John Bell

Invited by Cisco’s Corporate Strategic Innovation Group to serve as a judge in the prestigious “Cisco Innovation Challenge” for 2016. Innovation Challenge Judges are required to think like venture capitalists, and be part of seeing the next “big thing” before everyone else, and help shake up markets for the better around the world.

For the past 3 years, Cisco has organized a public and open calling for all innovators, entrepreneurs, developers and researchers to submit disruptive ideas… Show more

Invited by Cisco’s Corporate Strategic Innovation Group to serve as a judge in the prestigious “Cisco Innovation Challenge” for 2016. Innovation Challenge Judges are required to think like venture capitalists, and be part of seeing the next “big thing” before everyone else, and help shake up markets for the better around the world.

For the past 3 years, Cisco has organized a public and open calling for all innovators, entrepreneurs, developers and researchers to submit disruptive ideas that transform industries and governments, and change the world. The Cisco Innovation Grand Challenge searches for the most disruptive digital solutions for a safer, more sustainable and connected world. Winners receive: mentoring by industry experts, space to work at Cisco innovation centers, trip to web summit in Lisbon to pitch with finalists, a share of $250,000 to jumpstart the venture.

Each year, there are typically over 5000 submissions, leading to 15 semi-finalists, 6 finalists, 3 winners. Industries include: Transportation, manufacturing, infrastructure, smart cities, retail, cybersecurity, education, and healthcare.

More at: http://innovationgrandchallenge.cisco.com Show less

As part of ongoing mobile strategy and innovation and Cisco's strategic relationship with Apple, partnered across the company to conceptualize, design, and deliver a yearly "Apple Developer Day" event at Cisco. The event itself brought in some of Apple's top talent in the iOS and HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) spaces to offer Cisco's internal developement teams first-hand access to talent, best practices, and both recent and pending Apple innovation. It also serves as a magnificent… Show more

As part of ongoing mobile strategy and innovation and Cisco's strategic relationship with Apple, partnered across the company to conceptualize, design, and deliver a yearly "Apple Developer Day" event at Cisco. The event itself brought in some of Apple's top talent in the iOS and HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) spaces to offer Cisco's internal developement teams first-hand access to talent, best practices, and both recent and pending Apple innovation. It also serves as a magnificent networking event bringing in Cisco's "best and brightest" in the mobile space, to showcase innovation, address common issues, and partner cross-functionally. The most recent event agenda, which occurred in April 2016, included: Apple/Cisco Partnership Overview, Cisco iOS/HIG Brand Guidelines/Overview, Evolving apps to 3D Touch gestures, tvOS (included SalesConnect PoC), developing for watchOS (included SalesMobile example), iPad Pro for Enterprise, and culimated with specific app deconstructions for 2 Cisco enterprise apps. The event is typically 50 - 80 attendees strong, and gains high marks as a coveted event each year for the developer and mobility community inside Cisco. Show less

Deliver an immersive, first-hand experience with innovative digital tools and capabilities that will disrupt and transform how Cisco sales teams sell and interact with customers. I served a lead role to drive the conceptualization, design, and delivery of a world-class trade show exhibit, which for the first time ever at Cisco’s Global Sales Experience (GSX) brought together Cisco’s Digital Selling tools and platforms into one physical showcase. This 20-booth experience enabled direct… Show more

Deliver an immersive, first-hand experience with innovative digital tools and capabilities that will disrupt and transform how Cisco sales teams sell and interact with customers. I served a lead role to drive the conceptualization, design, and delivery of a world-class trade show exhibit, which for the first time ever at Cisco’s Global Sales Experience (GSX) brought together Cisco’s Digital Selling tools and platforms into one physical showcase. This 20-booth experience enabled direct engagement between sales teams and Cisco’s sales digitization leaders, platform teams, seller listening, deepening their awareness and exposure to digitization opportunities that help them sell more and sell faster, today and in the future. The objectives here were to drive seller confidence, effectiveness and loyalty to Cisco, to more effectively enable the business outcomes Cisco's customers need. In terms of outcomes, we delivered 15K digital experience engagements to Sales during the 3-day event, with an average overall rating of 4.4 out of 5. Show less

Startup//Cisco is an internal grassroots movement designed to help Cisco teams operate and innovate like a startup. The mission is to help Cisco excel at innovating by using Lean Startup, Design Thinking, Agile and other methodologies, adapt them to Cisco, and then allow cross-functional teams to run with them to accelerate and increase entrepreneurial innovation.

In terms of my role in this program, I identified this movement as an internal development opportunity, for myself personally… Show more

Startup//Cisco is an internal grassroots movement designed to help Cisco teams operate and innovate like a startup. The mission is to help Cisco excel at innovating by using Lean Startup, Design Thinking, Agile and other methodologies, adapt them to Cisco, and then allow cross-functional teams to run with them to accelerate and increase entrepreneurial innovation.

In terms of my role in this program, I identified this movement as an internal development opportunity, for myself personally and for my organization, Digital Sales Strategy. I was selected to drive initial exploration, and then brought the fundamentals and methodologies back to core team to educate on the process. I also began building inroads with internal leadership (Seller Listening teams) to assess the opportunity of further adopting the methods, and assessing the potential change requirements, such as a more nimble engagement with our customer - Cisco's sales teams. I also established working cadence with StartUp//Cisco team to push and guide active project activities, as a method for further understanding the broader opportunity of adopting lean startup more holistically.

Identified within StartUp//Cisco program as a coach, I’ve also been invited to speak and inspire other within the program at future events. In addition, our lean experimentation started within the program has been held as a leading example of the power of the StartUp//Cisco program, and has been discussed as an example of program success at eStaff levels within the company. Show less

The era of Cognitive Computing is here; learning systems designed to collaborate with people, scaling and magnifying human cognition – and moving us from searching to “just asking". On behalf of Digital Sales Strategy, I led initial exploration, discovery, and experimentation for Cisco Sales into the disruption of cognitive computing and artificial intelligence, forming a high performance multi-disciplinary team consisting of strategy, user experience & platforms, user stories & requirements… Show more

The era of Cognitive Computing is here; learning systems designed to collaborate with people, scaling and magnifying human cognition – and moving us from searching to “just asking". On behalf of Digital Sales Strategy, I led initial exploration, discovery, and experimentation for Cisco Sales into the disruption of cognitive computing and artificial intelligence, forming a high performance multi-disciplinary team consisting of strategy, user experience & platforms, user stories & requirements, voice of customer, and seller listening. Partnering directly with sellers, we seeded the initiative in lean startup and design thinking, to drive quickly towards validated use cases and rapid prototype iteration, which resonated as potential “game changers” for our sales teams. Our initial work is already making an impact inside Cisco, to help push the company more thoughtfully towards this next wave of innovation and digital disruption, whereby our initial concepts and strategy are being highlighted by innovation centers of excellence (Startup//Cisco), internal cross-functional innovation events, internal employee news, as well as Cisco eStaff levels of exposure. This initiative was also highlighted by WW Systems Engineering executive leadership at Cisco's Global Sales Experience (GSX) 2017. Show less

Partnered with IT to conceptualize and develop a pre-MVP prototype as a "surprise and delight" innovation for Cisco Sales, showcasing the power of enterprise video delivery over AppleTV. "The SalesConnect Channel - Digital television for Cisco Sales Content". Access all of the great SalesConnect video content – Power Training, Executive Messaging, Virtual Team Recordings, Product Updates — directly from the convenience of AppleTV, within an immersive experience limited only by the size of… Show more

Partnered with IT to conceptualize and develop a pre-MVP prototype as a "surprise and delight" innovation for Cisco Sales, showcasing the power of enterprise video delivery over AppleTV. "The SalesConnect Channel - Digital television for Cisco Sales Content". Access all of the great SalesConnect video content – Power Training, Executive Messaging, Virtual Team Recordings, Product Updates — directly from the convenience of AppleTV, within an immersive experience limited only by the size of the flat-screen!  The opportunity was to allow users to pull their head out of their mobile device or laptop, and experience a whole new way to digest business video content, from the comfort of their livingroom home theatre. Concept was well received in initial seller exposures, and highlighted with Apple directly during Apple Developer Days event. Show less

As part of Cisco's active move into social selling, led investigative activity to identify digital methodologies designed to help sellers to improve their personal brand and presence online. Through industry technology radar investigation, identified a leader in the space (Kredible), and established initial partnership, as well as cross-funtional partnership across the sales organization, to conduct a 3-month pilot activity with 50 sellers. The pilot outcome was very successful, yielding an… Show more

As part of Cisco's active move into social selling, led investigative activity to identify digital methodologies designed to help sellers to improve their personal brand and presence online. Through industry technology radar investigation, identified a leader in the space (Kredible), and established initial partnership, as well as cross-funtional partnership across the sales organization, to conduct a 3-month pilot activity with 50 sellers. The pilot outcome was very successful, yielding an average of 40% improvement in "Kred Score" (akin to SSI - Social Selling Index), while also yielding extremely high net promoter scores from the pilot participants about the value of the service. In addition to the personal brand pilot, I led additional social selling infrastructure activities as Cisco moved more deeply into social selling practices, including deeper investigation into LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and the relevancy and readiness of that platform to broader audiences within Cisco's WW Sales organization. Show less

Led a conceptualization and prototyping activity, pulling together an "art of the possible" working prototype concept, focused on the power of social "big data" and insights therein, and the potential of what could happen by enabling this level of insight in the hands of Cisco sales teams on the go. Led working discussions cross-functionally with Cisco marketing teams, as well as leading industry talent (Refresh app team/CEO) to ideate and validate data science and availability, and then led… Show more

Led a conceptualization and prototyping activity, pulling together an "art of the possible" working prototype concept, focused on the power of social "big data" and insights therein, and the potential of what could happen by enabling this level of insight in the hands of Cisco sales teams on the go. Led working discussions cross-functionally with Cisco marketing teams, as well as leading industry talent (Refresh app team/CEO) to ideate and validate data science and availability, and then led mobility IT activity to create a working iOS prototype. This concept was selected and featured at Cisco's Digital Summit 2015, an all-day, company-wide event hosted by Cisco's marketing orgaization, with the goal of educating and promoting thought leadership cross-functionally on digital at Cisco. The concept provided a number of key product inspirations, and we now see these types of capabilities and insights as part of Cisco's Customer360/Insights initiative aspirational roadmap. Show less

Partnered cross-functionally with enterprise IT to help lead the conceptualization, design, development, and delivery of Cisco's enterprise mobile app store, known as eStore Apps, now servicing 70,000+ mobile users inside the company, and a Cisco-on-Cisco initiative. As part of a Sales Mobility team who led the first generation mobile app store (MAM) at Cisco, built at a WW Sales departmental level and servicing 15,000 sellers, I represented WW Sales mobile priorities & use cases within the… Show more

Partnered cross-functionally with enterprise IT to help lead the conceptualization, design, development, and delivery of Cisco's enterprise mobile app store, known as eStore Apps, now servicing 70,000+ mobile users inside the company, and a Cisco-on-Cisco initiative. As part of a Sales Mobility team who led the first generation mobile app store (MAM) at Cisco, built at a WW Sales departmental level and servicing 15,000 sellers, I represented WW Sales mobile priorities & use cases within the enterprise initiative, to share best practices, refine scope, target the MVP, and subsequently to align WW Sales to the company initiative. Once the enterprise app platform was ready, I assured that all mobile app, data, and user migration and comms activities were successful, and also drive adoption activities for Sales. The initiative simplified Cisco's infrastructure, drove significant cost savings for WW Sales and for the company, and delivered a more seamless and sclable experience for end users. Today, eStore Apps is the foundation of mobility for Cisco sellers, and the rest of the company as well. Show less

The GDS DataMart is an Oracle BI Solution enabling Cisco’s Global Demonstration Services reporting and metrics, and was built to hinge Demo program data to sales opportunity insight (SalesForce.com) and Cisco product bookings visibility, and also to support central visibility to operational metrics for the program. The DataMart platform pulled data from 10 source systems, and enabled over 50 self-service reports, significantly improving program metrics availability, insight, and team… Show more

The GDS DataMart is an Oracle BI Solution enabling Cisco’s Global Demonstration Services reporting and metrics, and was built to hinge Demo program data to sales opportunity insight (SalesForce.com) and Cisco product bookings visibility, and also to support central visibility to operational metrics for the program. The DataMart platform pulled data from 10 source systems, and enabled over 50 self-service reports, significantly improving program metrics availability, insight, and team productivity.
-Led IT-facing aspects of DataMart platform conceptualization, design, delivery, and ongoing maintenance and support
-Led concept commit, execute commit, and IT development cadence towards initial launch
-Partnered with key stakeholders to derive business enablement plan, support, training, governance
-Led 8 production releases post-launch, including all ongoing enhancement scoping, prioritization
-Led bug and issue remediation, and assured ongoing business continuity of the platform
-Enabled IT quick win process for platform, streamlining process for small but impactful enhancements
-Identified and led IT “get-well” plans as issues arose with data quality, IT support Show less

The Cisco Proof of Concept Labs are a fully interactive experience where account teams and Cisco customers work directly with engineers, on-site or virtually, in a state-of-the-art lab to conduct hands-on testing and validation of a Cisco design, with the goal of accelerating the sales cycle by instilling absolute confidence in the Cisco solution. These are world-class demonstration, testing and validation services, whereby 95% of opportunities that go through the labs result in winning the… Show more

The Cisco Proof of Concept Labs are a fully interactive experience where account teams and Cisco customers work directly with engineers, on-site or virtually, in a state-of-the-art lab to conduct hands-on testing and validation of a Cisco design, with the goal of accelerating the sales cycle by instilling absolute confidence in the Cisco solution. These are world-class demonstration, testing and validation services, whereby 95% of opportunities that go through the labs result in winning the business for Cisco.
-Led IT-facing aspects of the CPoC tools portfolio capability enablement (SchedMan/LabMan/Evalman -- scheduling, lab configuration, evaluation), including conceptualization, design, delivery, and ongoing maintenance and support
-Led concept commits, execute commits, and IT development cadence for production releases, including all enhancement scoping, prioritization
-Led bug and issue remediation, and assured ongoing business continuity of these automation platforms
-Partnered with key stakeholders to derive business enablement plans, support, training, governance
-Enabled IT quick win process for platform, streamlining process for small but impactful enhancements
-Identified and led IT “get-well” plans as issues arose with data quality, IT support Show less

Cisco's MOSES platform is the “Manager of SE Specialization”, a core sales platform covering Cisco Systems Engineer's Technology Area/Assignments, Technology and Vertical Expertise, Time Spent Supporting, Virtual Team membership, and other critical capabilities and insights which feed many facets of seller metrics and digitization. I was brought in as IT liaison to the platform, and to lead roadmap planning & execution for Field Sales.
-Identified issue with Field Utilization; made data… Show more

Cisco's MOSES platform is the “Manager of SE Specialization”, a core sales platform covering Cisco Systems Engineer's Technology Area/Assignments, Technology and Vertical Expertise, Time Spent Supporting, Virtual Team membership, and other critical capabilities and insights which feed many facets of seller metrics and digitization. I was brought in as IT liaison to the platform, and to lead roadmap planning & execution for Field Sales.
-Identified issue with Field Utilization; made data quality a top priority
-Improved data (SE Territory Assignment) accuracy by almost 40%, re-establishing field trust
-Completely re-engineered end to end user experience, yielding 30% CSAT improvement
-Led proritization, seller engagement, design, development, delivery for 12 releases covering 75 enhancements Show less

vSearch is a powerful search tool that allowed sales users to easily find, view, download just-in-time Cisco technical content. The usefulness of vSearch made it a core tool for Systems Engineers, due to it’s ability to search large volumes of video content, with keyword findability down to spoken word level.
-Brought in to stabilize the platform not long after initial launch, when it had scaled beyond it’s basic implementation. Advocating the business criticality of the tool, I partnered… Show more

vSearch is a powerful search tool that allowed sales users to easily find, view, download just-in-time Cisco technical content. The usefulness of vSearch made it a core tool for Systems Engineers, due to it’s ability to search large volumes of video content, with keyword findability down to spoken word level.
-Brought in to stabilize the platform not long after initial launch, when it had scaled beyond it’s basic implementation. Advocating the business criticality of the tool, I partnered with Cisco IT to enable a fully scaled hardware and software upfit for vSearch, aligning it with Cisco's infrastructure policies and standards, improving the user experience with features like single sign-on, and paving the way for future expansion.
-Led an enablement of Cisco's first internal web services integration between vSearch and Sales University, bridging formal and informal learning content into a converged user experience. Show less

As the digital learning champion for Cisco’s Sales organization, I led the business case, the prioritization/funding, and subsequently the enablement activities for a large, core LMS upgrade for Cisco, which improved the quality and effectiveness of digital learning across the entire company. The enablement was so complicated due to legacy customizations, it really was considered more of a new LMS implementation in terms of it’s scale, effort, and benefit.

My role as the operational… Show more

As the digital learning champion for Cisco’s Sales organization, I led the business case, the prioritization/funding, and subsequently the enablement activities for a large, core LMS upgrade for Cisco, which improved the quality and effectiveness of digital learning across the entire company. The enablement was so complicated due to legacy customizations, it really was considered more of a new LMS implementation in terms of it’s scale, effort, and benefit.

My role as the operational leader for Sales was to validate the value of the investment with executive leadership and to secure partial funding, to assemble the team and assess the impact and work required, and then execute on the work over the following year, leading all aspects of IT, Op, and Business readiness. This 18-month journey yielded many new capabilities and improvements to the core of the learning architecture at Cisco, including significant experience and backend performance improvements, learning map automation, new modes of digital learning, significantly lower maintenance costs, as well as new automation around talent development.

My role also required heavy cross-functional partnerships with HR IT, deep vendor partnerships, as well as strong alliances with other business units across the company. For my leadership and contributions, I was twice awarded the IT Award as part of the LMS Migration Core team. Show less

For the first time ever at Cisco, the SalesConnect sales enablement content platform allows Cisco sellers and Partners to easily access relevant and recommended content in a single digital consumption environment, available across devices (mobile/desktop/services), developed and maintained based on seller research, personalized for who they are and how they sell. I served a lead role in the initial conceptualization, design, development and delivery of the platform as a charter member of the… Show more

For the first time ever at Cisco, the SalesConnect sales enablement content platform allows Cisco sellers and Partners to easily access relevant and recommended content in a single digital consumption environment, available across devices (mobile/desktop/services), developed and maintained based on seller research, personalized for who they are and how they sell. I served a lead role in the initial conceptualization, design, development and delivery of the platform as a charter member of the SalesConect core team, leading the initial enablement strategy (make/build/buy decision) and setting direction there, leading content consumability efforts to facilitate a "mobile first" implementation, and working cross-functionally to align and leverage existing end user engagement models to support the experience through Cisco's Partner/Seller Helpline, keeping our engagement costs flat. Moreover, served as a core team member across all aspects and decisions relating to initial launch, and feature prioritization of SalesConnect for the next several releases, including the enablement of a desktop solution. Drove additional efforts to align legacy mobile content initiatives to the new content standard for sales and partners. At last count, the SalesConnect sales enablement platform has over 100k unique sales and Partner users, adopted by 90% of Cisco sellers, and has a Q/Q repeat use rate of 55%. Show less

Selected to join a small, high-performing team at the onset of the mobility change wave within Cisco, to lead key activities and virtual teams around a lean program designed to innovate, evolve, manage, and support Seller Mobility at Cisco, regularly touching 15,000 mobile Cisco salespeople around the world. The program centered around a highly tailored mobile app store for Sales (the “AppFridge”), a core set of highly utilized and coveted mobile apps covering mobile sales productivity and… Show more

Selected to join a small, high-performing team at the onset of the mobility change wave within Cisco, to lead key activities and virtual teams around a lean program designed to innovate, evolve, manage, and support Seller Mobility at Cisco, regularly touching 15,000 mobile Cisco salespeople around the world. The program centered around a highly tailored mobile app store for Sales (the “AppFridge”), a core set of highly utilized and coveted mobile apps covering mobile sales productivity and approvals, mobile expenses, virtual expert engagement, plus a portfolio of 40 additional sales apps, bound by a tight and ongoing engagement with the voice of the sellers. While part of this team, I led a number of facets of the program, such as the app beta program, production governance and app onboarding , consultancy and best practices to teams building mobility for Sales & Partner audiences, drove IT infrastructure expansion to support disruptive needs of the mobility program, led user support model design and centralization across app landscapes, championed sales priorities at an enterprise level and cross-functionally, while establishing partnerships within the industry across mobility leaders such as Apple, Apperian, Microsoft, IBM, Box.com, SAP, iPass, as well as Cisco-on-Cisco capabilities. In addition, I led several mobile SCRUM lifecycle engagements end to end, seeing the initiatives through from ideation and concept, to post-launch care and feeding. The Sales Mobility program regularly scored high marks from sales teams for delivering critical mobile capabilities, and as a uniquely positioned team inside the company holding the wherewithal to respond quickly to the mobile disruption. The success of the Sales Mobility/AppFridge model was later used as a success blueprint for the evolution of Cisco's enterprise app store model known as eStore Apps, which today supports over 70,000 mobile users around the world, and is outlined in separate project summary. Show less

A shining example of a Sales Mobility app, Cisco SalesMobile, offers a wealth of highly valued mobile seller capabilities, all within one integrative mobile user experience. As part of my lead role on the Sales Mobility team, I helped drive activities for this ongoing initiative which were centered around innovation and expansion of capability, user support, cross-functional integrations, store and mobile infrastructure readiness, and ongoing adoption activity.

SalesMobile has grown to… Show more

A shining example of a Sales Mobility app, Cisco SalesMobile, offers a wealth of highly valued mobile seller capabilities, all within one integrative mobile user experience. As part of my lead role on the Sales Mobility team, I helped drive activities for this ongoing initiative which were centered around innovation and expansion of capability, user support, cross-functional integrations, store and mobile infrastructure readiness, and ongoing adoption activity.

SalesMobile has grown to allow Sellers and Managers approve partner and non-standard deals, view critical business reports, check bookings and commissions, view the status of orders and request an order expedite, search and review customer support cases and the sales team directory. It also offers seamless punch-outs to additional portfolios of capability, such as expense management, virtual expertise engagement, sales content, and supply chain visibility and management.

Further, SalesMobile processes an average of $1.5 billion to $2 billion in Cisco revenues each quarter, and accelerates the approval of non-standard sales deals by up to 40 percent, helping Cisco receive those revenues much sooner. In addition to supporting tablets and smartphones, SalesMobile capabilities have been extended to the Apple Watch to the delight of many Cisco sellers who wear them, and continues to be one of the highest downloaded and utilized mobile apps inside of Cisco today. Show less

Cisco’s Worldwide Sales Force Competency Development (SFCD) Initiative created an integrated, easy to use process and user interface to support development of the Sales Force competency, under a single competency development process and a single integrated environment called myDevelopment. Partnering directly with field sales, SFCD improved Cisco’s response to change in the marketplace through a competency-based approach for managing and targeting field sales development, by ensuring a… Show more

Cisco’s Worldwide Sales Force Competency Development (SFCD) Initiative created an integrated, easy to use process and user interface to support development of the Sales Force competency, under a single competency development process and a single integrated environment called myDevelopment. Partnering directly with field sales, SFCD improved Cisco’s response to change in the marketplace through a competency-based approach for managing and targeting field sales development, by ensuring a strategic alignment of human capital with business strategy, enabled through an always-available, customized sales learning plan.

My role on the program was as a digital project leader focused on the myDevelopment platform enablement. I led aspects of user experience design, platform and site management, IT engagement and learning architecture integrations, requirements vetting, business rules management, and the ongoing management of releases. Additional digital leadership around creation of rich media adoption support, such as user training simulations. Show less