May 13, 2008
Marketing Webinar: Casting a Wider Web
On Wednesday May 14, WebEx and MarketingSherpa are teaming up to present Casting a Wider Web. This 2008 Marketing eSummit includes a series of webinars from experts at Marketo, Wainhouse Research, the American Marketing Association and Loomis Group on using the latest online marketing technology. In addition to these best practice and advice webinars, marketers from Cisco and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange will also talk about their real-world experience.
Two of the sessions focus on presenting research. In the first, Stephan Tornquist from MarketingSherpa and John Miller from Marketo will discuss trends for 2008. In the second, Andrew Nilssen and Alan D. Greenberg, both senior analysts and partners at Wainhouse Research as well as Nancy Costopulos, CMO of the American Marketing Association, will present survey results about the changing nature of online events.
The 2008 Marketing eSummit is a virtual event – in addition to the participating in the webinars, attendees have the ability to interact in real-time to discuss what they’ve seen and talk to presenters between sessions. The full program for the event is available here and registration for the event is here.
Marc Blakeney, Sr. Marketing Manager, Consulting Services & Event Center, WebEx
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Mother's (Earth) Day Epistle
In the 1970s, many of the climate change issues that now dominate our public debate first surfaced. Among the more enduring periodicals from that period was Mother Earth News, a homespun pioneer in practical approaches to ecology, renewable energy, recycling and Emersonian approaches to self-reliance.
As I write this, just past Mother’s Day here in the U.S., it is an appropriate time to reflect on the betterment of our planet and to consult Mother Earth News for a definition of total ecology:
"A scientific means for discovering the expeditious ways of employing the world’s resources in a way which will render a higher standard of living for all mankind… a means of accumulating facts, information and statistics related to world resources…a way of discovering trends in the use and misuse of resources…a network for relating these trends and developing a logical sequence of events to show how a future state might evolve.”
Climate change is not a fashion issue: it is a boardroom issue. Increasingly we see environmental responsibility taken seriously. Businesses, consumers and service providers of all sizes are driving behavioral change to protect the environment. Tightening environmental regulations accelerate this trend.
So it is not surprising that our industry is now turning to a system of green product testing and analysis. In fact, on April 29, 2008, Miercom, a leading network product test center and consultancy, introduced its “Certified Green” product testing and evaluation program. Aimed at establishing complete ‘green’ analysis of networking products, Miercom’s Certified Green program is based on detailed lab test results and qualitative product assessments in addition to a holistic view of product impact. The program provides meaningful, independent guidance to IT organizations looking to improve their own ‘green’ IT and business practices.
As noted in a recent InformationWeek article, Cisco’s Catalyst® 3750-E, 3560-E, 3750, 3560 and 2960 Series Switches were the first products designated as Certified Green:
See here and here.
Miercom’s Cisco Catalyst testing focused on power efficiency, including power usage and management, heat dissipation, cooling requirements, and overall energy efficiency.
Focusing on power efficiency and ‘green’ product practices is a top priority for Cisco. We are proud that our Catalyst switches are the first to be certified under this important new program.
But we also recognize this is only the beginning. Meeting more stringent standards for energy usage is only one part of the equation. It will take new kinds of architecture for technology to play a role in reducing the harmful effects of climate change. In an earlier blog, I shared how a Unified Communications “architecture of inclusion” could play a role:
These new kinds of technology architecture support the four-pillar approach to addressing climate change Cisco adopted over 6 years ago:
1. Providing employees with approaches to reduce/conserve energy consumption (telecommuting, web conferencing, Telepresence, carpooling, etc.)
2. Sustainable business practices (energy/resource efficient workplaces, more efficient product packaging, etc.)
3. Designing each successive generation of products to use less energy (lower energy usage when not in duty cycle, cold standby, etc.)
4. Customer-centric solutions that reduce duplicative, energy-inefficient systems (connected real-estate/cities, etc.).
As we just celebrated Mother’s Day, I salute all mothers around the world, including Mother Earth. In closing, I cite the writing of Washington Irving, an American man of letters who began his career two centuries ago. A prolific essayist, he is best known for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. He also has some wise words for why we must protect Mother Earth:
“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”
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May 06, 2008
Babe and Lou, If You Could See the Sports Museum of America
In spring my thoughts turn to the “Boys of Summer” (it was Babe Ruth who said “this baseball game of ours comes up from the youth”), that time when daylight lengthens, when school gives way to the competition of baseball and the eternal imagination of youths self-identifying with sports heroes. The smell of fresh-mowed sod, the sharp crack of a fastball meeting a Louisville slugger, and the exhilarating fear and unrestrained joy of taking off for first -- emotions as fresh today as they were decades ago. These are memories etched in the “YouTube” of our brains, retrieved, sometimes, just by a chance conversation or the smell of a hotdog slathered in deli mustard and sauerkraut.
On May 7 we celebrate the launch of the Sports Museum of America (SMA), www.sportsmuseum.com, the first museum dedicated to just about every sport played in America. The SMA has partnered with more than 50 sport organizations’ Halls of Fame, national governing bodies and other top athletic associations to showcase exhibits, memorabilia, stories and heroes that resonate with all of us.
Partnering with the museum’s founders and all-star roster of directors (from too many different sports to list here), Cisco is providing a range of visual networking and emerging technologies to build a human network within the museum and online – as the web version never closes -- converging technology and history to enhance the attendee experience.
Even if you grew up playing soccer in Spain, cricket in Pakistan, or gymnastics in the Ukraine, the SMA invokes the personal passion of watching your team win a close contest or the heated exertion of an argument over a judge’s disputed call. In seeing the physical artifacts and video assets of the SMA, there are countless “do you remember?” moments.
Thus sports fit visual networking like a hand in a well-worn mitt. There is compelling visceral appeal in seeing and hearing our heroes at play, at competition.
To paraphrase baseball legend Lou Gehrig, I feel like the luckiest man in the world to attend the SMA opening, to be present at the beginning. As Gehrig softly and wisely said to over 50,000 dedicated and choked up fans as retired from the New York Yankees over seven decades ago:
“I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day?”
There are millions of perfect moments in sports. All fans want to get closer to these perfect moments, to touch a piece of history, to relive a moment of life through the experience of an athlete. And now through the innovation of Telepresence, fans will have real time visual communications with sports figures on an unparalleled scale, allowing heroes into the room many more times than travel schedules permit.
Fans will experience how new digital kiosk technology and interactive video enhances their experience in the Stadium of the Future. As Grant Hill noted in a recent blog on the promise of interactive video: “If I were a fan, I always felt it would be neat to sit at a game but also watch it on a screen and hear, whether it’s a local television broadcast, national broadcast, or NBA TV, whoever talking about my team, talking about that game. Being able to rewind or scroll, watch a play that happened earlier in the game. All those different types of things I think the fans will get in the near future.”
Whether it’s re-living the heads-up play of Bill Russell in the raucous old Boston Garden or an over the shoulder catch by Willie Mays (“say hey!”) or bending it like Pele, like Beckham, the fans will know it and experience it at the SMA.
Although many would like technology to increase the span of our lives, digital video technology is doing something important as well: linking us to our youth, to those eternal moments we shared with parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers, friends and family. In his departing comments, Gehrig reminded us “When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body -- it’s a blessing.” For in our youth, sports bring us both the thrill of competition and the power of collaboration and teamwork.
In closing, I would recommend you experience the SMA -- in person or online – with a parent or a child. In the immortal words of Babe Ruth, the Bambino himself:
“You've gotta start from way down [at] the bottom, when you're six or seven years of age. You can't wait until you're fifteen or sixteen. You gotta let it grow up with you.”
You can visit the Sports Museum in person starting tomorrow May 7 at 26 Broadway in New York, New York...or online at Sports Museum of America.
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