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Location Based Services in the Service Provider (SP) world is a very hot topic at present, with many SP’s looking for monetization opportunities for Wi-Fi.

Cisco has been working with our service provider customers to help deliver monetization capabilities; one way of opening new revenue opportunities is by using our new Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX) Solution.

Dr. Brendan O’Brien, Director of Product Marketing for Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences, continues his thought leadership blog series to tackle the trend towards location-based services in the Service Provider space. Brendan takes a brief look at some of the drivers for Wi-Fi in the SP world and some steps along the value chain, then dives into the emerging models where SP’s are beginning to focus their attentions on monetization and new, additional revenue opportunities. Read more at http://blogs.cisco.com/sp/location-based-services-monetization-for-service-providers 



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The Internet of Everything is reshaping every aspect of our lives—including how and where we work. Think back to the 1950s, when the telephone was the only connected device in the typical office, and collaboration happened only when coworkers physically walked to a conference room for a face-to-face meeting.

Today, we take for granted an ever-expanding collection of connected devices and collaboration tools that didn’t even exist 10 or 20 years ago—smartphones, tablets, ”smart” white boards, online meetings, web video conferencing,  online document sharing, TelePresence, social media—all helping us change the ways we communicate, collaborate, and share.

With the amount of new technical information in the world doubling every two years, the future holds the promise of even greater, faster change. Google Glass is just the beginning of a whole new category of wearable technology that will enable even tighter integration of technology with work and life.

Continue reading “The Workplace of the Future: Connected, Collaborative, Creative”



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In June, I attended the Gartner Security Summit in Washington, D.C. where I was asked by quite a few security executives, “My network folks just bought ISE, but what is ISE and what type of security does it provide?”  Fast forward to July, and I wish I had this SANS review on ISE to offer a month earlier.  (SANS, as many security professionals know, is a highly regarded organization on IT security and cyber security.) Continue reading “How Secure is Your Secure Access?”



Authors

Kathy Trahan

Senior Security Solutions Marketing Manager

Global Marketing Corporate Communications

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The Shared Value Initiative just released a video interview of  Cisco Corporate Affairs Senior Director Kathy Mulvany, taken during the Global Shared Value Leadership Summit in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The term “shared value” is the concept that a company can enhance its own competitiveness while simultaneously alleviating social problems in the communities where it operates. What differentiates shared value from other initiatives is that it is far more sustainable than simply writing a check, than more traditional philanthropy, according to Kathy. “We really believe that if you are going to be able to maintain over the long run in driving community investment and building healthy markets for your products and services, that shared value provides a framework by which you can do that,” she says in the video interview.

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One of the most important elements of shared value is building strategic relationships. The world today faces some major social challenges that cannot be addressed by one stakeholder alone. Business, governments, and nonprofits need to work together to create organizations and communities where people can thrive.

Want to learn more about share value? Visit the Shared Value Initiative or read Kathy’s blog on creating shared value through local cluster development.



Authors

Jennifer Barr

Social Media Manager, Online Brand

Cisco Talent Acquisition

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Since its launch in 2010, FlexPod has been a tremendous success with more than 2,400 customers in 35 countries globally. This success has created new opportunities. Customers are requesting additional solutions based on the FlexPod platform to address an even broader spectrum of deployment types, workloads, and applications. Smaller and midsize IT departments need solutions that are fast and easy to deploy. Enterprise data centers want scale and advanced features. There is also demand for infrastructure solutions that are highly tuned to specific workloads.

Today Cisco and NetApp have extended the value of FlexPod by broadening the portfolio with new offerings, products, and validated designs. FlexPod Select joins the FlexPod portfolio which currently includes FlexPod Express (formerly ExpressPod) for medium sized businesses and FlexPod Datacenter (Formerly FlexPod) for core enterprise data centers and service providers.

FlexPod Select is targeted at performance- and data-intensive workloads such as Big Data, analytics, and high-performance computing.

I urge you to watch the video below between Keith Barto, Sr. Architect at Cisco and NetApp’s Vaughn Stewart, Director of Technical Marketing, summarizing the recent FlexPod announcements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sAdjPJfbpc&feature=youtu.be

FlexPod Select features high-performance NetApp E-Series storage, Cisco UCS C-Series servers, Cisco Nexus Switches, and Cisco management software. FlexPod Select is the first solution in the family to feature NetApp E-Series, delivering outstanding bandwidth performance, extreme density, and modular flexibility for a wide-range of data-intensive workloads.

Hadoop will be the first solution based on the FlexPod Select architecture. Initially, there will be two validated configurations designed to accelerate deployment of Hadoop on the FlexPod architecture: FlexPod Select with Cloudera including Apache Hadoop and FlexPod Select with Hortonworks Data Platform. These new solutions based on Hadoop can enable organizations to simplify and reduce risk of Big Data architectures while delivering the performance to ask bigger questions of their data.

FlexPod Datacenter features Nexus 7000

Another important announcement is FlexPod Datacenter solutions now feature the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switches. The Cisco Nexus 7000 Series switches provide the highest levels of network availability, advanced features, and scalability. How much scalability? The Nexus 7000 is the highest-density 10 Gigabit Ethernet system in the industry, supporting up to 768 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports. It also enables end-to-end Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) delivering a unified Ethernet fabric, and provides Data Center Interconnect (DCI) capabilities for multi-data center deployments.

We are also introducing FlexPod Datacenter with SnapProtect to provide comprehensive Disk-to-Disk-to-Tape backup and recovery solution that includes specific implementation guidance for popular uses such as with VMware, NAS shares and Microsoft Exchange.  Last but not least, we have updated FlexPod Datacenter with Microsoft Private Cloud to include support for Microsoft System Center and the Cisco Nexus 1000v switch, which was recently awarded Best of TechEd in the System Management and Operation category.

Through our shared vision and joint development, Cisco and NetApp will continue to enhance the FlexPod portfolio to grow and support additional workloads, operating models and the dynamic needs of applications.

For more information on Cisco and NetApp see below:

 



Authors

Jim McHugh

Vice President, Product and Solutions Marketing

Unified Computing Systems

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“If you don’t get off that computer game, you’ll never amount to anything!”

It’s a familiar lament in modern families. Yet as parents fret about the time their children spend gaming, they may be missing the bigger picture — by failing to perceive the future of job creation in the Internet of Everything (IoE) economy.

Gaming (within reason!) bestows children with some valuable skills that will be relevant to a rapidly evolving job market. And for a few kids, the gaming becomes the job. Gaming “super bowls” draw top players and increasingly large audiences that prefer the interactive nature of gaming to the performer / spectator model of “real” sports.

The point is not for parents to bank on their children becoming wealthy at the “gaming super bowl.” Those odds are probably not much better than making it to the NFL’s Super Bowl!

Continue reading “People + Process + Data + Things = JOBS”



Authors

Joseph M. Bradley

Global Vice President

Digital & IoT Advanced Services

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Right now, in 2013, 80 “things” per second are connecting to the internet.  Next year that number will reach almost 100 per second, and by 2020, more than 250 things will connect each second.

Add all of these numbers up, and we believe that more than 50 billion things  will be connected to the internet by 2020.  Today we’re launching the Cisco Internet of Everything (IoE) Connections Counter so that we can watch in real time as everything comes online.

By the way, what are all of these “things”?  Mobile devices, parking meters, thermostats, cardiac monitors, tires, roads, cars, supermarket shelves, and yes, even cattle.   The list is endless, and it just keeps getting longer and more interesting.  Literally, by the second.

Even more exciting is when all of these things are combined with people, process and data via the network to deliver transformational value to the world by improving the way we make decisions, saving us time and money, and so much more.  That’s the Internet of Everything, and its value increases every time we connect the unconnected.

So we’re paying close attention.  The connections counter will help us keep track of exactly where we are in this journey, starting now and continuing through 2020.

We encourage you to keep track as well.  Cisco invites journalists, analysts and other interested parties to check out the IoE Connections Counter and to feature it in your own content.

Let the countdown to 2020 and 50 billion connections begin!

Our methodology: To estimate the number of connected objects during 2013-20 we first estimated the total number of ‘things’ in the world and then determined the proportion of connected things. For 2012, we had estimated the total number of ‘things’ in the world to be 1.5 trillion and the number of connected objects to be 8.7 billion, implying 0.6% penetration rate of connected objects. We expect the number of things to reach 1.8 trillion in 2020, growing 3% annually. Subsequently, we have assumed that connectivity costs will decline by 25% annually during 2013-20. Conservatively, we assume the price-elasticity of demand to be ~1 and consequently expect annual growth in number of things to be 25% CAGR during 2013-20. Based on these assumptions, we estimate that the number of connected objects to reach ~50 billion in 2020 (or 2.7% of the total things in the world).



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As final preparations are underway for the July 31st (9am PT) Let’s Chat! #Ciscosmt Training Series USTREAM broadcast, let’s get the conversation going early! Are there certain social media examples used for on- and offline events that stick out in your mind? What made them great or perhaps ideas to avoid? And what was used to enhance the participants’ experience?

Within my last post on this topic, I mentioned social media is a perfect channel to help on- and offline audiences engage in events and activities. Audiences are able to share their own insights rather than just hearing a speaker present, exchange ideas and connect with others, and add to the overall collaborative experience.

Cisco Live 2013 (Orlando)
Cisco Live 2013 (Orlando)

Here are some tips to keep in mind when leveraging social media for on- and offline events:

  • Audiences: use social media to reach new audience segments for an event. After defining the audience in the overall planning stages and listening to their care-abouts, find ways to involve them in different aspects. E.g., polls to pinpoint most popular topic ideas, word-of-mouth opportunities to spread the word, VIP activities for top influencers, and live tweeting to keep engagement going.
  • Duration: leverage social media on an ongoing basis and draw attention to events and activities along the way, as part of the overall ongoing strategy. Depending on the type of event, promotions may begin a few months prior to just 3 weeks. E.g., a large hosted type of event or ongoing online series may require ongoing promotions year-round. Activities such as participating in another organization’s event or a webcast type of activity, may only require promotions 3-6 weeks in advance. Event-specific social media efforts should taper off within 1-2 weeks afterwards, folding back into the regular ongoing efforts.
  • SEO: include popular tags, Cisco and/or third-party hashtags, and keywords can greatly increase visibility for an event or activity. Take time to research these tags prior to beginning event-related social media efforts, maximizing efforts and reaching the appropriate audiences.
  • Monitoring and Measuring: create a program-specific listening and respond plan as part of the overall listening strategy. Since on- and offline events are happening in real-time, planning teams need to monitor constantly and handle responses in a timely manner. And when it comes to measurement, its best to focus on quantitative (number of responses, reach, etc.) and qualitative metrics (sentiment, influencers, etc.). These efforts can help teams benchmark and better understand areas of success and ways they can continue to improve strategies moving forward. (Check out this Cisco Live 2013 Orlando Listening Hub recap blog post, by Cisco’s Davythe Dicochea, for additional insights.)
  • Integration: tap into existing brand and third party accounts whenever possible rather than creating new ones. It will help continue more meaningful engagements with audience members, tap into existing and established channels, and continue to build reputation and trust among interested parties. Look for the most appropriate accounts and create/use content that relates to the audience’s care-abouts within each channel.
  • Activities: create a mix of posts, tweets, images, videos, traditional marketing, and activities to provide a full customer journey. As these assets and communications are developed or leveraged, find ways to keep the audience members engaged, focusing on their care-abouts. And just as importantly, make it fun as they get ready to participate in an event, engage with them during the event, and help the audience be the heroes of their organizations afterwards by providing helpful follow-up resources.
  • Experimentation: pilot new ideas to better understand how innovations or strategies can be implemented for future tactics and increased audience participation. Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. This is part of the process and can often lead to even more innovative approaches.
  • Messaging: use social media to create 2-way dialogues for on- and offline events rather than just broadcasting upcoming activities. Communications should include a balance of consistency and variety to keep conversations fresh and relevant. And be sure to customize the messages by social media channel, taking into consideration format and communication best practices. Lastly, make it easy of audience members to share and follow information by incorporating social media channel links in all communication vehicles.

Are there other social media best practices for on- and offline events you’ve seen work well? Share them with us within this blog post and during our upcoming Let’s Chat! #Ciscosmt Training Series USTREAM broadcast. And we look forward to your participation at this upcoming live online session! Here are the details to participate:

  • When: Wednesday, July 31st
  • Time: 9-9:45 a.m. PT
  • Topic: Using Social Media for On- and Offline Events
  • Hashtag: #Ciscosmt (use this hashtag to ask panelists questions and to participate in the conversation)
  • Panel:
  • Jeanette Gibson, Senior Director, Digital and Social Media Marketing, Cisco (moderator)
  • Kathleen Mudge, Social Media Program Manager, Cisco (panelist)
  • Matt Rozen, Group Manager Corporate Social Media, Adobe (panelist)
  • Brian Ellefritz, Vice President, Global Social Media, SAP (panelist)

If you have any questions or are interested in other types of social media training, check out our new complimentary Cisco Social Media Training Program and follow the #ciscosmt hashtag.  To request  customized one-on-one team training sessions, email ciscosmtraining@external.cisco.com.



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As we shared with you at Partner Summit, there’s a huge opportunity for growth and profit for our partners in the midmarket. Together with you, we have vast opportunities to develop our business in that segment–in fact, Cisco’s research indicates there are 1.4M midsize companies, with a total addressable market (TAM) of $25B for technology and $30B TAM for services by 2016.

JDonovanOur goal is to build and maintain the world’s best partner ecosystem to drive our success in the mid-market, which is critical to accelerating our mutual profitable growth. To help fuel that growth, I’m pleased to announce that in FY14, the Partner Led and Global Virtual Sales teams will come together as one organization, under the leadership of John Donovan. John is an 18-year Cisco veteran with experience in leading businesses in Enterprise, Commercial and Channels.  John will focus his team on continuing to innovate our global virtual approach, while scaling and accelerating our Partner Led model in FY14. Continue reading “Accelerating Our Mutual Success in the Mid-Market”



Authors

Bruce Klein

Senior Vice President

Worldwide Partner Organization