In my previous blogging, I’ve noted how customers have been very clear in our market research on their concerns around cloud, and security is top of that list When I first became involved in Cloud Computing, as part of my role in Cisco Services product management defining our Cisco Cloud Enablement Services, you couldn’t read an article on cloud with our hearing about “security” as one of the major issues, if not indeed the major issue, for cloud. What I noticed was that many of these articles talked about cloud security as a major challenge to cloud adoption (which it is), and some would talk about point solutions to specific problems. However, most didn’t say much from a holistic perspective on how to address the challenges of cloud security. Thankfully, since then, organizations including Cisco Services’ security consultants and industry forums such as the Cloud Security Alliance have put some meat on the bones, so to speak. So in this blog, I will give you a brief introduction to the approach our experts in Cisco Services take to ensure cloud security, and I’ll also point you to a free Cisco introductory paper on this topic. Read More »
Tags: cisco_services, cloud_computing, data_center
Ed Daly, Director Market Management and Pete Davis, Manager, Market Management, in our Cisco Services US Field Marketing Team recently encountered a marketing dilemma -- a dilemma I’m sure most marketers can relate to. Fresh from winning a couple of prestigious awards, Pete and Ed wanted to tell the world, but were told by PR that awards are something that are not exactly “press release worthy”. As we all do, when we’ve experienced rejection, Ed and Pete did a bit of soul searching on the need for marketers to promote awards. The result is this tongue-in-cheek post. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Oh -- by-the-way, that’s Pete in the photo with the awards in question.
“We don’t do press releases for awards.” “No one cares about awards except marketing people.” “We don’t have enough budget.” Have you ever heard this from the PR team when you’ve won an industry award that you’re really proud of? You want to shout from the nearest rooftop how cool it is, but you keep getting told no. You’re not alone. The Cisco Services marketing team won two IT Services Marketing Association (ITSMA) for the Accelerate services training and Smart Care partner enablement programs..
The Smart Care program won the 2010 Gold Award for Marketing Excellence in the category of Developing and Launching New Offerings. The Accelerate Services Training program won the 2010 Diamond Award for Marketing Excellence in the category of Enabling Sales. This is the first time that Cisco has scooped both a Diamond (first place) and Gold (second place) Award and only the second ever time that we have won a Diamond Award.
When we approached the PR team to publicize the win externally, we were given the standard answer, a double whammy in this instance “We don’t do press releases for awards, and no one but marketing cares about awards anyway”. So we decided to do some soul searching to understand why we feel so compelled to boast about having won these awards…and why no one else seemed to get it.
And here’s what we came up with.
Top 10 Reasons Why Marketing People Like to Promote Awards They Win:
10. Standing in the middle of the office shouting “look at me, look at me” wasn’t going down very well.
9. You know, fake it till you make it.
8. Sales is where the rubber meets the road, but marketing is where the rubber meets the sky.
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Tags: awards, cisco_services, ITSMA, marketing, partner_marketing
As various infrastructure vendors promote “cloud in a box” approaches, at times there seems to be a significant omission with regard to the role of the network in cloud computing architectures. Based on my work on Cisco Cloud Enablement Services, on factors that should influence your Cloud Strategy, I’d like to give you insights into one of the key surprises that came out of our own market research into the challenges of cloud adoption, that really makes me question those who espouse “cloud in a box” as a marketing message. Or, to expand what they say, their “cloud in a box and let’s forget about the network” message. Do they really ‘get’ what cloud is about?
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Tags: cisco_services, cloud_computing, data_center
