A recurring theme of the C-Scape Global Forum 2007 was the combination of technology and process change to accelerate innovation and growth.  John Chambers used Cisco as a real-life example of how they have used technology and process change to increase the number of major initiatives it undertakes from two to nine or ten per year.  Cisco’s vision is bigger than increasing corporate productivity, however, as they want to transform countries and the way people live.  As Chamber puts it, there is a huge opportunity to increase the well-being of the 3 Billion people who live on less than two dollars per day.

 Here is a video interview of long-time cable industry veteran and Cisco, Bob McIntyre – video courtesy of Cisco Systems

Chambers suggested that Time got it wrong when they called the person of the year ‘You’.  He said what Web 2.0 is really about is the power of ‘We’.  The social and collaborative effects of the network and web tools, like wikis, instant messaging and two-way video, are changing the way people work, live and play. 

He cited Cisco’s own use of its TelePresence video conference solution as having a profound affect on the Cisco business.  He indicated that decisions at Cisco are now made closer to where the action is, resulting in less of a top-down/command and control approach. He described how a trip to meet various Cisco executives, that took two weeks of intense traveling last year, could be accomplished this year in a couple of days using the TelePresence video conferencing solution.  

Chambers demonstrated the TelePresence solution by moderating a virtual panel.  The panelists were physically in London, Cincinnati and Boston, but their, life-size, moving images were presented on high definition displays.  The quality of the TelePresence is so life-like and the latency of the audio so low, that it seemed like the presenters were at the Fairmont.

The most impressive thing was a couple of water bottles that appeared to be on John Chamber’s desk.  Upon closer examination, it was clear that these bottles were not in the room where I was, but were half-way across the world on the speaker’s desk in London.  Chambers mentioned at lunch that they have been working with projecting holographic images so a 3-D image of a person can share the stage with a presenter; beam me up.       

TelePresence, combined with Cisco’s acquisition of WebEx, Arroyo and Scientific Atlanta, are indications of Cisco’s transition to a new company; a company that combines networking, computing and software/applications to provide customers with much more flexible business models and the ability to form teams and projects on an ad-hoc, yet repeatable basis. 

An example of Cisco’s effort in the media world is what Cisco calls, the ‘Entertainment Operating System’.  Essentially, Cisco provides the entire infrastructure for a media company to create a Web 2.0 presence.  A couple of customer examples for this Cisco solution include the web sites of NHL and NASCAR.  Ironically, Cisco’s own blog uses YouTube and Moveable Type to communicate information (they have some good coverage of the event at this link).    

Although this is serious business and, to some extent, Cisco is betting a lot on the timing of market transitions, Cisco also has a sense of humor and theatrics.  They created a mock Web 2.0 enabled company and acted it out on stage.

The premise was an employee of this company in a far-flung location posted a video on the company’s internal web site suggesting that solar powered, water filtration systems could be very useful for third-world rural areas.  Using a combination of wiki, TelePresence, podcasts and video, a virtual team created and manufactured a cost-effective solar-powered, water filtration system. 

When they were ready to test the system, dirty water was poured into the machine and clear water emerged.  There was a bit of debate over who would drink the first glass of water.  Finally, the person who was leading the demonstration pulled out a mock-pack of brightly covered sweetener, labeled ‘Cisco Web 2.0 Cool Aid’.  It is nice to see a company with a sense of humor.  

The vision Cisco paints is one where there computing cloud/software solutions will increasingly compete against companies like Microsoft and Google. 

The vision Cisco paints is one where there computing cloud/software solutions will increasingly compete against companies like Microsoft and Google.  If this vision is realized, Cisco will be more than the Internet’s plumbing, but also its water.    

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