Yesterday, “The Network: Cisco’s Technology News Site” was honored by Ragan PR Daily as “Best Online Newsroom.”  (Great .gif of Sandra Bullock on this page as well, by the way!)

And, last month, we received the Grand Prize from Bulldog Reporter 2012 Bulldog Digital/Social PR Awards for “The Network.”  I also talked to Richard Carufel, Editor of the Daily ‘Dog about “The Network” and offered some thoughts for our approach to brand journalism, online newsrooms and offering value to your audience.

Certainly, recognition is extremely nice and we all want some form of this in our lives. The Social Media Communications team at Cisco* is  honored and humbled by these awards and add them to a handful of other great honors over the past few years.

First, thank you, Ragan PR Daily. Thank you, Bulldog Reporter. Thank you, American Business Awards (The Stevie). Thank you, PR News People Awards. But, mostly, thank you, audience.

Why did we get these awards?  In a word: innovation.

Let me count the ways that (imho) we innovate on “The Network” and are continuing to innovate:

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Tags: awards, bulldog reporter, innovation, PRNews, ragan, social media, the network, The Stevies

Frustrated. That’s how Wharton School of Business Professor Karl Ulrich feels when he cannot engage with students enrolled in the prestigious University of Pennsylvania’s remote campus in San Francisco.

Given how many hats members of the faculty from the school wear, it’s a real challenge. Take Ulrich. In addition to his duties as a professor, he also serves as the Vice Dean of Innovation at the Wharton School. Add to that his work as a researcher, entrepreneur and author, and you get a professor who wants to spend time with students -- but can’t -- due to time and distance. The same is true of remote students who are eager to spend time with the Philadelphia-based professors for which Wharton is renowned. It’s been frustrating!

Until now.

Today, Wharton and Cisco are taking the wraps off a technology that will change the way we look at education. In the “Cisco Connected Classrooms” unveiled in San Francisco and Philadelphia, Wharton educators can interact with remote students separated by thousands of miles as though they were in the same room. I’ve had a chance to join students and professors today and experience first-hand how we can transform education and become truly collaborative. I want to congratulate the Cisco Collaboration Technology Group, Inder Sidhu and Shailendra Gupta, and the educators and technologists from Wharton. They have produced a true breakthrough in education.

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Tags: collaboration, connected classroom, Future of Education, TelePresence, Wharton

Just a few short years ago, if your car broke down, you would automatically take it to your local mechanic who would identify the issue and fix it. Fast forward to 2013 – today we live in an era where our cars tell US when there is a potential issue or it needs a service and, more often than not, they just don’t break down at all. We’ve gone from a reactive, break-fix model to a proactive and, sometimes, even a pre-emptive approach, or warranty as they call it. It’s the technology – specifically the software embedded in our cars and the software that supports and maintains it from the manufacturer – that has fundamentally changed this industry.

There is a similar shift happening in IT. Customer care-abouts are evolving from simply, “make my technology work” to “make my business better.” Drivers such as cloud and mobility are causing us to pause and rethink our traditional approaches and consider new ways to both consume and manage IT.  As more and more business and IT activities move into the cloud, the services needed to keep everything running seamlessly become ever more critical.

Services can help companies maintain IT health and, by providing expertise and support, can support this transition to cloud as customer and partners explore new opportunities.  Services – in the form of automation, analytics and software – play a crucial role in both extracting more value out of existing infrastructure and driving innovation in new areas. How?

I recently spoke about Cisco’s Smart Services, which use intelligent automation to collect network data, then analyze that data using Cisco’ s deep knowledge  base to provide actionable insight to customer and partners. These software-enabled services automate network operations, reduce risk and lower costs – top priorities for any organization, regardless of size.

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Tags: cisco_services, remote management, smart services

As a father of future college students, I’m excited that Cisco’s announcement yesterday about the Internet of Everything (IoE) Economy may finally transform college education to provide graduates with the real-world skills needed by businesses today — and tomorrow.

Before I jump too far ahead, let me explain what Cisco announced. Cisco estimates that there are currently about 20 billion things connected to the Internet, yet more than 99 percent of physical “things” remain unconnected. Obviously, there is a huge opportunity to connect the unconnected. IoE aims to do just that by adding people, process, and data to the things that are connected to the Internet, such as devices, sensors, and machines.

To help businesses understand how to benefit from IoE, Cisco IBSG’s Economics Practice calculated the amount of Value at Stake in the IoE Economy. Value at Stake is defined as the value that will either be newly created or will migrate between lagging companies and industries to the leaders over the next 10 years based on their ability to harness IoE. We did this by taking a bottom-up approach of selecting and analyzing 21 industry-specific and cross-industry use cases, including the one I’m discussing here: connected private college education.

From this analysis, the team determined that there is $14.4 trillion of Value at Stake in the Internet of Everything Economy over the next decade. The five main drivers of this Value at Stake are:
1. Lower costs from improved asset utilization ($2.5 trillion)
2. Greater efficiencies from improved employee productivity ($2.5 trillion)
3. Less waste from supply-chain and logistics efficiencies ($2.7 trillion)
4. Greater lifetime customer value from improved customer experiences ($3.7 trillion)
5. Increased return on investment (ROI) and new revenue from faster innovation ($3.0 trillion)

So, how much of this value comes from improved education? Read More »

Tags: $14.4 trillion, Apollo Group, Cisco, college, connecting the unconnected, education, higher education, IBSG, Internet of Everything, IoE, IoE Economy, Kaplan University, private college education, Strayer Education, value at stake

Today’s always-on, connected lifestyles and business practices have reached new levels according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2012 to 2017.  In fact, in the next five years, worldwide mobile data traffic is predicted to increase 13-fold, with global mobile data traffic growing 70 percent in 2012.

hWith customers on all seven continents, Cisco provides essential Internet networking platforms that enable these connected experiences, and we embrace our profound responsibility to deliver innovative networking solutions that also minimize energy consumption and environmental impact.

 So it is with great pride for Cisco to receive AT&T’s 2012 Supplier Sustainability Award in Energy Efficiency, which recognizes outstanding contributions in energy efficiency, environment, greenhouse gas emissions, and water use. These are topics of critical importance to both our business operations and the environment.

hSmartphones and other connected technologies have increased data traffic on AT&T’s networks by 20,000 percent between 2007 and 2011. Cisco’s Cisco Carrier Routing System is helping AT&T meet growing data demands while also staying on track to meet its goal of reducing electricity intensity 60 percent by 2014, over a 2008 baseline. 

Cisco has received top rankings for its environmental sustainability efforts including being included in the Carbon Disclosure Project Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index for five consecutive years (2008-2012) and being ranked second in Greenpeace’s Cool IT Challenge in 2012.  Cisco has also been recognized by Corporate Knights, Forbes Magazine, and Interbrand for its commitment to sustainability. 

Cisco recently announced that it had achieved its greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reduction goal in 2012 and set a new target of cutting GHG emissions worldwide by 40% absolute by FY2017.

Congratulations to the Cisco service provider engineering team and the entire Cisco engineering organization for this achievement and its continued efforts maintaining this critical balance for our customers and partners.

Additional details regarding Cisco’s commitment to energy efficiency can be found on our Cisco Corporate Social Responsibility Web page and in our 2012 Corporate Social Responsibility Report.

Tags: AT&T, AT&T Supplier Sustainability Award, Cisco, Cisco Carrier Routing System, Cisco CRS, data traffic, Surya Panditi, Sustainability, Tim Harden