“All grown-ups were once children –though few of them remember it.”

-- Antoine de Saint Exupery, The Little Prince

Recently, I attended one of my favorite events -- the EG conference in Monterey, California. Speakers ranged from musicians to rocket scientists to pickpockets and everything in between. Embracing the theme of “everything is learning, learning is everything,” the presenters encouraged us to embrace our inner child’s imagination and curiosity. Amanda Hill, CBO of BBC Earth was a particular inspiration. She reminded me of many things that we here at Cisco are striving to achieve, especially as we reimagine the Internet of Everything (IoE), a world in which everything is connected.

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Tags: #EGconf, #IoE, BBC, cloud, collaboration, EG, innovation, Internet of Everything, IoE, jabber, learning, WebEX

Approximately 1.2 million armed forces personnel are expected to transition from the U.S. military to civilian life over the next several years, with as many as 300,000 in the next 12 months.  Many of these veterans will look to move quickly into the next phase of their careers and need to find fulfilling jobs that will enable them to build upon their military experience and support themselves and their families. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 10.1 percent jobless rate for post 9/11 veterans and exceeding 30 percent for veterans ages 18-24. It is imperative that, as a country, we come together to fix this. We must provide the training, certifications and jobs that our veterans have earned and deserve.

As an example of what we hope public private partnerships will do for our veterans who have given so much for our country, I look at Courtney Beard, a Cisco employee, who transitioned from active duty Air Force service in September 2011 with very little IT training. Coming from a family with a long history of military service, she knew at a young age that she would serve her country but she did not think much about what life would look like after she returned home. Highly skilled, and capable of excelling in the most difficult of circumstances, she still faced challenges finding a meaningful job aligned with her future goals; the process included resume critiques, regular attendance at job fairs, and participating in the Warrior to Cyber Warrior training and mentorship program with other veterans.

People like Courtney are the driving force behind the White House IT Training and Certification Program – an initiative to help transitioning military personnel make the difficult shift to the civilian workforce by obtaining the necessary training and certifications needed for high demand IT jobs.  Debuted today by First Lady Michelle Obama, the program – in partnership with Joining Forces and the President’s Military Credentialing and Licensing Task Force – will actively engage 1,000 transitioning military personnel in training, certification and career resources. The concept and platform behind the program was developed with leadership from Cisco and Futures, Inc. This public-private partnership exemplifies business and government working together to make a difference in our economy, our businesses and our country.

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Tags: Cisco, partnership, training, veterans, White House

Girls and careers in information communications technology (ICT).  A contradiction? 

Unfortunately that is the case in so many classrooms and companies around the world.    Teenage girls use computers and the Internet similar to boys --  they text, they take pictures on their phones, yet they are five times less likely to consider a technology-related career.  In fact, in the OECD countries, women account for less than 20% of ICT specialists.  Today, on International Girls in ICT Day, I’m wondering how we can reverse that trend.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon at Fairmont Heights High School in Capitol Heights, Maryland.  I had the privilege of talking to dozens of young women who are passionate about technology and are getting trained and certified in IT skills through Cisco’s Networking Academy program.  I also met Ashley Covington, a Networking Academy graduate who is currently a systems administrator for the City of Baltimore public schools.  Ashley told us that she loves her job and “I take pride in my data center.”  That is music to my ears.

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Key requirements shaping Storage Networks

With Big Data, trends like Internet of Everything hitting the data center and cloud, it is an exciting time for storage networking. These trends serve as market drivers with requirements for higher bandwidth, zero downtime coupled with some top careabouts like multi-protocol storage connectivity, ease of management, fast disaster recovery, low latency at scale etc.

New Cisco Innovations

Cisco has been a strong innovator and leader in this market, and it is time to raise the bar yet again.

Today, we introduce two new storage area networking (SAN) switches to the MDS storage networking family – the Cisco MDS 9710 Multi-layer Director and the Cisco MDS 9250i Multi-Service switch. 

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Tags: Cisco Unified Fabric, MDS 9250i, MDS 9710, Rajeev Bhardwaj, Storage Networking

Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers penned a message for 2013 college graduates in the San Jose Mercury News this weekend. Chambers will receive an honorary doctorate from San Jose State University on Friday, April 26th and offered these words of advice for new graduates…and all those of us looking to succeed in the 21st Century: “Never stop learning.”

In part, he wrote:

… “In speaking of new graduates, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman recently wrote that “given the pace of change today, even they will have to reinvent, re-engineer, and reimagine that job much more often than their parents if they want to advance in it.” He says these young people must be “innovation ready,” not just able to find a job, but invent one.

San Jose State University is part of this reinvention. This month, the university announced an expansion to its collaboration with edX, the not-for-profit online learning enterprise founded by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The result is that online courses will be made available to as many as eleven other California State University (CSU) campuses and thousands more students across California.” …

… Everyday across the world we are seeing this type of innovative teaching and learning, setting the stage for a different kind of lifelong training.

That’s what it takes in today’s fast moving, data driven Internet of Everything world. All of us must be innovation-ready, and realize that career growth will go to those who continue to leverage the 21st Century Mind by adapting, discovering, and learning new skills. To all graduates, I say congratulations and offer these three words of advice: Never stop learning.”

You can read his full op-ed here.

Tags: 21st Century Mind, advice to graduates, Harvard, IoE, john chambers, MIT, neverstoplearning, SJSU