I have the privilege of attending the Internet of Things (IoT) World Forum in Barcelona. The event brought in global executives across multiple industries, all with the common goal of using the network to connect 'things' and increase operational efficiencies. Here are some of the highlights: 

Smart City Tour

One of the most popular break out sessions at the IoT World Forum has been the Smart+Connected City Tour throughout the old city of Barcelona. Having blogged about the Connected Boulevard project in Nice, France earlier this year, it's very exciting to see another city make a great leap forward in marrying the city with technology.

The tour took groups of delegates from the conference venue to the old Gothic part of the city with various demonstrations along the way. Within this tour many different aspects of a connected city were demonstrated, showing the potential for the CMX solution to both the citizens and city workers alike.

Many interesting aspects were demonstrated including Smart Bus Stop, Smart Parking, Smart Lighting, Smart Waste Management, Cisco's location-based Connected Mobile Experiences solution that comes with WiFi-based location analytics and other forms of engagement.

Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX) has been woven into the city of Barcelona in various places:

• Bus stops: CMX Location Analytics is used to show the various dwell times across the smart bus stops for city and transport planning.

•  Shopping & Tourist venues: CMX Location Analytics is used to show the paths, the crowding and the dwell times in some of the popular city tourist areas in the old Gothic part of the city.

•  Mobile Web Browsers: CMX Browser Engage enables local information and services to be pushed to the users' mobile browsers right on their devices in the conference venue, which not only enables better guest experiences, but also opportunities for businesses to utilize a new channel to reach potential customers.

•  Digital Graffiti and Brand Promotions: Augmented reality that leverages CMX is trialed by a leading brand to enable new routes to customer engagement and marketing.

[UPDATE Oct 30] For more on Smart Cities, see Wim Elfrink's blog post introducing a valuable white paper on municipal transformation.

Augmented Reality Leveraging CMX for Innovative Brand Promotions with Desigual

Cisco along with our partner geekgaps and Desigual collaborated to create an innovative display of the capabilities of CMX, Location Services, and Augmented Reality.

Users with the app can use the camera of their smartphone or tablet to get access to information and promotional materials based upon their user preferences and location.

Desigual the fashion brand working with geekgaps created a series of promotions that can be delivered using this new route to market for innovative consumers.

Pointing the camera at the actual store serves up information and promotions targeted to the individual consumers.

Customers can see photos and videos of actual products and deals on their device.

Based upon where they are or what direction they are facing they can receive different information or content.

This a very exciting example of the really interesting, cool and valuable engagement methods that are evolving and leading brands like Desigual are starting to explore and build into their digital media and marketing strategy. Desigual are keen to be at the forefront of technology and here in Barcelona are showing what the future of engagement with their fashion conscious and technology savvy customers may look like.

For more information on CMX visit: www.cisco.com/go/cmx.

For more on the IoT World Forum, visit http://www.iotwf.com/