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Leading from the Inside Out: The Power of Deep Blue Leadership
One of the most profound and difficult aspects of leadership is instilling in individuals deeply held, and yet generally shared principles to motivate a common purpose. Leading by influencing one's sense of identity and purpose is both powerful and...
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Creating Your Advisory Board
Just like everyone else, once upon a time - luckily well before having started my own gig - I too asked the question: “Why do I need advisors at all? I know what to do.” Then a mentor of mine asked me, “Tom if you know what to do, how to do it and...
Innovation Management – the harsh facts of life for all innovators
Your opinion doesn’t matter. The end user’s does
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.
There are other useful...
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Financial Services Marketing Insights: A Marketing Compass
What we now call “marketing” began long before the name was coined. In the mid-1800s, traveling salesmen dressed “snake oil" and other tonics in fancy packaging and extolled their virtues to a gullible public. New marketing applications soon...
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Cisco: Inching Us Towards True Covergence
Cisco acquires Scientific Atlanta, with the hope of combining
the various home networks: video, data, voice, audio. In one
stroke, Cisco has positioned itself at the pinnacle of the
Network Convergence debate.
Only two companies had a complete lock over the channel serving
the STB market: Motorola and Scientific Atlanta. With today's
acquisition, Cisco cuts through the barrier to enter the STB
market, and with it, acquires a massive opportunity to lead the
innovation in home networking. Neither Motorola, nor SA had
enough of the other pieces. Cisco does.
Imagine the future of the Home Network ...
One, just One box from Cisco sits as a Gateway Server for ALL
the home networks, with a fat pipe coming into it. Services can
be turned on and off remotely, as the consumer pays. Various
Clients - all Wireless, of course - plays off this Server: The
VOIP/VideoOIP phone handset / headset / Camera, the TV, the PC,
the Laptop, ...
This server is both a smart Set-Top-Box and a big storage device
with PVR, DVD, DVR, Digital Music Console, Wireless Router.
Cisco already has great Storage Networking technology in-house,
although tailoring that down to
consumer-level idiot-proofing
will continue to be a challenge. The driver, of course, is that
consumers would want to view, listen, communicate over multiple
displays / speakers / handsets - all around the house. The specs
also include catering to a secure, authenticated, multi-user
environment.
In a nutshell, the STB was extremely important in the
food-chain, and now that Cisco has got its hands on that vital
piece, including solving the channel challenge, we can dream.
So far, a true Home Network convergence device was not possible.
Now it is.
ps. Configuring and managing Home Networks will be a big
profession, and this job cannot be outsourced as easily. A
largely non-tech savvy consumer population will demand that
service personnel come out to their homes and fix things. Who
pays? Consumer or Carrier? Without this support, Convergence
will not cross the chasm.
About the author:
Silicon Valley Entrepreneur and Strategy Consultant Sramana
Mitra writes about Entrepreneurship, Business Strategy, Emerging
Technology, Market Moves, and sundry other topics in her Blog
"Sramana Mitra on Strategy". Read more of her writing at
http://www.sramanamitra.com.
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