In today's hyper-fast, hyper-competitive digital age, it's increasingly clear from talking with customers and partners that leading companies must share and leverage each other's best practices.
No single company -no matter how big and successful -can navigate today's mass digitization of business and society alone. That's why we at Cisco are finding that Inclusion is the New Innovation. This is as true for unleashing the potential of technology as it is for tapping the diverse talents of people.
I know this through my role in leading Market Acceleration for Human Resources at Cisco. We engage with key customers and partners to explore and co-create new business outcomes that not only improve performance but also spark new approaches to innovate a t the intersection of inclusion, diversity, collaboration, and technology.
From these engagements, I have learned that all types of organizations are challenged by seismic shifts in the workplace -demographics, diversity, distributed leadership, flexible work styles, collaboration, and much more. HR strategies must get in front of all of this, and digitization, to drive competitive advantage.
At the center of all this positive disruption are people - their brilliant ideas and solutions. That's why I am so excited about Cisco's large presence this year at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW) festival in Austin, TX -one of the world's largest gatherings of creative forces.
At SXSW Interactive, March 11-15, leaders from Cisco's Inclusion & Collaboration organization, along with the Collaboration Technology Group (including Tropo), Talent Brand and Web Vertical groups will be there to listen, learn and share best practices with some of the world's best coders, developers and business minds.
Here are some of the areas where we will be interacting with attendees at SXSW:
Throughout SXSW, we will be creating many other impactful experiences -what we call Moments that Matter -with customers, partners and other thought leaders. We are all faced with the universal challenges now of putting strategies into place that foster a culture of innovation.
And in harnessing the true potential that comes from the people, leading companies worldwide are discovering how Inclusion & Collaboration ignites performance, engagement, and innovation -Inclusion is the New Innovation.
I can't wait to listen, learn and share ideas with others at SXSW, where a festival of new innovations will take place.
What are your thoughts on how inclusion and diversity can ignite innovation?