As young children, we’re taught “there’s nothing to fear but fear itself”. Whether it is monsters lurking under the bed or ghosts in the closet, everyone must deal with some form of adolescent jitters. And while adults may not be scared of things that go bump in the night, most still fear the unknown – especially in the new digital world.
It’s summer – time to load up the car with swimsuits, chairs, and Frisbees and head back to the beach. But while you’re busy getting some much needed R&R, don’t forget the industry is still in the midst of an unprecedented digital transformation. Now more than ever, it’s critical to know who’s minding the business (and IT infrastructure) while you’re away.
On game day, the sweat should be pouring down the faces of the athletes on the field, not from the worried brows of the hospitality industry’s multi-tasking technical teams. Yet today’s fans are demanding ever more unique and immersive end-to-end experiences before, during and after events. Fans want Wi-Fi within stadium that’s separate from their cellular network. Managed smart devices now touch everything from HVAC and POS systems to smart helmets and sensors deployed on the playing field. Then there’s the IoT platform needed to gather data at the edge, securely transmit it from device to cloud and then provide actionable insights in near real-time. So where does that leave the technologists responsible for managing it all?
We sat down with CenturyLink Senior Lead Project Manager, Craig Belics, leading up to last month’s Cisco Live event to discuss his views on how big data strategies are unleashing tremendous opportunities for enterprise customers and the role CenturyLink is playing in helping customers transform.
As CenturyLink’s Chief Security Officer, I am tasked with the challenge of overseeing the risk mitigation strategy to protect CenturyLink’s clients, employees and more than 600,000 miles of network. But when I speak of the current state of cybersecurity, I observe one main problem: the industry is largely based on solutions, not strategy. It’s imperative for security IT professionals to move from being technical, solution-based thinkers to threat-focused thinkers and essential to understand the adversaries you face—their motives and their modus operandi—in order to properly prepare a security strategy that can effectively reduce the risk of a major hack.
On Digital Connect this week, we welcome back Scott Brindamour, senior director of advanced technology solutions at CenturyLink. In this episode, we continue our discussion about digital transformation, this time focusing on a new IT operating model and how it can help accelerate the transformation process. Scott also shares a couple of CenturyLink partnership success stories along with tips on how to pick the right partner for modernizing IT.
The journey to wisdom is often described as walking a path rather than passing through a door. Paths call for steady, mundane, incremental advancement; doors indicate instantaneous arrival – you’re in one place then another with no transition period.
Knowledge is power. But knowledge is also speed, which is more critical than ever as enterprises in just about every industry feel pressure to respond quickly to today’s unprecedented digital disruption. By learning more about how enterprises are approaching and successfully navigating digital transformation, we can better help our customers do the same.
