Posted on January 10th, 2008 by Atif
The new year brings some management changes at Cisco. Charlie Giancarlo recently retired from the company to join tech buyout firm, Silver Lake Partners. Charlie spent 14 years at Cisco and was most recently the Chief Development Officer, effectively the #2 executive and possible successor to CEO, John Chambers.
I had the pleasure of meeting Charlie for the first time during his going-away event, where he chatted openly and generously with the rank-and-file. A Cisco employee carrying an iPhone was kind enough to snap a picture for me.
From the Cisco press release:
“After joining Cisco through the acquisition of Kalpana, a pioneer in ethernet switching, Giancarlo started Cisco’s business development organization and developed Cisco’s successful M&A strategy. He initiated and then led Cisco’s Small and Medium business activities including contributing to the development of Cisco’s channel strategy. Giancarlo also initiated and led a large number of Cisco’s advanced and emerging technologies including Unified Communications, home networking, wireless networking, security, video, and TelePresence among many others.”
I’ve been at Cisco for a few months, working as a consultant and advising on new market strategy. We’re looking at whitespaces that might be considered non-traditional for the company but which leverage my background in the web, software and digital media.
Another senior executive, Dave Leonard, also transitioned recently (to start a clean-tech business). Dave has been the General Manager and top dog running the company’s $5bn cash cow switching business unit. I’ve been working for Dave and his group. It goes without saying that Cisco’s ability to branch out and experiment into new markets is in part due to domination in switching. So, new things you find the company successful with (TelePresence, etc.) are tied to this core even while there remains lots of potential for these existing businesses to pioneer new spaces too.
This is my third large company experience (AOL and Goldman Sachs are the other two places I’ve spent time). I’ve always found it somewhat impossible for a big company to send off a long-time employee or major contributor (such as a senior executive) in the right way despite their best attempts. The farewells, thank you’s and recognition don’t quite reflect the humanity of what is essentially a parting of ways between people. Life meets reality. Read more »
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Posted on November 8th, 2007 by Atif
Comcast has a fantastic marketing campaign these days that you’ve probably seen on television or billboards. Building on the “It’s Comcastic” theme, the company is having fun innovating on the English language in ways that speak to digital life.
This involves devising new buzz-phrases like “snurfing” (surfing the web instead of paying attention to your phone conversation) and “Wi-fiving” (instant messaging a friend to celebrate a specific part of a TV program) that represent a merging of different words into one. Comcast refers to it as triples language.
These buzz-phrases resonate with consumers because they speak to real scenarios that people now encounter in an era of digital living.
My favorite is an advertisement about “quizjacking” where a girl is watching a game show while her brother, sitting within earshot of the TV, is looking up answers to questions on his computer. He’s spitting out answers before she has a chance to take a guess.
Siblings annoying each other is always the basis of good humor and this example was sinisterly familiar. The big picture, of course, is Comcast demonstrating how television and Internet consumption go together in ways that are novel.
I think Comcast is touching the tip of the iceberg in this exercise of digitally inspired word-mashups. I’m no William Saffire, but I’d like to add a few of my own based on observations. Here’s one to start (and more down the line as ideas come to mind): SOFTSUMERISM.
Softsumerism —-> The cross-over influence of consumer applications on the design of enterprise technologies; innovation within enterprise systems addressing the convergence of personal and professional identity. Read more »
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Posted on October 20th, 2007 by Atif
Marc Andreessen recently wrote a useful post about web platforms. It’s a timely collection of thoughts that has spurred conversation amongst executives at several large technology companies, including Yahoo and Google, according to my sources. There’s a lot of ambiguity around this whole issue of platforms so I’m glad that Marc has taken the lead in throwing down a detailed perspective.
Part of the ambiguity stems from the fact that the word is totally hackneyed and over-played. What everyone seems to agree on is that in the distant future there will only be a few big IT companies – all of them with platforms at the core. Here we mean to say that current borders between layers of the technology stack – network, data center, web services, applications, etc. will fuse together to form platforms that challenge traditional lines. Understanding the nature of these platform opportunities, therefore, becomes an issue of survival. The issue has reach beyond traditional web companies, which are the focus of Marc’s ideas, affecting a spectrum of companies ranging from Cisco to IBM to Google. Read more »
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Filed under: Google, Web Apps, Innovation, Enterprise Technology | 3 Comments »
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