Meet Ilona Serrao of Blue Surf Productions

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ilona Serrao

Ilona, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started working in Silicon Valley before it was Silicon Valley. I had the amazing privilege of helping companies such as Novell and Cisco Systems educate thousands of engineers on how to deploy their products all while keeping up with the changes in learning modalities. My passion has always been helping people gain the skills and knowledge needed to accomplish their goals. At Cisco, that meant being one of the founders of the award-winning Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) and Network Professional (CCNP) programs. In the 25 years of innovating and creating in-classroom, virtual and on-demand educational experiences, I found that one of my favorite aspects of the education process is collaborating with subject matter experts to design and produce educational programs around their skills and knowledge that others can benefit from.

With my new company, Blue Surf Productions, I continue to focus on bringing to learners the expertise of others in a consumable, engaging way. Whether producing my own educational products or contributing on efforts such as the NASA’s Transform to Open Science (TOPS) initiative, I am passionate about bringing best-in-class educational experiences to others.

My current project is producing my first conference, called the Thrive’25 Summit. Throughout my career I have collaborated with and been mentored by amazingly gifted people. For some time now, I have had a desire to share the wisdom that I was given over my career with others. I envisioned a gathering where the collective wisdom of my mentors could be made accessible. The Thrive’25 Summit is the intersection of my vision and these powerful talents.

Through the intentionally designed workshops and discussions, participants will deepen their self-connection, develop concrete plans, and gain the resilience needed to navigate through life changes such as career, retirement, and other challenges.

By the end of the Summit, I hope that participants will leave with renewed confidence, optimism in their abilities, and a clear path towards living a thriving lifestyle.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Achieving success is a very winding road with many cul-de-sacs and dead-end roads along the way. The initial obstacle was deciding what my purpose in life was. It took me several years after my undergraduate degree to decide that I really had a desire to be in the corporate education business. This led me to obtaining my Masters in Education.

The next obstacle was working in a high-tech, male-dominated environment. It took time, extra work, and creativity to fit into the culture particularly since I was creating educational offerings on how to deploy and troubleshoot networking products, even though I was not an engineer by trade. The hard work paid off and eventually I was leading my own teams and consulting with larger service providers, fortune 500 companies and the federal government on technical educational solutions for their engineers.

Throughout my career, the ongoing challenge, more than an obstacle continues to be educating leaders and stakeholders on what constitutes quality education. There was a moment in time when my team and I produced what I knew to be an outstanding introductory, on-demand course on a technical topic. It was interactive, engaging and used a significant amount of storytelling and props. The head of our division was skeptical and thought it was not professional enough. I stood my ground and staked my career on my belief that it was a winning product. The product ended up being the most popular course in our on-demand library for 3 years and then in the top 5 and top 10 spots for the next 5 years. It was extremely rewarding that the product took off like it did. It helped a lot of people who were unsure about stepping into the technical careers gain confidence and knowledge that they could achieve their goals.

What I’ve learned is that obstacles and challenges will always be there. It’s your passion, hard work and support team you surround yourself with that help you overcome and move through the challenges to the good stuff on the other side.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Blue Surf Productions?
Blue Surf Productions (bluesurfproductions.com) designs and creates educational solutions that help organizations and individuals harness and harmonize with the waves of change and transformations in their space. Technology and cultural shifts are happening at lightning speeds in today’s world. Being knowledgeable about the essence of the shifts is key to building the resilience necessary to shape the ebbs and flows toward desired outcomes.

Our mission is to partner with organizations to help them achieve their leading-edge transformational goals by designing and creating accessible and impactful educational solutions that result in timely mastery of the content being learned. The specific services we offer include Education Consulting, Education/Training Development and Training Video Production Services.

In addition to our corporate-focused services, we create our own live and on-demand educational offerings. The Thrive’25 Summit is our flagship offering. It is intended for individuals who want to learn and apply the principles of a thriving lifestyle to their career, retirement, business and life’s challenges. We invite people to check out the conference at thrive25summit.com.

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I was born in Hawaii and spent my grade school and high school years in Oregon. I spent the majority of time studying, playing sports, and working. I attended Santa Clara University and through that had the opportunity to work abroad in Italy. After obtaining my Masters in Education, I moved around the country helping customers accelerate their adoption of technologies into their network. I now live in central Oregon along with my farm mates of horses, dogs and cats.

Pricing:

• Thrive’25 Summit In-Person Ticket (Early Bird til July 1): $650
• Thrive’25 Summit Virtual Live Stream Ticket (Early Bird til July 1: $350
• Contact Ilona and info@bluesurfproductions.com for estimates on education and video production services.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thrive25summit.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrive25summit/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557758499493
• Other: https://bluesurfproductions.com

Image Credits
image with green screen background: High Horse Video Productions
thrive25 summit logo image: Nicole, Bogaro Design