The Platform Opinions and Insights from Cisco

Cisco Live Blogger Meetup

Blogger meetups and tweetups are becoming acceptable forums for people with common interests to come together, share ideas and build meaningful relationships. With this year’s Cisco Live! User Conference located in San Francisco and the massive blogger community based in the Bay Area, we decided to get into the meetup and tweetup mix.

We hosted our first blogger meetup at the W Hotel in San Francisco last night. Aside from the exchange of business cards (and occasional cocktail), it was great to witness the exchange of good conversations and ideas about technology and the power of the social web. 

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Posted by Autumn Truong at 03:32PM PST

Husk Power Systems Wins Cisco-DFJ Global Business Plan Competition

Cisco and leading global venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) announced Husk Power Systems as the winner of our first co-sponsored Global Business Plan Competition for university students this week. 

Husk Power Systems designs and operates miniature power plants that convert rice husks into electricity, serving off-grid rural Indian villages.  The team, whose members are University of Virginia, Darden School of Business 2009 graduates, will receive a $250,000 investment from DFJ and Cisco to help take the company to their next stage.

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Posted by Kristin Carvell at 02:20PM PST

From CiscoLive! 2009 in San Francisco

Going into CiscoLive! in San Francisco, we asked our Cisco Twitter-ers (@CiscoSystems, @padmasree to name a few) to gather questions for Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers to answer from the show.  This was our first Twitter Q&A and we loved hearing what was on your mind.  Thanks to all of our followers for the great questions and feedback.

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Posted by Elizabeth McNichols at 01:32PM PST

Cisco Twitter Follower THROWDOWN!!

First, there was Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) versus CNN (@cnnbrk) to see who would be the first twitter account to have 1,000,000 followers…now the next gauntlet has been thrown down.

In his introduction today of Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior (@Padmasree on twitter), the executive host of CiscoLive!Cisco SVP Carlos Dominguez (@carlosdominguez) challenged her to the NEXT, BIG TWITTER FOLLOWER COMPETITION!!! 

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 10:01AM PST

John Chambers @ CiscoLive: “The Future is about speed, scale and flexibility.”

I’ve just finished watching the CiscoLive keynote webcast of Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers from San Francisco.  All this talk of video, collaboration and virtualization makes much sense to me as I’m a whopping 45 miles away in San Jose and still getting much the same experience.  The following are notes I jotted down while watching the webcast. 

SVP Carlos Dominguez (@carlosdominguez on twitter) was funny in his intro and welcome…said this was his 17th year at Cisco and the great executive perks that he gets are limited to having a better executive photo and has now ended up with one that looked a bit like this.  He said frugality and Cisco culture is really a legacy of Former CEO and Chairman Emeritus John Morgridge.

Morgridge (who is AWESOME, by the way) walked through the early history of Cisco…founded at Stanford University…operated out of a living room in Atherton, CA…listening to customers…giving back…and hiring John Chambers in 1991.  He said, after good engineers, a start-up needs t-shirts, pizza and beer.

Chambers followed and asked a lot of questions that he is hearing in the marketplace and from customers.  He asked “Are 30 market adjacencies too many for us to be going in to?”  He asked one partner attendee the same question…response: “not if you have the right partnering strategies.”  He thanked the over 10,000 CiscoLive attendees and 3,000 virtual attendees for their hard work and passion and said, “We have to earn your trust, confidence and commitment every day.”

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Posted by John Earnhardt at 11:42AM PST

Wow!  13,000+ to Attend This Week’s Cisco Live Show

I just found out we’re going to have a record-breaking Cisco Live this year with 10,000 people attending in person and 3,000 attending online in
our Cisco Live virtual environment.  This is a lot of people!

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Posted by Carlos Dominguez at 09:57PM PST

Cisco @ National Conference on Volunteering and Service

More than 5,000 corporate, nonprofit and government professionals who lead civic and government service efforts experienced an extraordinary three days this week at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service held in San Francisco.

Cisco was named a finalist for the “Governor and First Lady California Business Volunteer Program of the Year” award bestowed by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver.  In addition, Randy Pond, Cisco executive vice president, operations, processes and systems, presented on leveraging corporate social responsibility to respond to today’s community needs.  And Sandra Wheatley, director, global community relations, was a panelist for a discussion on corporate matching gifts and volunteering technology solutions.

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Posted by Meg Taylor at 04:58PM PST

Cisco Live 2009:  20 Years of Networking

Cisco Live is an important conference for many reasons: It is the largest gathering of Cisco customers, it provides the training and education our customers need to be successful in their jobs, and it enjoys a strong tradition of loyalty among attendees. In fact, at Cisco Live 2009 we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Networkers program, recognizing 20 years of bringing together the brightest minds in IT and communications.

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Posted by Colin Smith at 11:05AM PST

Survey Finds: Work is Where the Heart Is

Cisco set out to evaluate the social, economic and environmental impacts associated with allowing employees to telecommute.  The results were released today.  There are some obvious gains; like access to Cisco collaboration technologies enabled them to do their jobs better in remote locations. While there were also some surprises like how employees are willing to give back time not spent on the road, and cite this perk as leading to better job satisfaction and contributing to a better quality of life. 

Rami Mazid, VP of Global Client Services and Operations, Cisco shares with you how Cisco technology supports a globally dispersed workforce, while Carina Reyes, manager, Operations, shares her experience as a working mother at Cisco.

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Posted by Molly Ford at 05:07AM PST

New Digital Cribs Webisodes Show the Connected Life

The Cisco web series Digital Cribs released three new videos today on DigitalCribs.com, to show consumers how they can live a connected life with a home network and consumer technology.

The new Digital Cribs episodes star TreeHugger.com founder Graham Hill, world famous electronic music DJ Paul Van Dyk, and Martha Lane Fox, who co-founded LastMinute.com and was recently appointed the Champion of Digital Inclusion by the UK government.

Each of the Digital Cribs are unique to the hobbies and passions of the individuals who own them. You can step inside the new Digital Cribs below and view all of the Digital Cribs here, to see how living a connected life can take your passion to the next level.

Graham Hill’s Digital Crib

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Posted by Johanna Fry at 10:32AM PST

Johanna Fry

Finalists Announced for Cisco/DFJ Global Business Plan Competition

Check out the 16 finalists announced today in leading venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Cisco’s first co-sponsored Global Business Plan Competition for university and business school students. The finalists address a diverse group of issues…from efficient and affordable web-scale computing to early cancer detection to advanced smart home technology. 

All 16 will be competing from their respective geographic areas via Cisco TelePresence™ on June 30, 2009.  Finalists will present their business plans to a San Jose-based panel of seasoned investors from DFJ, its Global Network of Funds and Cisco.  The winner will receive a minimum seed investment of $250,000.  In addition, the winner and finalists will receive professional feedback and mentorship from both DFJ and Cisco.

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Posted by Kristin Carvell at 09:37AM PST

Partnering for Energy Management

When it comes to addressing the world’s energy and environmental challenges, technology has a powerful role to play.  Technology can transform how cities manage traffic, how the electrical grid delivers energy to consumers, and how enterprises manage energy consumption across their operations.  Especially now, in response to energy costs, environmental concerns, and government directives, there is an increased need for sustainable and “green” business IT operations. 

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Posted by Dave Frampton at 01:29PM PST

What’s New @ Cisco Live…our 20th Year!

We have a lot going on at Cisco Live 2009 and I wanted to take moment to address a few of the things that are new at this year’s event.

For the first time, Cisco Live 2009 will be a hybrid event, offering both in-person and online experiences. The introduction of our 3D interactive platform, Cisco Live Virtual, gives us the opportunity to offer attendance options to customers who may not be able to attend in person. As with any immersive, interactive conference like Cisco Live, the onsite experience and the virtual experience are not the same and are not designed to be. Rather, we are able to offer a viable attendance alternative to a variety of audiences for those unable to take advantage of a traditional, in-person event experience.

It is not our intention to replace either the in-person or virtual experience, rather to create an integrated portfolio of event experiences that will collectively comprise Cisco Live.

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Posted by Colin Smith at 10:26AM PST

John Chambers Receives SVEF’s Pioneer Business Leader Award

Last week I had the honor of attending the Silicon Valley Education Foundation’s (SVEF) “Pioneers and Purpose” event in San Jose.  SVEF is a non-profit organization that provides literacy and academic enrichment programs to public school students in grades pre-K through 12th in partnership with the private sector and education community.

Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers was presented with SVEF’s Pioneer Business Leader Award for 2009 to recognize Cisco’s deep commitment to education and philanthropy.

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Posted by Robyn Jenkins Blum at 08:00AM PST

Great Collaborators: Nature vs. Nurture

“To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” - Henry David Thoreau

For technology companies, demonstrating how its solutions yield benefits to potential customers is a powerful motivator for adoption.  In the field of Communications and Collaboration, it is critical.

Consequently, in December 2008, Cisco conducted one of the first comprehensive studies on the factors associated with successful adoption of network-based collaboration. The study, Collaboration: Know Your Enthusiasts and Laggards (.pdf), surveyed 800 people in a wide variety of U.S. medium-sized and enterprise organizations who:

• Spend at least 20% of time at work using a network-connected computer
• Use a mobile phone or handheld device
• Participate in two or more collaborative activities per month

Our objective was to identify habits and characteristics of high-performing collaboration groups.  In addition to pattern matching, the study found evidence that contradicts some common perceptions about today’s collaborators. For instance, it proved that good collaboration is more of a planned management strategy than an organic occurrence.

Over the next few weeks, I will share five distinct findings that emerged from this study.  Today, let’s look at the first finding.

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Posted by Alan Cohen at 03:41PM PST