My Week at CiscoLive! San Francisco 2014

SDN-SDN-SDN…No longer does it stand for “Still Does Nothing”! Welcome to the world of Cisco where today is ACI and tomorrow is a stellar collaboration lineup. I hope you are prepared for a wild ride!

This year was the 25th Anniversary of Cisco Live, previously known as “Networkers”, and what an event it was! The Moscone Center neighborhood in San Francisco was abuzz with excitement as the event drew in a crowd of 22,000 registered participants.

This session, which took place from May 18th to the 22nd, continued on the Melbourne Cisco Live theme – the Internet of Everything (IoE). At the helm was John Chambers, who delivered a keynote that resonated very well with our customers. The discussion was partly facilitated by industry leaders and experts that have embraced the IoE. Their experiences and insights flaunted how the world is transforming and they explained why we need to adapt to survive.

I had the pleasure of attending the IT Management Program #ITMCiscoLive. This attracted over 550 folks and has sold out the past 3 years! The theme was consistent from start to finish. It focused on the role of IT in a marketplace of innovation and change. IT is now seen as the “wellspring of innovation and value” and can no longer afford to continue the role of the order taker.

A lot of interactive panel discussions followed for the next 2 days that encouraged audience participation. The feedback was impressive!

I immensely enjoyed the panel I led on “Predicting the Future of Cloud”. We had execs from GE Capital, Coca-Cola, and McKesson – all in different stages of the Cloud journey – speak to their experiences and insights. The main goal was to facilitate a discussion that would resonate with customer’s current Cloud experiences. As such, we had interactive polls and word clouds to guide the conversation as it progressed. It was extremely successful and we received over 400 responses from engaged audience members.

Finally, day 3 focused on sessions from senior Cisco IT executives such as John Manville, KC Wu, and Patrick Andersson to name a few. They shared their insights on how Cisco is creating the next-generation Data Center with Intercloud tied in. Each conversation had a common theme. The theme was that a great IT company must always strive to be business relevant while keeping pace with the velocity of change. If we fail on either endeavor, our end users will ultimately suffer.

As you can tell, Cisco Live 2014 was a tremendous success! I cannot wait to see what the next year brings…The insights and conversations from and with our customers were second to none and will only help to position Cisco as the #1 IT Company moving forward. See you next year at #CiscoLive2015!