“The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”

 – Winston Churchill

It is nearly impossible – even foolish – to look ahead without looking back. Glimpses into the past can give us inspiration for new innovations and even teach us what not to do. Behind every great technological innovation is a solid legacy product or solution that inspired it or played an integral part in its development. Behind the printing press was paper and block printing. Behind the telephone was the telegraph. And behind the Internet of Everything (IoE)? Ethernet.

Today – May 22 – marks the 40^th anniversary of Ethernet. In 1973, technologist and 3Com founder Robert Metcalfe designed the Ethernet to allow computer devices to communicate with each other using radio-like signals over an antenna cable. Long used for reliable and efficient access to information, its implications on the networking world reach far past the local area network (LAN).

Over the course of 40 years, our quest for connecting the unconnected continues. Our connections have become increasingly complex since Metcalfe was tasked with connecting several Xerox computers to a single printer, and we need to understand the possibilities in both the number and value of our modern-day connections.

In a previous blog post, How the Internet of Everything Will Change the World…for the Better, I referenced Metcalfe’s law: the power of the network is greater than the sum of its parts. True. But the parts need to be recognized and optimized in order to maximize this power. The Internet of Everything is a large-scale metaphor for Metcalfe’s law. The combined connections of people, processes, data, and things don’t just amount to a list of things that are connected. The actionable insights that exist with the power of networked connectivity exponentially create the Internet of Everything.

Ethernet has helped further the progress that these connections – and the insights gleaned from them – will have on the Internet of Everything. So, today we celebrate not only the introduction of Ethernet, but also the technologies it made possible.

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Learn more about Cisco’s Ethernet solutions.

Tags: Cisco, connections, ethernet, Internet of Everything, internet of things, IoE, IoT, LAN, network

Cisco Partner Summit kicks off in two short weeks! This is my first Partner Summit as senior vice president of the Worldwide Partner Organization (WWPO), and I couldn’t be more excited for the discussion, the engagement, and most importantly, the opportunities that await us.

Partner Summit is one of the most important Cisco events of the year. Whether you’ll be joining us live in Boston or you’ll be one of the thousands of Cisco partners attending our Virtual Partner Summit, remember that this event is all about you. It’s your chance to interact with us, it’s our chance to listen to you, and most of all it’s everybody’s chance to have fun together.

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Tags: Bruce Klein, Cisco, cisco partner summit, ciscops13, edison peres, Internet of Everything, IoE, partner

As more devices, people and things become connected to the Internet, an unprecedented amount of data will be generated: data which can become a powerful tool for solving some of the greatest challenges facing our planet.

Carlos Dominguez and photojournalist Rick Smolan

I spoke with well-known photojournalist Rick Smolan about how we can turn data into wisdom, and the importance of capturing data in real time. Rick has worked at Time, Life and National Geographic and is the creator of the popular Day in the Life book series. In his most ambitious project to date, he tackled the subject of big data in the Human Face of Big Data project.

I talked with Rick about what his project is discovering, and the first part of our conversation was published in the blog Is there a human face behind big data?

Cisco co-sponsored the project because we believe we’re entering an era of the “Internet of Everything” which will bring data as well as people, processes and things together to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before.

In today’s blog, we continue the conversation by focusing on how big data can improve our communities and the world.

Q:  Rick, your project’s premise is that real-time visualization of data streaming in from satellites, billions of sensors, RFID tags, GPS-enabled cameras and smart phones, is beginning to enable us to sense, measure and understand aspects of our existence in ways never possible.  Your recently published book The Human Face of Big Data has some wonderful examples on harnessing data to improve the world – do you have a favorite?    Read More »

Tags: Big Data, data in motion, Internet of Everything, IoE, The Human Face of Big data

As today’s workforce continues to become more mobile and adopt the “on-the-go” mentality both at home and at work, their needs are also evolving. Companies need to respond. Empowering employees to work anytime, anywhere will improve efficiencies and increase productivity. When the staff takes their work outside of office walls, an environment of knowledge, sharing and creativity across local, regional and global teams is created naturally. The Internet of Everything (IoE) is a clear driver in this new collaborative environment as companies continue to connect more people, devices, processes and data.  This collaborative environment, in turn, also empowers a company as a whole through the insights and data exchanged.

In one of my previous posts, How Not Where Is What Matters Most in a Collaborative Work Environment, I noted that mobile and remote workers have higher performance ratings than traditional workers. Are these connections increasing the comfort level with utilizing remote resources on a consistent basis, such as remote mentoring or collaboration with global teams? Is it the extended connection to global colleagues and customers to obtain better insight and decisions? Or, is it the combination? Read More »

Tags: Cisco, Cisco TelePresence, Cisco WebEx, collaboration, connections, Internet of Everything, IoE, jabber, mobility, multiple devices, TelePresence

I wonder – what will connect tomorrow? What is going to connect next?

Thinking about the countless ways that different people, process, data and things will connect over upcoming years on the Internet of Everything can be almost overwhelming. As I mentioned in my last blog post, not a moment goes by in the day when I am not thinking of how different objects can work together to improve our world. Some of those connections are realistic; others are more visionary, difficult to grasp outside the context of IoE.

Cisco is already telling the story of these connections. You can explore the potentialities of the future for yourself through Connect This With That, an interactive experience that demonstrates the “how” behind the connections of today and tomorrow. On IoE, it’s possible for any two seemingly unconnected items to work together, creating a new reality for our world’s inhabitants. Imagine, as you pull in for a football game, the stadium automatically sends information to your car about where the best parking is located. As you enter the game, your wallet then talks to the admissions booth, so no tickets are required. What else is possible? For example, what are the technologies and products, current and future, that make it possible for an air quality index to talk to a school desk? Can a health organization connect with your bike, measuring average exercise patterns?

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Tags: Cisco, Cisco Connected Stadium Wi-Fi, connections, education, healthcare, Internet of Everything, IoE, mobile payments, smart cars, wi-fi, wifi