I remember when I was a kid being blessed to be able to go to the Circus. The entertainers were amazing and the clowns, well not so much! One thing I always recall from attending those shows as a kid was the balance that was on display from the entertainers up on the tight rope! Truly amazing to walk the line and showcase their balance. As our team heads into another IBC, that notion of balance once again is something I am drawn to. You see, we want to be balanced in our approach to innovation while at the same time industrializing the media and entertainment business. This year's IBC will showcase that balance as Cisco and its partners walk that tight rope of innovation and industrialization. Let me describe a few of the things we are balancing:

Innovation:

• This year we are showcasing our partnership with Nvidia and Artificial Intelligence. AI which will help the Media Industry with audio-driven facial animation, phase-functioned neural networks, color matching, resampling and a variety of automating meta-data that can be connected to improve data analysis and decision making and new ways of targeting advertising. By working with Nvidia we will be developing customized solutions using a suite of SDK's to accelerate the creation of deep neural networks, as well as training and interfacing from the desktop to the cloud. Talk about innovation!
• Cisco will once again be front and center showcasing one of the largest IP Networking Interop demos for Media during the IBC Show in the Cisco booth as well as part of the IP Showcase. The IP Showcase has been a feature at major industry trade shows since IBC2016 and has been instrumental in helping the industry to galvanize behind the standards-based approach to IP. The event is hosted by major technical and standards organizations within the broadcast industry - Audio Engineering Society (AES), Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA), European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers^?(SMPTE^?), and Video Services Forum (VSF).
• Our Data Center team will be showcasing a number of workflows around storage, asset management, object storage and multi-cloud including virtualized media production workflows and remote production capabilities. You will see these and how Media Industry specific use cases are driving future product development at Cisco and our partner ecosystem!

Industrialization:

• Training: Our Industry Training for IP Broadcast delivered by Learning@Cisco is off and running! We estimate that over 100,000 people in the industry are looking for industry-wide training to help them make the move and skill set transition from broadcast to IP. We offer a basic class and an advanced class depending on the needs of the customer or partner.                                                             
• Specialty Authorization Program for Media: Programs have been part of the hallmark of success at Cisco. This program is designed to help streamline and enable partners to gain a better understanding of our IP Fabric for Media solution, provide a roadmap for their personal to learning how to design, sell and implement IP Fabric for Media Solutions.
• Media Industry Recognition & Certification: This program is designed for partners to distinguish themselves as a media industry partner as they work with Cisco, which in exchange will grant them incentives and visibility within the Cisco, the partner community and our customer base through a specific industry authorization.

You see that balancing act between innovation and industrialization is so important. Can't wait to show you that at IBC.

Here are a couple additional resources that we also have for our Media Industry partners to use as they industrialize their work in Media & Entertainment:

• Cisco Media case studies and industry overview: www.cisco.com/go/media
• Industries Transformation Partner Guide: http://cs.co/customerin (select "media")
• Embrace the partner ecosystem that Cisco has in Media, with tools such as the Ecosystem Partner Locator http://cs.co/epl

Want the latest from Amsterdam? Follow along with the hashtags#CiscoIBC and#IBC2018, and check out this "show-verview" blog previewing this year's event.