Choices Narrowed for First U.S. CTO
businessweek.com
businessweek.com
And of course, we have the business press more than happy to engage in a round of brown nosing, as they are always in need of "sources familiar with the matter" and "unidentified executives" for their gossipy insider stories (how do you think all of those articles come to fruition? Looking through garbage?).
As thbe CTO of America is likely to continue the grand tradition of Corporate America wherein people make lofty public statements, issue press releases, and then hope someone else will take care of that oh-so-difficult task of actually getting something done, I wholeheartedly support Padmasree Warrior for this job.
If you Google for my name + Motorola, you will see where I am coming from on this matter.
Do you have anything specific to criticize her for? Lumping someone in with a negative peer group, especially one who voluntary left for greener pastures, isn't a strong knock against them.
Yeah, AWESOME choice for the US CTO, Obama! That's change I can believe in!
I wonder if you would love to call it wisdom if warrior does the same as CTO of a whole nation - hopping into a golden parachute just before it slides down.
Come on, you need a founder's spirit and loyalty in all the top executives at least the CEO, COO, CMO and CTO if you need a company to exist and survive.
On a more serious note tho' you have to be real careful about giving entrenched industry people political power by appointment. Here in the UK we are still feeling the aftereffects of Beeching, a lifelong auto-industry man appointed by the UK government to look after transport. His plan was to tear up railway tracks, who needed them after all, when there were cars? Only now public mass transit is "in" and it's too late, the tracks are gone, the land has been sold off, what's left of the system is overloaded. You want to be real careful she doesn't start tearing out bits of physical infrastructure, it's hard to replace.
"We have this question today, this question of where mobile devices will go in the future. So the question at hand is, 'What is mobility, really?' And in my view, mobility is not the device. It's not the network. It is the mobile experience.
Mobility as a term has existed for quite some time, and for most of the time it has been synonymous with 'cellular network' and 'device'. This is because cellular networks were the first time we were truly free of wires. I think this has changed though, mostly because of the massive, enormous scale of adoption. More than three billion people on earth use a cellular device to communicate. Every second, four babies are born. In that same second, thirty mobile devices are sold. And we're just now starting to see the innovation beyond mere two-way communication in mobility."
This is a really, really amazing talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5K-xXUKlec
She gets mobile. And she understands the future of the internet.
Her blog on motorola was extremely popular. Motorola took it down when she quit. Why would any large company do that unless there was huge amount of disconnect and disharmony with the leader who quit.
I was a fan but it all fell like a landslide, guess in reality she had captured many in a charm. I feel she is an impressive self promoter, probably a strong techie but weak at strategy. My cousin worked at Motorola and from what I hear, she probably was one of the key reasons why motorala doomed in the mobile run. She apparently predicted iPhone would be a massive failure when moto let the popular Razr phones die.
Umm, most smart, passionate people can swing their strong opinions within minutes, when presented with the appropriate data. George Soros is legendary for this; he's been known to back out of billion dollar investments the next day. Most good managers are like this too.
The crucial part is data, and how they evaluate that data. And not having read the blog post, I can't say whether Warrior's thought process makes sense. But I really hate the idea that "Passionate people cling to their ideas at all costs" - that's responsible for most of the failures and wasted effort in the world today.
It is an exciting time to join Cisco.
Cisco is the company whose leadership legacy defines “The Network” in many ways. Today, it is a company driving many new paradigms in communications and information technology. In the future, it will be a company poised to lead the industry to the next phase of Internet evolution.
What are some of the characteristics of solutions driving the next wave of Internet evolution? We already see many precursors for this such as, Collaboration, Web 2.0, and Always-on Demand. Cisco has been at the forefront of this shift, where the network becomes the platform to deliver the next wave of applications and services.
Throughout its history, Cisco has demonstrated the ability to anticipate changes with a proven record of accomplishments for capturing market transitions. The company’s customer centric culture, unwavering commitment to technology, and passion for innovation, mark the platform for leadership. Leveraging the reality of globalization, integrating outside and inside ideation through well-executed acquisitions, a relentless focus on financials and flawless delivery of results, delineate Cisco’s platform for talent.
“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand” - Milton Friedman
A team of advisors would have sufficed but I guess the president needs someone more accountabile and of course lesser headache while ensuring this sector and its value spread across the rest is taken care of.
Even if you think that Obama's ideas will be absolutely brilliant, and think he be able to increase the power of government to cause change which you want, it is still short sighted to increase the power of government. The reason is, your guy won't always be in charge, and when he isn't, someone you disagree with will be able to use these newly expanded powers in ways you don't want.
Everytime someone says, well we need a CTO to do this, because otherwise, the other party will do that, that person is setting themselves up for extreme disappointment. When the other party comes into power, these new found powers will be used against you, and you will be worse off than you were to begin with.
National Heath care might seem like bad voodoo, but the government is already pay for over 1/2 of all medical spending in the US yet medical bills are still the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US. Most countries with a national heath care system spend less money per person and relative to their GDP than we do now and we still have a crappy patchwork. When a hobo shows up at a hospital he is going to get treatment and we are going to pay his bill but I still need to buy expensive medical insurance.
PS: I am a consultant working for the DoD and I have saved the US taxpayer millions. If you had any idea what games where being played you would probably also vote Democrat because it saves you money.
An interesting thing about him: when coming into power here in DC one of his first mandates was "District Government will operate off of the same data we make available to the public."
As such, remarkably, public data feeds coming out of the district got significantly better, more organized and more available.
Sounds obvious, but it was a big step for even a municipal Government to take.
Why does even business week get nailed with a bunch of jingoistic nonsense in their comments. I was hoping to read some interesting and informed thoughts, instead the comments read like Digg.