2023-June-27
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You Had Me at “Hologram”
BY BRETT BRALLEY · THOUGHT LEADERSHIP CONTENT WRITER · UNITED STATES
WITH TANA FRANKO
4 MINUTE READ · 6 MINUTE LISTEN
I’ve spent my career telling interesting stories for lifestyle magazines, news outlets, and university publications.
When I got an offer to join the team of innovators at Cisco who designed and built the industry’s first real-time photorealistic holographic collaboration tool, I couldn’t pass it up.
Spearheaded by two Cisco visionaries — Innovation Director Elizabeth Bieniek and CTO/Fellow Cullen Jennings — Webex Hologram is already in the hands of real customers, and it’s transforming how we do hybrid work.
The novel technology brings collaborators together in full 3D, like in real life. How cool is that?
I've learned that innovation is fueled, not forced.
My job is to craft narratives for the big ideas emerging from Security and Collaboration’s CTO Team.
Those ideas have an impact across Cisco and the industry — whether it’s transforming hybrid collaboration as we know it or defining Internet standards like Messaging Layer Security.
How does a team keep innovating after something as groundbreaking as holograms? Here are a few tools our CTO Team uses that any team can adopt and adapt to its situation.
1. Schedule innovation.
The CTO Leadership Team schedules a few days of innovation pitches each year. Ideas on collaboration or cloud security are welcome from all, no matter your job title. (More on that below.)
Everyone with an idea pitches it to our team. A panel evaluates each pitch against our criteria:
- Does it solve a clear problem?
- Is there a path to market? Can we tell there's a market fit early on?
- Does Cisco have a strong and sustainable advantage?
- Does the idea fit Cisco’s culture and brand?
2. Dream, "What if?" and listen to all ideas.
Anyone on the team can make a pitch — not just the engineers. We all bring different perspectives, skills, and life experiences. As Elizabeth explains, sometimes the best engineering ideas come from non-engineering sources.
The next step is combining skillsets to bring the idea to life. This is just how Hologram started.
Elizabeth says, “I wanted to build teleportation. I started with an end-state and something not technologically feasible. Then we started applying cutting-edge engineering to push the envelope and build something new.”
3. Take it “out of office.”
Once we have our next idea, it’s time to get to work. But what do you do when your team is spread throughout the U.S., Canada, Norway, and the U.K.?
Pick a time and place to meet up, of course.
For one three-day offsite, we met at Cisco’s Chicago office. It was a direct flight for most of our team members and more affordable than the San Jose headquarters.
We made time for fun between brainstorming, exchanging ideas, and sharing new skills.
Icebreakers got us out of our comfort zones. Digital scavenger hunts and building bridges from marshmallows and spaghetti helped me laugh and get creative with my colleagues — many of whom I was meeting for the first time.
We also did some sightseeing: I got my sky-high view of the Windy City from atop the Willis Tower.
Innovation calls for flexibility and inclusion.
Ultimately, we decided our new idea didn't have the potential we had hoped for.
But our in-depth discussion did point us to our next steps to improve audio and video quality in Webex, increase scalability, and reduce costs.
Our team understands part of innovation is knowing when to set an idea aside. So we did. On to the next!
When I joined my team, I had major imposter syndrome. (Let’s be real; it lingers.) But our leadership helps silence that inner naysayer.
A few weeks before Elizabeth headed out for a much-deserved sabbatical, she spoke on innovation leadership at Dev Innovation Summit 2022. Something she shared stuck with me: She and Cullen were intentional in their hires, passing on good talent because they wanted a “no-ego team.”
“There is no ‘experts versus support' distinction,” she added. “Everyone has a seat at the table. We all share a common goal to build the impossible.”
At our Chicago offsite, Cullen declared that everyone on the team should make it a goal to become an author on a patent.
“Well, he doesn’t mean me,” I thought. Surely he was only talking to the engineers on staff.
“And if you think I don’t mean you,” he added, “I do.”
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