Meraki customers, some who have never even heard of Meraki or seen Dashboard, and all other levels in between.  I've given plenty of presos to larger groups where it was tough to strike a good balance of sales pitch versus technical depth, and beginner versus advanced levels.  I (and most audiences) much prefer to talk less to slides about what we CAN do, and spend more time in live demos showing and explaining how we actually do it on a live network.  Then again, SD-WAN can get a bit involved, so certainly some slides and background is in order.  Maybe what you ended up was more of an overview of the MX platform with just a few minutes demo on SD-WAN.  Sorry to hear that was a bummer and came off too salesy.

Anyway, keep in mind you can also engage with your local Meraki field reps (or their inside rep counterparts) to arrange a Meraki Minilab event, and we do have hands on labs specific to SD-WAN among many others.  Perhaps that is one option to only get a handful of technical-only slides followed by hands on labs on a variety of topics including SD-WAN. 

Also, you may have seen it, and it might be a little higher level, but there is a webinar from Meraki's webinar series that was focused on SD-WAN (first 20 minutes is MX overview, the rest is SD-WAN): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRgIMaNZDlY

[Mr_IT_Guy]

@MerakiDave, thanks for your response! I'm happy to see that you feel this is uncharacteristic of typical Meraki presentations; however, every Meraki presentation my colleagues and I have attended has followed the same format as I noted in my first post.

I watched the SD-WAN webinar you posted and this is a completely different presentation than the webinar we attended earlier in the same month. Same topic, different delivery. In your SD-WAN webinar, the presenter even says "Hey, I know some of you already know about Meraki. We'll do a quick MX recap and then jump into it." My webinar spent the majority of the time talking about the Meraki product line and all the features in dashboard before finally jumping into SD-WAN with just a few minutes left on the clock. 

I know that the good presentations are out there, it's just that I haven't attended one. I want to know more about Meraki and its product capabilities and I want to hear it straight from Meraki. As @Uberseehandel stated, maybe a series of webinars aimed at those who already have Meraki gear or CMNO/CMNA should be something Meraki looks into. This way not much time is spent on recapping everything. If you think about, in a hour presentation 20 minutes is quite a long time to spend on a device overview if you are also leaving time for your main topic, demo, and questions.

[MerakiDave]

Understood @Mr_IT_Guy and good point.  And I'm going to float the idea for more advanced webinars with that team.  Glad to hear the SD-WAN webinar was a better experience.  Since the MX is such a full-featured product and there's much to talk about, it hard to NOT take 20 minutes to do an MX overview.  But I hear you, the bulk of an SD-WAN preso should be 90% focused on SD-WAN.  And we don't want experienced Meraki customers (and regular webinar attendees) to sit through a 20-minute overview every time.  Instead of squeezing in 20 minutes of "overview" material that takes time away from specific advanced topics and Q&A, perhaps we could offer more regular "Advanced Webinars" that take all the baseline knowledge for granted and dive right in.  Consider this your "Make a wish" and I'll get this in the suggestion box.