My Week at CiscoLive! Melbourne 2015

One of my favorite events on the calendar is always Cisco Live in Melbourne, and after the record-breaking event last year, I went in with high expectations. From the moment Chuck Robbins stepped onstage for the opening keynote I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed.Chuck proudly announced that Cisco is opening a $15 million ‘Internet of Everything’ (IoE) innovation center in Australia. The center will bring together industry partners, researchers, developers, start-ups, universities and government to develop proof of concepts and showcase the potential of connected devices. Chuck told the crowd there was a $74 billion economic opportunity in Australia driven by IoE.

I spent most of the week at the IT Management Program where 245 attendees from 171 companies attended twelve dedicated sessions focusing on topics such as Fast IT, Cyber Security, Talent 2020, and Digital Transformation. The constant theme in all of these sessions was disruption, and the need to drive change in our organizations at a faster rate.

Cisco IT was back at the World of Solutions where our experts engaged with 299 customers to discuss how we’re deploying technology inside Cisco. Collaboration was the most requested subject and visitors to the stand fell in love with the new DX-80 collaboration endpoints on display. Another hot topic was Fast IT, with many questions on how Cisco has deployed ACI within our environment.

There were two big events in town on Thursday night and I was lucky enough to attend both of them. Firstly, along with 52,000 others, we headed to the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the World Cup Quarter Final between India and Bangladesh. However, the biggest show of the night was right next door at the Cisco Live Customer Appreciation event where Jessica Mauboy and Diesel wowed the crowd until the early hours.

This year’s conference was attended by a record 5,500 people which is 20% higher than last year. More incredible was the social media reach which, at 15.6m over four days, is an amazing 52% increase. Cisco Live even trended nationally on Twitter on both Wednesday and Thursday.

Thank you to everyone who attended the event in person or virtually, and thank you to the hundreds of event staff and presenters who made the week such a wonderful success. If you missed out this year, mark your calendars now for 8-11 March 2016 and I’ll see you there.