Poutine, Tim Horton’s and Girls in ICT Day

Posted on May 15, 2012 by

International Girls in ICT Day was eventful in the Cisco Toronto office – we hosted high school girls from Cardinal Leger Secondary school for a unique opportunity to speak with counterparts over 1,000 km away in North Carolina. The day was meant to be an exciting introduction to technology careers, but as usual, we not only had fun but also learned a lot more than we expected from the girls. And in an industry struggling to attract female talent, we were all ears.

Here are some of the lessons we learned from the Cardinal Leger students, and how you can put them to good use if you’re interested in holding a similar event. (Are you listening Canadian educators?)

Just coming to the office was an experience for them. We got comments like “Wow, you have such a nice office! We thought all engineers worked in a lab with wires hanging over their head!” Coming into the work environment helped demystify what a typical workday is like for a person working in the technology sector.

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Work Life Blending: A working mother’s story

Posted on May 10, 2012 by

As Mothers Day approaches it reminds me how lucky I am to work for a company that provides me the flexibility of “Work Life Blending.”

The phrase “Work Life Blending” is often used by Cisco Canada President Nitin Kawale to describe the new work environment. Any working parent knows there is no such thing as a “Work Life Balance,” but rather only ones ability to manage the chaos. Juggling skills help too!

Today, I left the office early to catch my daughter’s final school soccer game. Standing on the sidelines I was able to check emails, approve a document, and send a personal reminder to myself. I could have been at a doctor’s appointment, recital or even attending an appointment with an aging parent. The hardest part about productivity tools is remembering to be present when you are with the ones you love.  Luckily, children are the best form of policing!

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Clicks and Mortar: Innovating Infrastructure starts at Cisco Plus Canada

Posted on May 9, 2012 by

Billions (in Canada) and Trillions (around the world) of dollars are being spent each year on the development and renewal of our infrastructure. Roads, bridges, homes, and [commercial, industrial, and institutional] buildings make the physical fabric of our communities. A small, yet growing, portion of this global spending goes to the systems that make this infrastructure work; such as security, mechanical, electrical, and transportation systems.

These systems have always been part of the DNA of the underlying infrastructure for our communities (nothing new there). However, the difference is that they are becoming smarter and more capable to have a profound impact on the performance of the infrastructure. Where historically these systems were subservient to the bricks, beams, and concrete they were housed in; it now seems they are being elevated in importance. The intelligent systems have now the ability to make our infrastructure come to life – and provide greater value to those that depend on it.

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How Cisco Advanced Services help customers manage risk, accelerate time to market and maximize ROI

Posted on May 4, 2012 by

By James Sharp, Consulting Solutions Director, Cisco Canada

In order for any company to operate successfully, information systems and the network must work together to deliver services without disruption. However, figuring out which products are best suited to the environment and figuring out their implementation, is often a challenge that no business owner or IT manager has time to face.

Before deciding which technology products to invest in, businesses must go through a system delivery lifecycle process which includes six phases: prepare, plan, design, implement, operate and optimize.

But here’s something not many of our customers know about. At Cisco, we are able to add value across this entire planning lifecycle through our Advanced Services portfolio. Together with our partners, we can offer Canadian businesses the services they need, when they need them.

Whether it’s taking advantage of our professional consulting services, or warranties and break-fix options, or our remote managed services offering, we help customers better mitigate their operational risks, accelerate their time to market and achieve maximum ROI on their infrastructures, regardless of whichever lifecycle phase they are in. Customers are always telling me they strive to achieve all three of these things. And with our services, I tell them we can deliver.

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A Mother’s Day perspective

Posted on May 4, 2012 by

They’re back. Just when I was getting used to my house as an oasis of order and calm, the teenagers have returned. University is done for the year, and we are in that lull between the end of school, and the beginning of the summer job! Not to say I haven’t missed my son. I have. But there is something about coming home from a long day at the office to a basement full of 19 year old boys in various stages of repose in front of the big screen TV.  Every mother’s dream.

As Mother’s Day looms around the corner, it does make me think, in true ‘A” type fashion, how I have performed in the rearing of my three children. With one off to University, another on the verge, and the youngest (thank God) with us for at least another five years I am starting to see the end result of all those years of car pools, homework, weekday suppers, ballet lessons, lost sleep, lost shoes and hours and hours on wet, cold soccer fields. 

So how did I do? Did I focus enough on the project at hand? Did I use the right strategy? How was the execution model? Did we team appropriately and did I have my target engaged? How was the communication, the collaboration, the mutual respect.

Well. No arrests yet.

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How Bank of Montreal is demonstrating true transformation in Canadian banking

Posted on May 3, 2012 by

It’s always a great pleasure for me to report true customer transformation, particularly when a ‘big five’ Canadian bank goes public about a successful innovation to their client experience.

Operational for over a year now, Bank of Montreal (BMO) leads a fresh and exciting approach to serving existing customers, and to winning new ones, in their retail banking branches, Wealth Management offices and Private Banking suites around the world.

The concept is pretty simple: bring subject-matter experts or product specialist advice to valued clients via high-definition Cisco TelePresence technology from BMO centres of expertise (Head Office, Regional offices, Contact Centres or other BMO branches and offices). The client and market impacts have already proven dramatic!

This short video is BMO’s story — of how they worked with Cisco to develop an idea, pilot it, and then roll it out to over 100 sites. Not as a technology, but as a “market-facing” business innovation, and a very integral part of their customer-focused strategy. Here BMO executives share their approach, the impact, challenges and lessons learned.

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From Server Room to Board Room

Posted on April 30, 2012 by

Cisco Plus Canada – one of Canada’s leading IT and thought leadership conferences – will be hosted on Wednesday May 16th in Toronto’s Congress Centre. The event is designed for end-user customers and Cisco partners (Value-added Resellers, System Integrators…) to explore the synergies between business strategy and technology. This year, we have carved out some time to co-host a series of industry break-out sessions for C-Suite business decision makers, to make the conversation even more strategic and business relevant.

Gartner (2012) predicts that “by 2015, 35% of IT expenditures will be managed outside IT department’s budgets”. This means that IT is increasingly recognized for the impact it can have on addressing real business issues, as opposed to being merely a cost centre and resource for necessary tools and software applications. As companies are looking for strategic ways to stay ahead, take on competition, and innovate products and services, IT will become increasingly part of the business decision making process (moving out of the Server Room and into the Board Room)—as it should be.

With this shift in mind, IDC shows that end-user customers “complain about their technology vendors in relation to their vertical or industry strategy”. Vendors and suppliers lack the industry expertise, a true understanding of the business needs, and don’t have specific industry solutions.

Cisco is moving from the Server Room to the Board Room. We’re embracing business value for industry transformation and are building industry teams, with deep vertical industry expertise, and matching industry solutions and value-added industry relationships.

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Why being social will pay off at Cisco Plus Canada

Posted on April 27, 2012 by

After months of travelling across the country, our Cisco Plus Canada show is set to arrive in Toronto.

We met hundreds of IT professionals, networking architects and technology partners in our recent stops in Montreal, Edmonton, Vancouver and a host of other cities. Now it’s time for our biggest event of the year, with more than 1,600 expected attendees and 30 partners showcasing Cisco solutions.

Formerly known as Networkers Solution Forum, Cisco Plus Canada will be packed with Cisco educational and training experts ready to answer any technical questions you want to throw at them at our Cisco Pavilion and demonstration walls. The event will also be jam packed with sessions and demonstrations covering video/collaboration, borderless networks and next generation data centre/cloud computing technologies.

IT, business and communication professionals at organizations of all sizes should attend, especially if they have any interest at all in deploying, upgrading or learning more about Cisco technology.

After the tremendous attendee participation we received via Twitter and Facebook during our Canadian tour this winter, we’ve made a huge effort to make Toronto’s Cisco Plus Canada the most social yet. We encourage all conference attendees to follow us on Twitter and Facebook leading up to the event and have their mobile devices ready to snap pictures and post tweets on event day.

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Canada 3.0: Creating a dialogue for innovation across Canada

Posted on April 27, 2012 by

What a week for innovation this has been for Canadians.  Two simultaneous events took place, Canada 3.0 (@can3_0, #CDA30), in Stratford and the Saskatchewan 3.0 Summit (#sask3summit) in Regina.  Both events provided a platform for great creative dialogue on Canadian innovation.

Cisco Canada (@CiscoCanada) had the privilege of being the official technology sponsor for Canada 3.0. We provided the conference’s network infrastructure, both wired and wireless, as well as video conferencing capabilities to the two day event. If you aren’t familiar with Canada 3.0, this annual event gathers representatives from the private sector and public sector, as well as citizens, to exchange ideas around digital innovation in Canada.  This was the first time the conference had pervasive wireless access.  And what a success! Our wireless solution proved imperative, as attendees tweeted the conference hashtag #CDA30 all the way to the top of Canada’s trending list. I’m so pleased we were able to power this conference by providing the network platform for this rich dialogue. 

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Girls, are you ready to expand your horizons?

Posted on April 25, 2012 by

With the help of Canada’s volunteer committee – Genna Cargill and Francis Gotopo – I’m proud to share how Cisco Canada is participating in an exciting event for girls interested in technology.

As mentioned in my last blog, Thursday, April 26, 2012 is Girls in ICT Day, a day to invite young girls to experience, learn and celebrate Information Technology. This international event was established by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to promote the global development of girls and women. The celebration takes place across the globe and Cisco is an active participant internationally.

 

Together with local schools, partner companies and especially Cisco’s own Networking Academy, we aspire to bridge the gap between girls and information technology by raising awareness, creating education, and providing a positive influence for girls internationally.  

Why is it so important to bridge the gap between girls and the IT industry? Simply put, women are a huge, but largely untapped, resource to the IT industry. Consider these stats:

- Only 25% of IT tech jobs are held by women, yet women make up 56% of our workforce
- Teams that have at least one female member outperform all-male groups in collective intelligence tests
- 56% of women that enter the IT field leave their career for another industry

If these figures aren’t enough to convince you to get involved, then think about this: the return on investment is 34% higher for technology companies with more women in management. That’s a fact which can’t be ignored.

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