Cisco sees the future, and it's collaborative

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 18 September 2007 13:02

Opinion and Analysis

'Ignite Innovation' is the theme of this year's Cisco Networkers event being held in Brisbane but a key message is that collaboration will be the spark to light the fire of innovation.

The event was ignited, - quite literally with indoor fireworks - at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre by Cisco Australia & New Zealand managing director, Les Williamson who said that with 1300 paying delegates and over 50 exhibitors it was Cisco's largest ever Australian Networks, Williamson was followed by a keynote address from Howard Charney, Cisco senior vice president and chief evangelist.

Charney, a 35 year veteran of the Silicon Valley IT industry, joined Cisco in 1995 when it acquired Grand Junction Networks, a company he founded. Before that, along with Bob Metcalfe, he was one of the cofounders of 3Com. Today he reports direct to Cisco CEO, John Chambers and, amongst other roles, travels the world delivering 'big picture' presentations at Cisco events. So if you want to get a good feel for Cisco's key messages and priorities over the next few years, beyond the more down to earth messages put out to the analyst community, a Charney presentation is a good place to start.

At Networkers, in line with the theme, innovation was right up there in Charney's keynote. In a world beset by the threats of global warming, terrorism, pandemics and the like: Charney suggested that "We all need to actively cultivate innovation, non-stop innovation. We need to keep working together in real time to come up with solutions to the challenges facing us. Innovation may be the key survival skill of the 21st century."

That's one way of looking at it: innovation has brought humanity from the stone age to where it is today. It is not going to stop and will either ensure the destruction of civilisation as we know it or, if appropriately channelled, our survival. "The question that intrigues me is how can society as a whole deliberately set the stage for innovation?" Chaney asked, rhetorically.