Abstract
The research community have traditionally been the source of innovation and the earlier adopters of new technologies. However, the adoption of collaboration tools and techniques in support of eResearch outcomes continues to be a work in progress. Counter intuitively, the commercial and corporate world has aggressively pursued new ways of "doing business", particularly in the context of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). This presentation will look at some of the successes and failures of collaborative solutions outside the higher education and research community, in the expectation that the learnings can be applied to eResearch. Examples based on Cisco's own experience in dealing with the GFC will be highlighted.
About the speaker
Peter Elford is a sixteen year veteran at Cisco and as the Public Sector Solutions Architect is responsible for articulating an architectural approach to how networked technologies can provide positive outcomes for Australia public sector agencies. Prior to taking up this position in early 2007, Peter held roles as the Federal Region Manager, responsible for Cisco's engagements with the Australian Federal sector, as a Corporate Consulting Engineer working on residential broadband solutions and a range of activities related to network security, and as both a Technical Marketing Engineer and Systems Engineer. Prior to joining Cisco in February 1993 he worked for three years at the Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNet), where he had responsibility for much of the hands on engineering for the embryonic Australian Internet. Peter holds a BSc (Hons) from the Australian National University.