“Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity.” -Michael Porter
There’s been some interesting coverage this week about President Obama’s State of the Union address. And while pundits on all sides debate the ideologies as well as the details, it’s easy to agree on one of his key points – that innovation is the key to getting the economy and the country back on track.
Given the importance of innovation, isn’t it worth taking a fresh look at innovation itself? Many “innovations” such as the Declaration of Independence, the Apollo Space Program, even clever ad campaigns, were all realized by having several smart people in one place to develop ideas together. But now that’s all changed.
Following on the success of the first Borderless Challenge, today Cisco launches a new contest. Running from January 25th thru February 17th, this new challenge will demonstrate how to effectively deploy cloud services and deliver high-quality video from anywhere in the network.
Register to participate and you could win a trip to Hawaii or a Flip video camera.
Here’s Marie Hattar, Vice President of Borderless Networks Marketing, to talk about this exciting new contest.
Introducing Cisco Industrial Intelligence. Neither James Bond gone corporate nor Cisco gone espionage, Industrial Intelligence is the enabling of business enterprises and municipalities to more intelligently and responsively manage industrial operations globally, and it’s one of Cisco’s latest adjacencies as part of the Borderless Networks solutions portfolio. Having IP-data and control flows converged with voice, video and virtualization creates a more intelligent platform for innovations that connect devices to measure, monitor, and manage resources for greater efficiencies, to connect people in less time and space, and to connect ideas that generate solutions to today’s industrial, operational and environmental challenges.
Chet Namboodri talks about how the Cisco Industrial Intelligence solution can help to improve operational efficiency, safety, agility, and use of assets.
“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”
- William Blake.
Looking back, the first decade of this millennium could ultimately be viewed as an age of excess. From securities, SUV’s and PDA’s to business travel, there was arguably too much focus on quantity and not enough on quality. This “more is better” attitude was also visible in the world of I.T. – particularly when it came to branch offices. But that’s all changing now.
I.T. people know all too well how many services are required to run remote sites in a growing business: routing, switching, applications, security, voice, mobility, and more recently, virtualization and video. During the “go-go years” from 2000-2008, some just kept deploying more and more dedicated appliances in more locations to deliver ever more functionality to try to keep their companies’ top lines growing faster than their competitors.
There’s an old saying, “Good, Fast, or Cheap -- Pick Any Two” that I’ve liked for years. It still generally holds true for those of us who can work with our hands. When I’m not helping Cisco expand its wireless universe, I like to work with my hands.
I’m actually pretty good at it, I’ve installed hardwood, tile, and marble floors and showers in our house, recently remodeled one of our bathrooms after ripping the previous one out right down to the studs and concrete pad. I can build a pretty mean V8 engine, and most things you’d see in a house or small business by hand.
The problem is I’m slow. Really slow. Like, measure three times before I cut once kind of slow. I doubt I’d last even a week as a professional contractor because of this. So, the tag line “Good, Fast, or Cheap” applies pretty well to me.
