Cisco Live kicked off this morning with more than 20,000 attendees storming the streets of San Francisco and the Moscone Convention Center. I am so excited to be hosting Cisco Live again this year -especially because it's the 25^thAnniversary of this event, and this year we're back in the city that inspired our company's name and logo.

As attendees are getting settled in for an action-packed week, I want to highlight two dynamic experiences not to be missed at this year's conference:  our  Internet of Everything (IoE) Machine -a 20-by-20 foot interactive installation -and five Connected City interactive bus shelters. Both experiences simulate a journey through a connected city, showing how Cisco technology helps cities run like clockwork by connecting people, process, data and things.

Every day, in every city, an event takes place.  It could be a baseball game, a music concert or even an innovative conference like Cisco Live. No matter what it is, this event puts pressure on the host city around traffic, energy usage, etc.   But the Internet of Everything takes the stress off cities by making airports, roads, power grids, recycling cans, parking lots -you name it -all smarter so that events can go off without a hitch.

With these facts in mind, the IoE Machine and the Connected City interactive bus shelters use a real event, taking place on that particular day in San Francisco, then utilize real-time local data to individually cater the experience. After the user selects an event category, the IoE Machine and the Connected City bus shelter ads use several live API feeds to deliver real-time information including traffic, weather and food nearby. Each user's experience will be slightly different from the next, and even the same user will get a different experience if they try it again on a different day.

The IoE Machine also integrates with smartphones so that users are able to connect their smartphone to the installation via a mobile site. The mobile site utilizes a time code to deliver content that is linked to the action happening at that very moment in the machine, explaining how Cisco technology makes it happen.  For example, when a car reaches a streetlight on the installation, the content explains that Cisco Connected Grid Routers communicate with sensors to tell streetlights when to turn on and off, saving energy and keeping citizens safe.  There's so much to see and experience!

Can you tell I'm excited? If you are attending Cisco Live, I invite you to check out the IoE Machine, located at the Moscone Convention Center West, Level 1 near the Cisco Store. Not attending Cisco Live? No worries. You can visit one of our five San Francisco Connected City bus shelters located along Mission, Fourth and Howard Streets or download the free WIRED/Connective 2.0 app to experience the Connected City on your tablet.  Come see the Internet of Everything in action!