Over the past several months, I have been privileged to represent Cisco in working with other industry and academic partners to form the OpenFog Consortium, which was announced earlier today. You can learn more in the press release about what this new organization is, but I want to focus on why such an organization is so important at this stage of development of the Internet of Things (IoT).
Earlier this week, my colleague Maciej Kranz discussed the city of Barcelona’s fog computing proof of concept, which was showcased at the Smart City World Expo Congress. The proof of concept demonstrated that fog technology can bring intelligence to a range of urban services, including transportation, parking, lighting, traffic and waste management, public safety, and law enforcement.
But smart city services are only the beginning. Fog computing can provide immense value across all industries. For example, it might take 12 days via satellite to transmit one day’s worth of data to the cloud from a remote oil rig. With fog computing the data is processed locally, and safety or equipment alerts can be acted upon immediately. In manufacturing and transportation, preventive maintenance applications can process a huge amount of sensor data to trigger needed maintenance before there is an equipment failure. In retail, data from parking lot video cameras can not only provide security surveillance, but can also work with fog analytics capabilities to predict store traffic flow and optimize checkout staffing.
It’s all about the mustache in November as Cisco employees participate in Movember activities to raise awareness for men’s health issues.
Whether it’s in the U.S., Poland, the UK or other locations, mustaches are taking over Cisco offices this month! Pencil-thin mustaches, handle-bar mustaches, fake mustaches (for the women!) – they’re everywhere!
Cisco employees love to have an impact over their community, whether it’s their neighborhood, city or country. Today I want to take you on a world tour to see how Cisco employees impact not only their own health, but the health of their communities as they “celebrate” Movember.
For those who don’t know, The Movember Foundation is a global charity committed to men living happier, healthier, longer lives. Since 2003, millions have joined the men’s health movement, raising $650 million and funding over 1,000 programs focusing on prostate cancer, testicular cancer, poor mental health and physical inactivity.
Krakow, Poland
The Krakow site leader, Norm DePeau, VP Global Business Services is taking part because he, himself, is a cancer survivor.
Norm DePeau’s Movember look in Krakow.
“In 2006 they discovered I’m suffering from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, so I had to go through 4 months of chemotherapy and then radiations,” Norm says. “I was very fortunate. They discovered it by accident so it was caught before I had the typical symptoms so it shortened the amount of treatments I had to go through.”
“I actively share my personal story because I think people should understand the importance of regular checks at their doctor and it helps them later to overcome that difficult time. The one thing that I really like about the activities we have at the office this year is that there is an emphasis on the real purpose of Movember. This year we partnered with our healthcare provider and we have a doctor coming to the office, talking with employees about the steps they should take in order to have prevent cancer and get an early diagnosis.”
Norm is excited to participate, but like a lot of people, he has to balance his Movember enthusiasm with his family happiness (his family aren’t fans of his facial hair) and his professional role (he meets with government representatives and executives regularly.) Hence, this year he decided to grow a full beard and not just the regular mustache but he’s going to keep his facial hair short and professional.
“Even some women here are wearing fake mustaches at the office,” he laughs. “But many women that are working here have spouses or male family members and they can now become part of the advocacy process for regular checkups and preventions.”
“We had a professional barber coming to the office at the beginning of Movemeber to shave off our hair, so I had to get rid of my beard in order to be part of the competition we have here- who has he prettiest mustache, the longest one or the most famous one- so at the end of the month our employees can decide who the winner is.” Says Filip Zagaja, Environment, Health & Safety Program Manager. “Plus, we will have a bake sale to raise funds for our local Movember organization.”
Cisco collaboration technology is also helping out – there’s a guest speaker from the UK presenting via Webex and talking about his personal story as a young man who survived cancer!
Speaking of the UK . . .
“There are few things that motivated me to join Movember”, says Luke Williams, Local IT & Telepresence team lead from the UK. “I become aware of it in the last couple of years, seeing everyone in Cisco doing this. Men are really bad at dealing with their health, we don’t like discussing it and we ignore it with an ‘it will all be fine’ attitude.”
Luke Williams gets a pre-Movember shave so he can grow from scratch.
What he likes about Movember is that it raises awareness for the fact that men need to take care of themselves.
“What’s nice about it is that it became something very cool, very trendy & fashionable, so it’s a good way for people to change their culture,” Luke says. “It’s fun and cool and there are great fundraising and personalities involved. It’s a great way of getting men in general to become more accepting of the fact they need to be aware of their own physical, mental and emotional health. The fun we had at the office included a professional barber coming to shave us, and of course a competition. We still haven’t identified the award categories but I would like to put forwards the ‘worst mustache award’ because I will win that!”
What about the U.S.? And women?
Zina Rambo, Business Operations Manager for the dCloud team, is based in the US (our RTP office in North Carolina) but is a part of a global dCloud team (with people in Michigan, California, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, the UK, Italy, Switzerland and Costa Rica) that is super motivated around Movember, because they see it as a really special way to remember and honor a team member who passed away from cancer last year.
Some members of Cisco’s dCloud Movember team.
“This is our way of giving back, he was so important to us not just as a team member, but as a friend. When he got sick, we went all in to do Movemeber events and other related activities to drum up funding. During the month of Movemeber on our team meeting we use video to see how our men look with their mustache and we women are wearing our fake mustaches! Our goal is to raise $10,000 this month. I think we can make it!”
There are other ways for women to participate as well. A program called Movember MOVE calls all employees to get active and start moving for 30 minutes a day. They can raise funds (and support Movember) without having to grow a mustache! Some of the Cisco office gyms offers unique classes for this month, where people and teams can join and get their 30 minutes MOVE.
“I also signed up for the MOVE and I’m walking a lot more then I usually am to get these miles in the program,” Zina says. “We are not so competitive on the team, but we joke around as some of the men have the most horrific mustaches ever and they are so proud of them, so we have a lot of laughs.”
So if you start to see a lot of employees around the world sporting their mustaches, bad or good, know it’s for a good cause. Support their efforts, give them some kudos.
And if working for a company where things like this are important, join our team.
Well, back on the road again, it has been a straight 3 weeks of travel. From Kentucky to Shanghai then to Auckland and Sydney to Phoenix where I blogged about Cisco’s partnership with Caterpillar, now I’m back in my hometown of Chicago for Automation Fair # AutoFair15. Cisco once again has a significant presence at this leading industrial show which is Rockwell Automation’s largest user conference- with our own Booth # 1045 as well as presence in Industrial IP Advantage’sBooth #1340. We had some standing room only sessions including ones hosted by Bryan Tantzen and Randal Kenworthy. The energy has been dynamic at this event with nearly 19,000 attendees.
A couple of key takeaways from the day- first, I was impressed with the customer engagement and quality of the conversations – especially as the network expertise of show attendees (primarily OT, controls and automation managers and professionals) have grown significantly over the years. Second, Connected Machines and the data analytics/data insight that result comes as the number one asked about topic with Industrial security a close second. And finally, there were a lot of questions around Cisco’s recently announced Manufacturing Thought Leadership Study— research validates what folks are hearing – that disruption is happening and that organization change is needed to adopt to digitization and servitization.
My colleague Richard Mullen who was busy giving booth tours all day describes the reactions from the show floor:
“What I’m hearing from customers is that they now understand the value when hearing about IP as a data conduit from the plant floor. This ability to predict when things will break is of tremendous value to them. In addition, customers have told me that Cisco and Rockwell have come a long way in a year as far as integration — they are saying- ‘we would like to see even more network visibility within the PLC application to make management even easier. We understand it is a journey but you (Cisco) and Rockwell are leading the way.’ ”
“Why does a computer need a fan? I want my computer to be quiet and small!” Steve Jobs actually provoked that question when he started the journey that led to the creation of Apple II nearly four decades ago. And, of course, the journey made history and continues on into new frontiers of technology.
Asking an unsettling question that breaks the status quo – in any era – is one of the key catalysts to ignite innovation exponentially. This is especially true today because of the unprecedented levels of innovation made possible by the digitization of society through the Internet of Everything – the connection of people, processes, data and things.
A provocative question that turns things upside down gets the innovation journey under way. However, it’s just one of many key catalysts we have identified from extensive research and experience that accelerate innovation 10 times or more.
My colleague, Hagit Oron, and I recently had the honor of conducting a highly engaging workshop – Innovation Catalyst – at Cisco’s bi-annual Leadership Forum, an event series tailored for people leaders. Igniting innovation is one of our company’s highest priorities as we transform from a hardware product company into an end-to-end solution provider delivering business outcomes to customers in vertical markets.
Encourage Inclusive, Diverse Culture. First, we emphasized that leaders must foster a climate of innovation with their full teams – not just by hiring a few outliers – but as a collective team to solve problems and develop new products and services. That means assembling teams with a full spectrum of diverse backgrounds, skills, perspectives and approaches, enabling them with the right tools and resources as well as empowering them to innovate collaboratively. Continue reading “Catalysts for 10x Innovation (Part 1)”
This is the time of year for crystal-ball gazing when everyone starts talking about what the new year might bring.
It’s no secret that I’m passionate about video. I can pinpoint when this passion was sparked: November 2012. It was my first month at Cisco. Excited to dig in and meet my far-flung new team, I started booking flights… and contemplating spending November, December, and a good chunk of January on the road. But then video gear showed up on my desktop. Suddenly I didn’t need to take a 10-hour flight to be with the team in Oslo; I could be there with the touch of a “join” button.
To say this rocked my world is an understatement. It also saved my family’s holiday plans.
It’s also no secret that others share my passion for video. Our customers are buying video gear at an amazing rate: We’ve had double-digit revenue growth in video endpoints for four quarters in a row.
We still have a long way to go.
In fact, we estimate that fewer than 10% of the conference rooms in the world are connected via video today. I see a future where 100% of conference rooms have video. People will be communicating via video on their phones and other devices all day long, and naturally they’ll want it in all the rooms they work in too. We won’t get to 100% in the next 12 months but we will take some pretty huge steps forward. In fact, I predict that by the end of 2016 one in every four rooms will have video.
#CiscoChampion Radio is a podcast series by Cisco Champions as technologists. Today we’re talking about SAFE Simplifies Security with Cisco Security Solution Architect, Christian Janoff.
Get the Podcast Listen to this episode Download this episode (right-click on the episode’s download button) View this episode in iTunes
Cisco SME
Christian Janoff, Security Solution Architect
In my first #CiscoChat I hosted together with Anabelle Pinto, we were joined by Gaurav Pant and Sahir Anand from EKN Research to share their perspective and dig deeper into additional findings from Cisco and IDC. We started by defining who the digital consumer is, what type of services they’re looking for and what shoppers want and expect, all while providing the security they need.
Here are a few highlights from the #CiscoChat:
Who is today’s digital shopper?
#ciscochat a digital shopper is everyone. We seamlessly transition across channels of engagement,commerce. Make the experience frictionless
You have become what you deem as a master of Social Media – you have a nice number of followers, your prose is pithy and engaging, but yet something is still missing… that continued “engagement” with your audiences.
Well, don’t fret you are not alone! Studies show that while nearly 2 billion people are connected via smart phones, there is still a very interesting conundrum; how can you compete with so much noise out there? How could you be effective with your message and be heard through the massive trees in the overgrown forest that is Social connectivity? Sometimes it’s as simple as tempering the message to hit that right customer, at the right time.
One thing that you should consider is identifying free or low cost tools to increase your Social Media effectiveness. One example that I use is TweetDeck. This gives insight into who is following our accounts, if and when we need to jump on a response, real-time conversations, and best of all its free!
Savvy social media folks will tell you that it’s constantly changing, it’s iterative and that topics
constantly evolve. We’ve experienced it with the Marketing Velocity Program, but alas there is seemingly one concept that continues to reign true with brilliant Social topics – Storytelling! We are all human! It’s so much more effective to offer something relatable that could blossom into a sharable similar experience or a cautionary tale to social circles.
Here is a very simple example. Imagine a high tech company wants to introduce, “A new collaboration product that will help you be more effective doing stuff…” Well what if that introduction was changed to, “To see the look on my parents face when I told them I went skydiving — would have been priceless! Don’t miss those moments again with the Collabor-8-Shun.” Then keep that conversation going with a series of “stories” focused on missed moments. See where storytelling can take you as an adjunct to your typical and hopefully effective marketing programs. Once you have that idea hatched, use the Social Media tools to understand when your audiences are most active. Then test the waters by engaging with your social circle.
Have you read the latest Cisco Connected Health newsletter? We encourage you to explore the customer success stories, white papers, and videos to learn new and innovative ways to provide your caregivers with highly secure and reliable access to health information, regardless of location.
Apple and Cisco Partnership
We have seen an increase in the use of iOS devices and apps in the healthcare industry so we are thrilled to report that Cisco and Apple have announced a new partnership to optimize Cisco networks for iOS devices and apps. Stay tuned for further news about how we are integrating IOS devices with Cisco networks to enhance clinical collaboration capabilities.
Cisco and UCSF Partner to Advance Healthcare Interoperability
To advance the secure exchange of data across the healthcare industry, Cisco and UCSF will develop a collaborative platform to collectively test and scale interoperability across different devices, IT systems and software in order to integrate clinical data to optimize health decisions.
White Paper: Combating Cybercrime in the Healthcare Industry
Healthcare security breaches are making headlines with escalating frequency. Consequently, the need to safeguard personal health information (PHI) and other nonpublic data looms more urgent with each passing day. With the rising value of health records on the black market—roughly 10 times that of other records— it was only a matter of time before hackers began targeting hospitals and healthcare organizations in general.
White Paper: HIPAA Compliance for the Wireless LAN
Wireless hardware, such as access points that are installed around a facility, must facilitate HIPAA compliance. Similarly, wireless software must support the security and management features that the facility requires to enforce HIPAA compliance. Learn how Cisco Meraki products can help customers maintain a HIPAA-compliant network.
Transforming the Health Insurance Marketplace
Cisco offers a vision for Connected Health that includes exciting new opportunities for payers, enabling an approach that treats every member and provider as an individual, in a system that knows who they are and anticipates what they want. This allows you to provide an experience that is simpler and more transparent, leading to a better quality of care.
Cisco Patient Connect: Use Video to Modernize Your Healthcare Environment
Cisco Patient Connect brings state-of-the-art clinical communication and collaboration together in an integrated, easy-to-manage solution to deliver digital content (such as wayfinding or patient education), streaming media (along with broadcast TV), and personalized patient information.
Case Study: Roper St. Francis Implements Wireless and Unified Collaboration
Through a series of acquisitions, Roper St. Francis had nearly 50 different phone and key systems. By replacing legacy voice environments with an integrated collaboration platform and a high-performing wireless network, RSF established a robust, scalable platform that provides an interactive patient experience.
Case Study: CALSTAR Connects People Processes and Data during Medical Emergencies
California Shock Trauma Air Rescue (CALSTAR) is a nonprofit regional air ambulance service. When the FAA updated its operational control guidance, CALSTAR leveraged its existing Cisco infrastructure to build its own air-to-ground dispatch system that connects air transport to lifesaving care.
Case Study: SickKids Foundation Enhances Fundraising
A large charitable funder of child health research in Canada, SickKids Foundation’s center receives contributions from more than 232,000 doors annually and its aging network and phone system were unable to keep up with its needs. To ensure an exceptional donor experience, the Foundation refreshed its network with an end-to-end Cisco solution.
Virtual Pediatric Network Connects Oncologists
The Virtual Pediatric Network connects some of the nation’s top pediatric oncologists to treat children and adolescents diagnosed with rare and complicated cancers. See how Cisco technology is making a difference in cancer care.
Case Study: Interpreters are just a click away
Language barriers can be a big concern in healthcare, where diagnoses and treatments are defined and agreed on after talks between doctors and patients. Cisco video conferencing is helping to eliminate time, distance, and language barriers to provide effective communication between clinicians and their patients.
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I have been privileged to represent Cisco in working with other industry and academic partners to form the OpenFog Consortium, which was announced earlier today. You can learn more in the press release about what this new organization is, but I want to focus on why such an organization is so important at this stage of development of the Internet of Things (IoT).
