innovation

Historians often point to The Renaissance many centuries ago as humankind’s most creatively prolific period. Indeed, timeless discoveries and masterpieces in art, literature and science burst forth from geniuses such as Leonardo de Vinci, Michelangelo, and Galileo. I spend a lot of my spare time stu…

All countries, cities, and businesses large and small are racing against the challenges not only to remain secure and relevant today, but also to attain and sustain long-term excellence. Each needs to stay ahead of the bad actors that seek to compromise their privacy and security. As well, they must…

When developing applications in a microservices architecture, one of the first obstacles a developer faces is determining the state of the underlying orchestration and container services. The developer has no real insight into how the underlying services and orchestration system(s) are performing. A…

Every time I hear about a new high-profile data breach—and it’s happening more often all the time—I picture what must be going on in the executive suite of that company. Are the leaders hunkering down in a defensive position, looking for someone to blame? Will they throw money at the problem as they…

The new model for co-innovation can be messy. No longer a one-thing-at-a-time, linear methodology, today’s development process involves people from different organizations, with different backgrounds and cultures working on several different tracks at once, with rapid prototyping, real-time customer…

I never would have thought that someone with my point of view would be a valued member of a large corporate tech powerhouse like Cisco. Yet, almost two years to the day – and here I am! As a member of the Cisco Hyper Innovation Living Labs team (CHILL for short) my team is all about driving disrupti…

Traditionally, Cisco’s innovation strategy has been built around four foundational pillars: build, buy, partner, and invest. Recently, however, a fifth pillar—co-innovation —has become more prominent. In my last blog, I introduced the idea that innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum—it requires diver…

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” were the final words echoed last week during a thought-provoking Innovation Catalyst training session at Cisco’s campus in Richardson, Texas. Building on earlier sessions in San Jose last November, I joined other super-charged Cisco leaders to learn more…

A few years ago I sat down with technology leaders at a major oil and gas company to talk about a solution they wanted Cisco to develop, and they had some unique and interesting requirements: They wanted us to work with them to co-innovate this solution. They also asked us to work with their three…