Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Aruna Ravichandran - Chief Marketing Officer at Webex by Cisco

Episode Date: November 2, 2021

Welcome to another episode on The Radcast! In this episode on The Radcast, host Ryan Alford talks with Aruna Ravichandran, the Chief Marketing Officer at Webex by Cisco!Aruna talks about her beginnings, entering the tech field at an early age. She shares the challenges she’s encountered, and her most remarkable accomplishments. Aruna also talks about her views on how she envisions the future of technology, plus her inspirations for writing her book ‘DevOps for Digital Leaders’. Aruna also shares future developments and plans for the Webex brand.🚀Aruna also has a quick take on our latest segment of RAD or FAD trending topics;Video callingTik tokOatmilkHybrid WorkLearn more about Aruna Ravichandran: LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/aruna2u/; Twitter @aruna13 If you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, let us know by visiting our website www.theradcast.com. Like, Share and Subscribe on our YouTube account https://bit.ly/3iHGk44 or leave us a review on Apple Podcast. Be sure to keep up with all that’s radical from @ryanalford @radical_results @the.rad.cast If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

As a marketeer, you know, you have to learn the art of distilling between the forest and the trees. As an engineer, you think about the features in your product and you're not actually programmed to think about the larger picture. The thing which I've always stood at is have the ability to take the risk but never give up on it. It's a W, right? It's a rotating helix. But if you look at the logo, it actually represents, you know, two hands coming together. You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford.

Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. I'm Ryan Alford, your host. We're getting radical today, folks. Got a good one today. We've been working on, hey, you know, we talk about this at the agency. We've been working on some Cisco. We've been helping our partner ScanSource. And I'm really excited to have Aruna Ravi Chandran on the show, the CMO of WebEx by Cisco. Aruna, welcome to the show.

Oh, I am so excited to be here, and thank you for having me this morning. It's my pleasure. It's my pleasure. I trust that you are staying safe and sound there in California, and all things are sunny and beautiful like it here is in South Carolina. It's still steamy here. It's still 92 degrees yesterday. You guys hitting any fall weather yet?

Not yet, and that's why we have to pay the weather tax living in California. Exactly. Hey, I'll be in California in a few weeks. I'm going on another podcast and meeting some clients out there. So I'll be on the West Coast. So maybe we can hook up. Who knows? Aruna, I do want to start. You're the CMO of a gigantic company and group within WebEx. Video calling is all the rage in work from home. It was kind of moving that direction anyway, but certainly the pandemic, for good or bad, has had a lot of impacts on technology and other things.

I know we'll get to some of that, but I'd love, I think you're such an inspiration in your position, in what you've done, and your history. I'd really love to just kind of start there for everyone, just giving your background and professional highlights and things like that. Sounds good. So I was born and raised in India. And very earlier on, my career path in India was actually chosen for me by my mom, who's a big inspiration. And I was told that I had to pick three career paths. I had a choice and I had to pick only one of them. It's an engineer, a doctor or a loser. And very early on, I loved, loved math. And I decided to basically pursue a career in engineering. And so fast forward, got my bachelor's in computer science, came into the United States, had a very, very successful career as a group from an engineer to an architect into an engineering director at Hewlett Packard.

And these were the days, you know, the pre.com days. And 10 years into a very successful career, I decided that I'm going to make a pretty big and a risky move and decided to go into the darker side of the business, which is all about marketing, because I knew that I could make a bigger impact. Because even while I was in engineering, while I was a really good engineer, I always, always gravitated towards the voice of the customer. engineer, I always, always gravitated towards the voice of the customer. And I also believe that the symbiotic marriage of technology and marketing together was an untapped supercharger, which pretty much will help in terms of innovation and growth, not just for my career, but also I could play a big role in terms of being able to help technology companies. And now I see the world in a very different way through the lens of a CMO. And I also believe that now technology can change the world, connect us in different ways, and also can make it a very, very,

can give us an opportunity to create an equitable and inclusive playing field that no one is actually left behind. And so given that, you know, I've now been on the marketing side for about 15 plus years, and it's been a continuous journey of learning. And as a marketeer, you know, you have to learn the art of distilling between the forest and the trees. As an engineer, you think about the features in your product and you're not actually programmed to think about the larger picture. And so the part which I love about marketing is the ability to basically, like I said, distill between the forest and the trees. But it's about the story. It's about creating a narrative where you have the ability to have both an emotional as well as a connection to your audience, which are the customers.

And so that's been my career path. It was a pretty risk career path because when you make a change like that after a very successful engineering career, you don't know what you don't know. But I am blessed, grateful, and really happy from actually taking the chance and making a shift into the marketing side. I love it. A lot to unpack there. I guess you can go back. You should have told your mom, I love it. A lot to unpack there. I guess you can go back.

You should have told your mom, engineer, doctor, marketer, or was it loser? It was. Throw marketer in there. But hey, you bring the technical side of the engineering, which is the science, if I can call it that. the engineering, which is the science, if I can call it that. But you had this natural, we're kindred spirits, this natural humanity that, you know, comes with, you know, the art of storytelling. And it sounds like, you know, you've been able to kind of bring those two sides together because a lot of times, you know, marketers don't necessarily, a lot of them, that's not a standard career path. It's usually like one or the other, like I'm into the building blocks of engineering of how these things happen or these products are built

versus the art of telling about them in some unique way. That's a pretty unique path. It definitely is a huge advantage because if you think about B2B companies, technology tends to be pretty complex. And so, like I said, I'm definitely grateful for my engineering background because it gives me the ability to build a narrative at a higher level, but also gives me the ability and a seat at the table with my customers so that I can dig deep into the product side. So very, very grateful for that and enjoy actually doing that. And a big part of that is on the marketing side, it's opened up a lot of doors, especially at least for me.

And through my 25-year career, I've built a lot of very, very positive relationships with a lot of C-suite, like CIOs and CTOs. And definitely grateful for my engineering background, because I have an opportunity to have a deep technical discussion with them if needed. What do you think about, I mean, you know, in the US, you know, the engineering path is not a common path for women, you know, like, I'd love, I have to think and know, you know, just from reading about you and leading into this that you've been an inspiration in a lot of ways. But how would you compare those paths, growing in India versus

US and how a lot of women come in marketing for sure, but it seems like the engineering path isn't as common. I mean, is that something you take on or you talk about much? Yes, very much so. So like I said, in India, it was made easy for me because my mom actually gave me a career track to actually pick. But coming into the United States, I'm a mother of two girls, one who's 19 years old and another one who's 23 years old. And it was a challenge to basically get them to start thinking about embracing a STEM career because growing, I watched both the girls as they grew up in the United States, both of them were born and raised here. And it's, I fundamentally believe that in high school is when kids actually make up their mind right like so you

go to a college you can pick and you might not have to pick a major and people don't know what they don't know and I pretty much had to have a lot of arm wrestling both with my girls in order to basically get them to start thinking about STEM and now one of my daughters is a data scientist, works for Twilio. And while she basically arm wrestled with me throughout her high school, when she went into college, she realized, you know, what an amazing opportunity it actually provided for her. And there are not many people who actually go into a computer science degree over here. And I think out of her class, she went to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

And out of her class, I think of about 500, 600 people, there was less than 2% of the students who actually were in her computer science major. So I think fundamentally what I've seen is the younger generation, the girls don't know. seen is the younger generation the girls don't know and so they they pick a path being influenced by whoever they actually meet at that particular time and i do believe and i'm very passionate about that particular topic and once they go into college it's very hard to basically make the switch and so you need to start in middle school and high school in terms of being able to influence the younger generation, especially women, because I think girls tend not to choose a STEM career because they probably feel that it's a tough choice, even though they're smart enough. And being able to

stay at it is also a very hard thing to do. So I agree with you 100%. Yes. And, you know, there must be some smart genes in the family because those are not easy. Like you nailed it there at the end, some difficult career choices. But hey, the path to greatness isn't always easy. It is not. Yes. Talk about, you know, and I want to lead, I want to talk about your book. I want to talk more about WebEx and all those things. But I do want to stay down this path of, you know, kind of your background and being a mother in the career. I think there's some interesting things there.

I think it'd be interesting for our audience. But what's it been like? I mean, you're, I don't want to say there's no telling where you're headed, but you're at a very high point in your career, a place where a lot of people would like to be. And you've done it as a mother raising children. I mean, what's that experience been like? It's definitely a balance and it's tough, right? Like I always tell people, you can probably be very good at two things. Two things.

And that is a true statement, at least from myself. If you want to be a jack-of-all of all trades, master of none, so be it. But if you really want to be good at your discipline or really want to be good as a mother, you have to make a lot of hard choices. And I did a lot of hard choices during my career in order to raise my two girls. One of them is, like I said, I have to tell you a little bit about the risk I took. It was not just about making a switch from engineering to marketing.

I actually was an engineering director managing a global team around the globe. And one day I came back home and my younger one, Tanya, was I think about seven years old. And I decided that, yep, I have decided to pursue my passion which is an unknown passion and move into marketing side and I remember at that time my family thought I'm going through midlife crisis because nobody actually wants to give up a

very successful career and went back started to interview internally at that time I worked at Hewlett Packard and I I realized that, you know, it was not very easy to make a parallel move. I couldn't move from an engineering director into a director for marketing. So I ended up taking a demotion, a three-level demotion, which is why I said that the family thought

I was going through midlife crisis and became a product manager and a product marketing manager. And why is this important? Because many times in life, you don't want to take the risk because it comes with, you know, you have to take a cut and pay. And you don't know what you don't know. You don't know whether you have the ability to get to the next level.

But the thing which I've always stood at is have the ability to take the risk, but never give up on it. And in order to basically pursue a career in marketing or in engineering, if you really want to be good at your discipline, like I said, pick only two things. And I picked two things. That is, you know, pursue a career in marketing. And I was damn good at it. And the second part is to be a good mom. And there are other things.

And so because of that, I did not have a lot of social life because you have to be razor focused. You have to prioritize. You have to make time for their soccer game. Many a times, I couldn't go to those soccer games. And even now, when I think both the girls have now,

you know, are no longer with me at home and I wish I could go back in time and go to those soccer games or their water polo games. But regardless, you know, I would say that I picked those two things. And I'm also grateful because I couldn't have done this without the nannies I had in my life. And they were almost a second family to me. And, you know, that's how I raised both my girls. I love it. And, you know, a lot, a lot there as well. I think, especially the part where you

talked about, and I can relate to the family part, like I have kids, I have four boys. And so it's, we literally choose two things. It's family and work. It's like, there's, there's no in between, like there's no, uh, I don't know. Sometimes my friends that don't have kids like little joke, Hey, you never do this or that. And I'm like, well, you've got, I've got time for two things and sometimes one and a half. So I can relate to that a lot. I had a T-ball game last night. I did make it to that one, but I can relate.

Good for you. Good for you. That's awesome. Yeah. But what you talked about, about sometimes being willing to take three steps back to take 10 forward. I mean, you took three steps back and you've gone about 100 forward, you know, because you obviously embraced something you were good at that you've obviously excelled at. I think there's a lot to learn there for people because, you know,

there's inherent risk in going after what you want to do and what you love. And you may not always start down that path day one, but when you want to make that turn, you can't be afraid of, especially when you can, you know, it's not, you know, as long as you're not completely going off the cliff, you know, it's not, you know, as long as you're not completely going off the cliff, you know, with your steps backwards, but, you know, but to take a pay cut or do those kind of things to, to really go after something you love, I think is really critical. It is, it is definitely the case. And I also will say that I also learned a new discipline and that also has played a big role through my entire life.

And I actually had my daughter, my older one, I gained a substantial amount of weight. And I was always raised to be very confident. You know, I was a I'm an extreme extrovert. That is my personality. I'm an extreme extrovert. That is my personality. And I never knew what it is to actually feel uncomfortable or, you know, go through a situation in life where, you know, I probably gained about 80 pounds with my older daughter. And that was a low light in my life, not because I gained that weight.

It's because I also had a premature baby. My older daughter was actually born at, you know, eight weeks before my due date. And she was just like two pounds and 11 ounces. And so I had to deal with two important, two tough situations at the time. One is gaining that weight and then also raising a premature child. And as, you know, time flew, I realized that I had to find a way to basically keep me sane and find the motivation to get back to form and that is when I basically decided to pick something which I'd never explored before and I decided to basically embrace kick boxing or body combat or martial arts at the time. And fast forward 10 years later, you know, I took it to the next level. Like I said, like anything I do, I'm a perfectionist and I take it to the next level.

I became a kickboxing instructor and that discipline has played a big role in shaping who I am because it gives, it taught me the ability to have self-control and gives you the power to follow through on your actions without actually losing motivation along the way. It also gives you the strength to not really procrastinate. And most importantly, what kickboxing actually taught me is to persevere, especially when things get tough. taught me is to persevere, especially when things get tough. And that discipline is something which I learned, you know, and practice even now, which has had a big impact in my life.

I love that. And I'll circle that for a highlight clip from this episode. I like that, the power of discipline. But I want to ask you something. Obviously, I know at this stage and your successes and all of those things, where confidence comes from. But where does your confidence originate from? Because I sense it in you, and I certainly could see where you've gotten to this point where it would come from today. But I sense that you've probably always been confident. And I wonder where that comes from. It comes from my mother. And that's why I said, like, she's always been my alma mater,

the light of my life. Very earlier on, you know, she taught me three things, and I grew up knowing those three important things. One is, she said, alive at 25. Number one is to be independent. And number three is to make a charitable contribution to the society this rings in my ears my girls also resonate with this because i raised them with these three important principles why is it what and people ask me what is about alive at 25

and what i learned out of that is that you know the the mortality rate is, you know, goes like this between the age of 16 through 25, because people do crazy things. You drink, you drive, you have DUI, you have accidents, and the, you know, the death rate is very high. After 25, it pretty much is like a straight curve. And then it basically goes up again after you reach 60. And so as a parent, if your son or a daughter reaches 25, good job, mom, because that is an accomplishment, especially in this in today's world. The second thing is independent, being able to raise whether it is a man or a woman doesn't not matter being able to be independent, being able to make, you know, choices of your own, and being able to, you know, choices of your own and being able to, you know, live a life independently is not very easy to do. And so the choices you make, like whether it is a career choice or whether it

is a choice in terms of practicing a discipline, it's you have to own it and take accountability for it. And so that plays a big role. And I was always raised, you know, to think independently, especially at a time in India,, especially at a time in India. This was at a time in India when women never worked. My mom worked for 40 years as a public relations officer for a Canadian company. And so that is where, you know, I learned what it takes to be, you know, a very confident, you know, career woman. And then last but not the least, you know, you have to think about the society. Is there some way that you can actually give back? Because, you know, the world is a full circle. You know, I always believing in actually giving a little bit back in the little time you

actually have. And so these are the three principles I've carried through my life. And my mom has played a big role in terms of being able to shape how I was as I grew up in India. I love the alive at 25. As the father, back to my boys, right now they're 12, 10, 9, and 5. And so right now we keep them out of harm's way, but when they get to, you know, that, like you said, maybe 15 to 25, all I can think about is, uh, how, how do we keep them out of harm's way when they're not in our purvey at all times? So, uh, it's a struggle. It's, uh, you know, you teach them right from wrong and you, you know, you discipline them and you,

you do those things, but, uh, you know, it is a precarious time in life for uh when things that i've never looked at that as a plane i'm gonna look up that when i uh as the data i'm really curious now because it makes a ton of sense i'm like was even thinking of my own life like yeah that sounds about right let's talk about the book uh devops for digital leaders uh Leaders. What was your inspiration for the book, and what was some of the key takeaways you want readers to get from it? So this was my time before I came here into Cisco. I used to be the CMO and run all of DevOps marketing for the previous company. So one of the key things I also realized is, like I said,

given my engineering technology background, I always gravitate towards the voice of the customer and I had built a lot of relationships with CIOs and CTOs. And as I talked to a lot of the CXOs during the time, I realized that DevOps is like a discipline and there is no framework. There is no Gartner's Magic Quadrant. There is no Forrester Wave. And everybody used to DevOps, wash everything. And as I talked to a lot of the C-suite customers and I learned about some of the best frameworks and practices they've actually adopted, I looked around and I saw that there were a lot of technical books on DevOps, but there was no book which was

like a chronicles of DevOps, which talks about, you know, good frameworks and disciplines which customers have actually adopted and deployed. And so that's how, you know, my DevOps books was actually born. I would actually call it chronicles of customer stories with respect to DevOps. I interviewed about 10 fortune 500 companies cios and cxos and they're all listed in the book and then wrote about what are some of the frameworks they've actually created and why did it work for them and what is the roi they actually got out of their best effort and i will always be a technology-oriented CMO, and I will gravitate towards that. And one of the reasons I also wrote the book is because it basically helps build thought leadership.

So because there are so many different opportunities out there, and like I said, I am really obsessed with the voice of the customer. Customer is the king. And I'll go above and beyond in order to make sure that we keep customers happy. And so this was one way to basically build thought leadership, learn from customer stories, and build that book so that it would add value to other customers. Very, very cool. Hey, I mean, you are – I called you the CMO to start,

but we're author, mother, CMO, and badass kickboxer. I mean, we got all kinds of titles going here. I didn't do you justice, Aruna. Very multifaceted. Let's shift a little bit to today and what's going on with technology and video calling and everything that's happening. and video calling and everything that's happening. What's been some of your key initiatives with WebEx and both maybe in the last year or so,

but if certainly moving forward, what are some of the priorities for you with the brand? Okay. So I would say the last year and a half or almost two years now with the pandemic, you know, things have changed radically. Video conferencing was known by a selected few, especially large enterprises were the ones who actually knew about video conferencing. Now, even a three year old knows what is video conferencing. Right. Because with the pandemic, the whole market around video conferencing, being able to talk to people in a virtual way has been completely democratized.

And so in fall of last year, the Cisco leadership team, Vijay Patel, my manager, who's the EVP of the collaboration business, decided to basically make a big investment on the marketing side. to basically make a big investment on the marketing side. And at that particular time, we realized that we faced a tough situation because with the pandemic, you know, we had a lot, even though we continue to be the leaders in the enterprise space, but, you know, we did not have the hearts and minds of the end users, right? Like we did not have a perception that we are cool and fun. And so it was a big challenge, which the team and I had to basically undertake.

And that is where the team did a phenomenal job. First, we had to overcome perception issues. Second, we had to land big punches in the awareness fight that our new and louder competitors were already starting to have a play in the market. And our new and louder competitors were already started to have a play in the market. And last but not the least, it's not just about media conferencing. It's about owning the conversation around hybrid work. While, you know, media conferencing is one

of the areas when you think about the new way of working, this whole market around hybrid work has not been defined. And that's where our teams have now started to play a big role. And first and foremost, you know, I had to implement with my team three important strategies. One, I had to rebrand WebEx. So in June 2021 of this year, for the very first time in WebEx's 25-year history, the team rolled out a brand new rebrand campaign with WebEx. So what did this mean? It means that we rolled out a brand new brand system, which included not just a logo.

It included a logo, a brand new, fresh, modern color palette, iconography, typography, photography. Everything completely changed. If you actually go to webex.com, you'll see our entire brand system come together and we don't look like, you know, the previously how we actually used to look. And so why did we do the rebrand?

Because for us here at Webex, our purpose, and especially here at cisco is to create an inclusive future for all and a big part of this rebrand is to also to send that strong message if you look at our logo our brand new logo because we are a sas based product line the logo is in the app in the app store and it's going to be on your mobile device and if you join a webex call you'll be able to see the logo it's a w right it's a rotating helix but if you look at the logo it actually represents you know two hands coming together it is symbiotic about our commitment towards inclusivity so the entire brand system focused on a core design principle, which is around inclusivity. And you'll see our entire brand system reinforce that through our designs, through our imagery, through our photography and everything across the board. that we represent a diverse group across geographies across age groups across location

because with webex now we have the ability to basically you know um bring everyone together regardless of where you're actually located regardless of the time zone and so technology becomes a big enabler and so that's how the rebrand campaign was born in the first 25 years. And it was very important to do that in order to send a strong message to the industry that this is not, this is your brand new WebEx. So that's the first one. The second thing the team did is, it's not just about the rebrand. How would consumers basically, you know, get to know about WebEx? I don't know about you, but hopefully you've seen it. We basically then launched a global campaign, which is called Driving Hybrid Work. And this campaign we created with our favorite customer, McLaren, the Formula One team.

customer McLaren, the Formula One team. And this campaign was about showing the brand new Webex, how the McLaren team is able to do fan engagement. How are they able to communicate with their engineering team while they design the race cars of the future. So if you look at this particular campaign, this campaign video is now activated across you know several different markets and hopefully you would have seen it on during the NBA playoffs across multiple different broadcast channels like CNN, ESPN, Fox Sports so on and so forth even connected TV like Roku and Hulu and the exciting part of this driving hybrid work campaign which where we chose McLaren as our customer is that it's awesome to see the multiple different faceted use cases which Zach Brown now I built a fabulous relationship with Zach Brown and he actually tells you the value he and team are

actually getting with fan engagement with their slipstream technology, with WebEx, especially now the McLaren's race car season is in full effect. And I don't know whether you know that, you know, last week, Italian Grand Prix, McLaren took home P1 as well as P2 with both Ricciardo as well as Landis. So it's been an amazing campaign. And the icing on the cake, because everybody launches a lot of different campaigns across the board. And the highlight for the team and I was in during one of the episodes of Mad Money, Jim Cramer, unsolicited, and he was talking about Zoom during Mad Money. And then he basically called out the WebEx ads and he said, oh my God, have you seen the new WebEx ads?

I think they're quite compelling. That was awesome. Hey, nice plug there. Free plug. Exactly. Right. And so how many times as a team do you get a shout out from Jim Cramer on Mad Money for a campaign which the team actually launched during this particular time. And so those are some of the key things the team has especially done. And more things are actually going to come with the marketing team as we look towards the future.

Yeah. And it's interesting, you know, growing up in the enterprise space, like And it's interesting, you know, growing up in the enterprise space, like WebEx was always kind of the band-aid of video calling, you know, in the enterprise space. And then the pandemic happens and, you know, you've got consumers and enterprise using it. Competition comes into space and, you know, you guys are definitely positioned well to kind of fight off, I think. And what's interesting, I think, that people don't realize, and hybrid is a good word, especially rates to a WebEx, it's kind of a one-size-fits-all with some of the other competitors. Like, it's one experience. And I think what separates WebEx is the hybrid approaches

for how you can customize the experience based on what you're doing. And I think that's what you kind of brought to life with how McLaren is doing it and how different teams are. We ironically work with Ultra Fabrics, which is the fabric in McLaren sports cars, one of our clients. So I'm very familiar with McLaren and that campaign. But I do think, you know, hybrid, hybrid work, hybrid approaches and WebEx is hybrid, right?

It is. And the unique thing we actually have to bring to the market when you think about hybrid work is about enabling new ways of working, right? Like the world is not going to go back to the pre-pandemic side. People are going to continue to work from home. People are going to continue to work from the office and people are going to continue to work anywhere in between. So how do you ensure that everyone has got an equal seat at the table? That's going to continue to work anywhere in between. So how do you ensure that everyone has got an equal seat on the table? That's not something easy to do because when people come back into the office, you want to make sure that remote participants don't feel left out. And with technology, you can absolutely make sure that whether you're in the office or whether

you're at home, everybody's got an equal seat at the table. Here is an example on what we are actually doing with WebEx. We call this feature functionality as people focus. Let's say you're in a conference room with four different people and you're in a meeting with about four different remote participants. How would it appear in a regular video conferencing call? You will see one window with four people in the conference room, and then you will see another three windows with the remote participants, right? Which means that everybody's not got an equal seat at the table. What we have done is those four people who are in the conference room will no longer show up like they're in the conference room. We have actually extracted them,

and each one will show up as a separate, you know, two-by-two grid, so that everyone has got an equal seat at the table, and it does not appear that you're actually working in the office or you're working from home. And so these are some of the key innovations we actually brought to market. And if you looked at, you have seen the Mechler and that, the other thing we have done is to break down the barriers across geography location so that we give equal potential for everyone around the globe so one of the other key innovations we

brought to market is while you're on a webex call if you want to basically consume i could be talking in english and the person could be in poland and they want to consume it in Polish or in French. You can basically pick the drop down menu and change the language. And I could still talk in English, but they'll basically automatically translate it into 108 languages in real time. And so that's how you create an inclusive world, because it's no longer about, know technology just doing status quo it's about how can you bring those kind of inclusive features so that you level the playing field so that everyone has got an equal seat at the table it's really fascinating i did not know that language technology you guys already implemented that that's crazy and uh amazing

at the same time especially that it's in real time time. But what I don't think we've completely digested as a society, especially a working society, is the complete picture of the hybrid work environment. And it sounds like WebEx is at the forefront of kind of helping define different things. Because I hadn't thought about the equal seat at the table. But when you think about the mindset of participating in these things and where you might be, and some people, look, we're going to be in a hybrid work probably forever. I just don't know. I don't think this genie is going back in the bottle. It does not. how to make people feel truly included no matter where they are in the world, be it home, be it work, be it office, whatever that might seem,

is really fascinating and really forward-thinking about, you know, some of the psychology involved with the hybrid approach. It is. And I'll add another thing, right? Like there is this growing concern about, you know, video fatigue. People are, you know, if you look across the board in the market, it's all about, you know, mental well-being. And that is another area where I think technology can play a big role. And so one of some of the key things we have actually done in order to basically focus on employee well-being, is to come up with partnerships.

So we recently created a partnership with Ariana Huffington's company. She's got an app which is called a Reset app. So with that particular partnership, like if you are going from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting, research has shown that if you take a five-minute break between your virtual meetings, it has a tremendous role to play in your mental health and so with this reset app it'll automatically give you a notification and

it will say hey you know i don't know you've been in meetings back to back do you want to basically go and do a kickboxing lesson or do you want to go for a walk right so it's it's about being able to bring a little bit of a break in your long days because with the this new concept of hybrid work the days have gone extended and it's blended between your work life as well as your personal time and so technology now is going to become a big enabler because we all know that hybrid work is here to stay and with us we not just make the technology in order to help hybrid work but we also make the beautiful devices and uh and i have to say that with our beautiful devices i personally don't go through this media fatigue and i can go from meetings to meetings across the board without having to go through that but again that is where

you know technology is going to become even more important as we think about the future of work, which is going to be hybrid. I love it. As we start to close out here, Aruna, you talked about it throughout the discussion a bit, but where do you see the future of technology and work? I mean, are there innovations that are coming or different things, you know, either with Cisco and WebEx or as holistically with your crystal ball that I know you must have,

every CMO has a crystal ball, right? You got to have a rear view mirrors and crystal balls, right? Well, any, any big things out there that you're seeing coming? It's going to be hybrid work. That is the future of work. And I do believe it's not just with WebEx, and I think it's with Cisco and WebEx and our underlying technology with networking, with security.

We are going to be one of the leaders and the most formidable player in the market when you think about hybrid work. Because hybrid work is not just about remote work. It's about being able to ensure that employees have the ability, flexibility, inclusivity, security, and manageability to basically work anytime anywhere whether you're working from home in the office and anywhere in between work is not about where you work work is about actually what you do and it and technology now becomes a huge enabler to ensure that work gets done regardless of whether you're working from home, office, or anywhere

in between. And I think I am extremely excited for what Cisco can actually bring to the table to our customers, our prospects, and everyone around the world in terms of being able to help everyone to embrace hybrid work. Well, speaking as someone that has been fortunate enough to touch parts of your business, I can speak to how great a company Cisco is and their commitment to that.

You got time for a quick rad or fad. I give you four key words and you tell me whether it's rad or fad. Okay. Alright. Number one, TikTok. Rad or fad? right oat milk fad yes video calling that was a layup you know what can I say? And finally, finally, where I think all our hearts and minds are,

the hybrid work, rad or fad? Rad, my friend. I know, it is. Aruna, it's been really enlightening. A ton to unpack there for everyone listening. You're an inspiration. And, you know, I think, you know, I do a lot of personal motivation stuff. And I was like, you know, I didn't know how – obviously we had a lot of technical discussion,

but I think a lot of people are going to take some really keys away from this and really, really appreciate you coming on the show today. Thank you so much for having me. Where can everyone keep up with you? Where can everyone keep up with everything Aruna? I mean, obviously, WebEx.com, we'll tout that. But where can everyone keep up with anything we talked about today? So you can follow me on Twitter, Aruna13,

or connect with me on LinkedIn. And I basically put out an article on my linkedin profile and i talk about a topic which is very near and dear to my heart it is about being able to get younger girls and women into a stem carrier and so would love to basically connect with the audience and you can always find me on social love it love it well she just told you can always find me on social. Love it. Love it. Well, she just told you where to find you.

You know where to find us. We're at theradcast.com. Search for Aruna. Search for WebEx. You'll find all the highlights from this. You know where to find me. I'm at Ryan Alford. I'm verified on all the platforms.

We'll see you next time on The Radcast.