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December 17, 2007
Congratulations to Wake Forest: NCAA Champs in Soccer
I congratulated Italy when they won the World Cup. I congratulated Wake Forest when (we) they won the ACC in football last year...first time in 30 years. And, now, the little-school-that-could, Wake Forest University (my alma mater) has defeated the Big 10 juggernaut Ohio State for the NCAA National Championship in soccer. Total enrollment of undergrads at The Ohio State University: 46,690. Total enrollment of undergrads at Wake Forest University: 4000. Sure, Ohio State can only put 11 players on the field at a time and not 10 to our 1, but still...
There is no real point to this blog, other than to perhaps gloat a bit...okay, a lot. But, a larger point here (if there is one) is that strength in numbers is only an advantange when you can put the full force of those numbers behind an effort. Wake Forest could never win against Ohio State, say, in a water balloon fight. We'd get pummelled. Ten Ohio State students barraging each Wake Forest student with water balloons at once would not be a fun thing to watch. You put our best 11 soccer players on a field against their best 11 players and we have a shot...and, in fact, we won. Which should be a lesson for us all.
How can I bring this back to Cisco, you ask? Cisco is THE networking company. We have over 63,000 employees worldwide. We invented routing and switching...the technology that manages the flow of information from point A to point B...be it voice, video and/or data. We are slowly, but surely, taking daily steps towards our goal of becoming the most important technology company in the world. We, however, can never gloat...or rest. There are hundreds of great competitors out there who are waiting, lurking and watching for us to make a misstep so that they can step in with their technology and take our business away. This is why we always must remain vigilant and LISTEN to customers constantly. We may be the biggest networking company with the best technology, but we can never lose that "healthy paranoia" that Andy Grove taught us so well.
Posted by John Earnhardt on December 17, 2007 10:12 AM
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