Who 2 E2

Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers has been expressing his excitement about Web 2.0 and its potential productivity gains in interview after interview saying things like :

“There is a fundamental shift in the industry and it’s occurring much faster than any market transition I have seen so far…This will usher in what I believe will be a generation of productivity that will change not only how we work, where we work, but the very nature of work itself.”

Even though Cisco has a lot to gain by the world increasing internet traffic with Web 2.0 they have demonstrated some of their own impressive successes with Enterprise 2.0.   Chambers puts it this way

“Web 2.0 has been around but at Cisco we’re doing it with a vengeance.” 

One of the things I found most compelling in the Cisco story is how John Chambers has successfully driven innovation from the bottom with Web 2.0 collaboration while in his own words he himself is a “command and control person”.  They’ve achieved this yin and yang by matching strong leadership, tough objectives and a “measure everything” mentality with an aggressive, open collaboration model with Web 2.0 tools.  Set the goals, provide the tools and let people find ways to meet those goals as productively as possible.   Beautiful isn’t it.  For those managers and executives that are still scared of losing control by letting Web 2.0 into their enterprises, this is a comfort case study. 

One final quote from Chambers because I thought this hit right on.   As exciting as Web 2.0 is right now, I agree that it will take us years to fully realize the potential gains in productivity. 

“I think it (productivity gains via Web 2.0) will be a five to ten-year run. Where I think we are is right at the very early beginning of the next phase of this creativity, which will last, I think, a minimum of ten years, probably 15 years. But it will have more impact (than Web 1.0) because the power of many to many allows you to do things at a dramatically different speed.”

Usage

• “Ciscopedia” wiki (of course the Cisco Wikipedia)
• “I-Zone” wiki for cultivating ideas as a key component to their very successful intrapreneurship which is generating new businesses within Cisco.  I-Zone has generated 400 business ideas with 10,000 people actively contributing to the ideas.  “we just did three billion-dollar market opportunities without my knowing about it.”, Cisco CFO referring to Emerging Technology executive Martin de Beer’s response to I-Zone.
• Text and video blogs
• Employee profiles (internal version of MySpace) which provides the basics such as title, contact information, etc as well as video, notes, blog, roles, expertise, instant messaging, video messaging.
• Social bookmarking: “We’re going to use social bookmarking to allow us to take the pulse of the organization” 
• Telepresence.  Cisco’s new telepresence product is their new shining star.  There’s hope that it really does allow us to feel like we’re in the same room with our partner in Bangalore.

Advantages Seen

• Significantly faster closing and integration of acquired companies such as closing the WebEx acquisition in 8 days.  Cisco has been acquiring a new company every 3 weeks on average in 2008.  (Yes, the Borg will require you to speak Web 2.0)
• Ideas generated from their I-Zone wiki which have launched new products and entire business units.
• Reducing expenses and carbon footprint by reducing business travel.
• Faster business unit development.  Cisco grows one new emerging technology business unit about every 3 months. 
• “I’m comfortable that I can grow productivity at 10% per year for the next decade (because of social networking / collaboration).”, Chambers

Biggest Challenge

“Simple matter of people…Technology will not be the inhibitor.  Technology will really outstrip our ability to adjust to it as people.”, Chambers

Who Says

• Fortune, “Cisco’s display of strength”, Oct 31, 2007
• All Things Digital, “Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers: The Entire D5 Interview with Kara Swisher“, Sept 11, 2007
• CIO, “Cisco CEO John Chambers on Web 2.0, Collaboration, Avatars and Mashups”, July 13, 2007
• Cisco blogs
  David Hsieh, Nov 5, 2007.
  Nick Earle, VP Services, Cisco Eurpoe, Feb 01, 2007
• Harvard Business Review, “To Succeed in the Long Term, Focus on the Middle Term”, Geoffrey A. Moore, July-August 2007
• InternetNews.com, “Chambers: The Network is The Power of Us”, May 22, 2007
• ZDNet, “Cisco CEO: Virtualisation to fuel second web boom”, Sept 17, 2007.
• Financial Times, “Interview: Cisco’s John Chambers”, July 15, 2007

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