Enterprise Connect 2017, Day 3: Best in Show and the Toaster Fridge

In today’s episode, I’m pleased to share that Cisco received the Best of Enterprise Connect 2017 for Cisco Spark Board.

This morning’s general session started off on a very positive note when Jens Meggers was invited to the stage to accept the Best of Enterprise Connect 2017 for Cisco Spark Board.

Having watched the recent Academy Awards, Meggers thought it best to confirm with Enterprise Connect program co-chair Beth Schultz that she did indeed have the right envelope. Unfortunately, her mic didn’t pick up his question. 🙂

Afterward, he said “Cisco is proud to accept this award from Enterprise Connect today. We have received tremendous response for Cisco Spark Board’s innovation and design and we are very excited to be honored for our efforts.”

More about the award:
Read the NoJitter article or Angie Mistretta’s post. It’s the talk of the town.

Is Team Collaboration “All That”? (Hint: Yes.)

Cisco’s Richard Townhill joined peers from Atlassian, Microsoft, RingCentral, and Unify on the panel for “Messaging & Team Collaboration: Overhyped or Next Platform?” While panelists agreed on some points, there were definitely divergent opinions on others. At Cisco, we obviously have a strong perspective on team collaboration and the Cisco Spark platform.

Part of what our technology teams do is to look at the different types of interactions people have throughout their work day. Using that information, they look to support simplicity – so that people can focus on the interaction with other people, instead of having to focus on the tools and technology they’re using to interact.

“We all use multiple technologies. What distinguishes you is the experience that you wrap around the technologies,” Townhill explained. “We see team collaboration as one long stream of engagement” that encompasses the interactions experiences that people use every day.

One of the moderator’s questions was interesting. She asked, “For team collaboration, is it about the user experience or the team experience?” Maybe I’ve been immersed in the Cisco Collaboration culture too long, but the answer seemed obvious. I wasn’t surprised with Townhill’s response: “Teams are made up of people.”

Quote of the Day
Just because you can create it, doesn’t mean you should. No one wants a toaster-fridge.
–Richard Townhill, Cisco

Update to yesterday’s not-so-secret secret: I came clean with our technical marketing engineers (TMEs). They know I’ve been using my blog posts to advocate the placing of fingerprints on the demo hardware. The TMEs are the logo t-shirted individuals who spend their time running through the demos in the booth. They’re an amazing team of people who can answer nearly any question you aim in their direction – and walk you through how the products work. Thankfully, they even let me join their table after the exhibit hall closed – and didn’t hand me the check.

On Tap for Thursday Morning

The exhibits finished today and the conference program closes tomorrow. But there are a few more things left you might want to include on your agenda.

• 8:00a ET: Get perspective from Cisco’s Tod Famous on the panel for “Bots, AI and IoT: Will They Transform Customer Care?” moderated by Sheila McGee-Smith.
• 9:00a ET: Cisco’s John Elliott joins in what sounds like an interesting conversation around “IoT & UC: Connecting Things to People in Your Enterprise.”
• 11:15a ET: It’s time to give the analysts and consultants the whole stage for the “Town Hall” session to close out the conference.

After the final session, it will be time to remove that jingly badge that sounds like labrador retriever’s collar, reflect on the week’s experiences, and head on home.