In my ten years here at Cisco, I have worked both directly and indirectly with the industry analyst community, and can attest to the appreciation we have of your broad customer and market insight, your willingness to debate and dialogue with our executive team, and most importantly, your candid feedback.

In this spirit of two-way dialogue, I’d like to share with you a summary of comments made by John Chambers regarding Cisco and innovation during our third quarter fiscal year 2008 conference call last Tuesday. John’s comments struck me as perhaps a new way to think about innovation in the high tech industry. At minimum, certainly a clear focus on how Cisco innovates and our vision for how we view the role of intelligent networks in shaping the future of businesses, countries and communities.

To recap at a high level, the 8 areas of innovation John highlighted include:

1. Product Innovation: This is the ‘traditional’ way that many people look at technology companies. Product innovations highlighted for this past quarter included the ASR 1000, the Nexus 7000 and 5000, AXP, TelePresence momentum, and Web - http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2008/fin_050608.html


2. New Business Models: The network’s role in enabling innovation for our customers as what we believe will be the future of how technology should be viewed


3. Market Transitions: We believe innovation should be based on leading market transitions, as opposed to the traditional definition of innovation being viewed as a direct comparison to competitors


4. Technology Architectures: We believe this will be the way that our industry evolves, moving from boxes and software, operating systems, ASICs and services being independent components, to the future of technology architectures, where the network becomes the platform for all of IT and communications


5. Business Architectures: This is where Cisco will focus on a total architectural solution to achieve the top business priorities of our customers. The intelligent network enables these solutions. An example of how Cisco innovates in terms of our businesses top priorities is how we use collaboration and networked web 2.0 technologies to implement our strategies across 22 cross-functional priorities. Another example would be how we partner with countries to build their economic cities of the future.


6. Productivity Innovation: In many ways, Cisco led Phase I of the Internet in internal utilization with resulting productivity increases for both ourselves and our customers. We expect that the business models enabled by collaboration and networked web 2.0 will drive a very similar “instant replay” in Phase II of the Internet. It is this type of productivity opportunities that will cause, in our opinion, the investments in our industry to increase over the next 3-5 years.


7. Entertainment Innovation: This will be based on Visual Networking and will change everything from the way we interface between our family and friends, to how we watch sporting events with our community with common interests, to creating our own entertainment with different social networks. Cisco is moving rapidly in these market areas and may over time focus with our partners on how this will change business models, including advertising.


8. Organization Evolution: We believe that perhaps the most fundamental form of innovation in the market is what Cisco is leading moving from the traditional hierarchical command and control approach to collaboration and teamwork approach enabled by networked technologies.

So…your thoughts? Which of these resonate most with you (or don’t)? Again, your reactions, observations, feedback and input are welcome and valued.

As for this blog, moving forward I’d like to use it as a platform for the global AR team to chat about news of note, concepts on our minds, the role of AR, the changing analyst landscape…you name it. Please weigh in…the broader, the bolder, the better. We look forward to hearing from you.

Best Regards,
Terry

In true analyst fashion, I guess the answer to that is: It depends on the event.

Take one of the three most important events in my life: my wedding. Original staging date: November 7, 1987.

Successful? Well, we just passed the 20-year mark, we have two beautiful daughters (the other two events), and I’ve never been happier. I can’t speak for my wife, but she comes home every night, so I’m taking that as a positive sign.

I know, I know. That one was pretty easy (not to mention a bit self-serving!). Let’s look at a more relevant event – C-Scape 2007. Original staging dates: December 11-12, 2007.

Was it successful? Worthwhile? Did we – and more importantly, you – get what you needed out of it?

Last week we completed our annual C-Scape event, an annual gathering of industry, & financial analysts, press and Cisco executives and thought leaders in close proximity for two days of dialogue, discussion and debate. Whether it was the select roundtables with key analysts, main tent sessions revealing our expanding vision as a software company or a WiMAX player, or guest speakers such as Steve Hellmuth, the CTO of the NBA clarifying the fan experience through the use of Web 2.0 technologies, I found the event intellectually electrifying, pivoting between the lofty peaks of evolving Cisco into more of an IT company and the deep challenges of supporting the ever expanding networking requirements of our millions of customers.

With our key focus on the role of video and the rapidly approaching 2008 Oscars, I am turning to one of my favorite flicks, Jerry McGuire, to briefly channel some of my observations about C-Scape. Among Jerry McGuire’s many qualities is a series of memorable lines that can be applied to any situation. There were many rich and varied nuances and threads to C-Scape. Please excuse me the liberty of narrowing some of it down to a few movie lines.

While I was working on Sunday on myriad things related to our upcoming C-Scape Global Forum, my computer suddenly went dark. I may have screamed out an expletive. My youngest daughter burst into the home office.

Putting on an event like this is an incredibly involved and difficult exercise. And it does cost me a dollar or two. Surprisingly, my boss and the rest of the senior management team here at Cisco expect me to prove the value of that expenditure by measuring and qualifying the “success” of this forum. Can you believe that?

The evaluation forms you fill out are not just a critical piece of that final assessment; they are the central component of it. (OK, that’s the first instance of you being reminded that filling out your eval forms is really important. I’m willing to bet that we mention that 57 more times before 3:30 p.m. on December 12.)

Ask that question at a company meeting and nearly every hand at the gathering will shoot up in the air. Sales. Field marketing. The channel folks. Product managers. Product marketing. And at some level, all those factions do have some piece of the customer relationship. (That sarcastic chuckle you just heard came from the account manager.)

Well, I’m happy to say that I now proudly raise my own hand when I hear that question. We made a small – but telling – change to my organization recently, and I believe it will significantly extend and enhance our influence strategy because my team is now responsible for driving our strategic customer engagements in addition to our relationships with the analysts.

Hmm, Skip. Sounds like a bunch of meaningless buzz words. Spell it out for us.

The traditional business models that analyst firms have employed for years – some combination of specialized analysts providing seat-based syndicated research through year-long retainer contracts to a highly technical, IT-focused customer base – will become less relevant within the next three to five years.

I don’t welcome that development with any type of mirth or glee – as an Analyst Relations guy, I’m quite interested in things like job security and my function’s own continued relevance – but I definitely sense a shift in the air.

When someone on my team asks me to look at a document they’ve written, I usually print it out and then mark it up old-fashioned style with a red pen – reminiscent of my days as a copy editor at Network World in the early 90’s. When I hand my co-worker back a hard copy with my notes in the margin, they look at me like I just walked out of the caveman exhibit at the Natural History Museum.

I don’t subscribe to that philosophy.

Hey, don’t get me wrong – having analysts opine (that was for you, Jim) on the fabulousness of your products and technologies is a good thing, and it’s definitely an expected deliverable from my program here at Cisco. [Disclaimer added for my supervisor’s benefit.] But, that’s the hoped-for result of my team’s efforts; not its role.

In his opening keynote, our chairman and CEO, John Chambers, indicated this was the most excited he’s been in a decade because Phase II of the Internet evolution is about to take off. That’s good news not only for companies that will be able to enable new, innovative business models and processes, but also for governments in developing nations who’ll be able to achieve true country transformations. And the bottom line for both will be measurable gains in productivity.

The combination of capital expenditure with business process change and innovation will lead to those productivity gains, according to Chambers. That innovation wave will be driven by collaboration, which will manifest itself in things like video. If there is a killer application out there, it’s video – and we’re not necessarily talking about that solely from an entertainment perspective, but as a way to change the way we work. One aspect of that play for us is our TelePresence high-definition video platform, which enables business transformation and aligns very nicely with the portfolio of Web 2.0 tools that are emerging across the industry.

Another aspect of productivity discussed at FAC was globalisation (after three years of living in Great Britain, I’m permitted to randomly replace my zeds with esses). An effective globalisation strategy will allow companies to tap into new talent pools; find new areas of growth; and scale their innovation efforts, thus increasing their overall productivity and expanding their business.

And companies – as well as countries – can use collaboration to drive that business or socio-economic model transformation. What’s at stake for these organizations as they head down this path? What are they risking? And how do they ultimately measure the effectiveness of their strategy shift?

Each situation will have its own unique wrinkles, but the one common thread that will be pervasive is the cultural and behavior changes required. We’re in the 7th year of that journey at Cisco, and if there’s one thing we’ve learned it’s that you can’t change human behaviour (see, I can also randomly add the letter ‘u’ to words, as well) by merely implementing a process.

Collaboration, however, is a difficult thing to pin down as it means many things to many people. John Chambers, our chairman and CEO, points out we actually started down this path nearly six years ago when we began the shift from a corporate management style based on command-and-control to one centered on teamwork and collaboration. Initially, it was a very difficult transition for us because it was a significant change in company culture and process. We get better and better at it with each passing quarter, but it took time, patience and a willingness to get out of our comfort zone.

So it is now with the transition to collaboration tools and applications that many businesses have been undertaking. Consumers have been using collaboration tools for years, and those same expectations and efficiencies they’ve experienced at home are now being expected in the workplace. Businesses have started to adopt these tools, but as we discovered firsthand six year ago, acceptance and usage doesn’t happen overnight. For adoption to be truly successful, the underlying business process or model must change in many cases. As John has noted in the past, there is a set of key characteristics that must be part of any successful collaboration strategy: it must be converged, virtual, open, safe and simple.

We strongly believe in this philosophy and have taken some bold steps to invest in this space. We acquired WebEx. We developed a leading edge collaborative tool in TelePresence. We formed a new business unit, the Collaboration Software Group. We are building an internal Cisco Center of Excellence centered around these tools and capabilities so we can learn how to adopt, use and leverage these resources. We will then, in turn, pass this knowledge and experience onto our customers so they can learn from our successes and failures.

Our biggest challenge in this transition won’t be the technology, however. Or the tools themselves. It will be in the changes required in culture and behavior. We are creatures of habit. Breaking out of them can be very difficult, even when we know that new thing out there is better, faster or stronger. Leading by example is oftentimes the best approach. We intend to do just that for our customers.

At C-Scape as well as the months leading up it, you will be hearing more about our emerging strategy in the collaboration space. I heard a rumor that one or two of you might be interested in that...

We made the change because we believed WWAC wasn’t providing either of us with the best value possible. Essentially, WWAC had turned into a reporting vehicle. We had the parade of senior executives from the various business units and product areas with their 40-slide updates, and we ended up pitching at you instead of engaging you.

Hence, C-Scape. We realized we weren’t culling the best strategic value from our relationships with the industry influencers, so we redesigned our event to focus on discussion, debate and dialogue. We wanted to bring the prevailing issues of the day to this forum and engage you in two-way conversations. We wanted to create an environment where there was more networking time; more opportunities for one-on-one meetings; and more meaningful discussions.

Our philosophy around how we engage and interact with the industry analysts and other influencers has undergone a transformation over the last couple of years, and there is no one better than our chairman and CEO, John Chambers, to explain why that change has happened. This clip was taken from a recent internal meeting with employees, where John answered the question on how his views on the use of industry analysts has changed over time.

              Duration: 1 min. 40 sec.

Have we been successful in that? You’ll be the ultimate judge obviously. We believe we took some positive steps with last year’s event, but we want to ensure we make any needed changes as we go into this year’s forum. If you have any ideas, suggestions or comments, please let me know. I’d love to hear from you.

Incorporating different media and communications tools into our AR program provides our industry analysts, customers, partners, and other interested communities the opportunity to interact and share ideas in new ways. These weekly discussions will include a range of topics and insights, and we encourage you to provide your feedback and thoughts.

As part of this initial entry, we would like to introduce our first topic! While it’s only August, we have already started the countdown to Cisco C-Scape Global Forum 2007. The event, which will be held on December 11 and 12 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California, will feature all the things you’ve come to expect at this annual get-together – lively discussion, debate and dialogue on the issues of the day; access to Cisco executives, customers and partners; and the ability to drill down into specific product and technology areas.

Ultimately though, this is your event, and I want to make sure we’re building an agenda that is compelling, engaging and of value to you. You’ll definitely hear a lot about collaboration, Web 2.0, software-as-a-service, and social networking as well as our core businesses. But I’d like to hear directly from you on what you’d like to see as part of the program. What topics interest you the most? What sessions are absolute must-haves for you? Beyond the agenda, are there other things we can do to make the event successful for you?

Through a mix of roundtables, fireside chats, case studies, one-on-ones and technology discussions, I’m confident we can address your needs and make your time with us valuable and useful.

Registration for this invitation-only forum will open up next month. In the interim, please use this blog to share your agenda ideas as well as any thoughts you might have on improving the event itself.

Looking forward to seeing you this December in California!