I'm excited to be attending Cisco Live US in Orlando this week. We have a strong lineup of speakers and sessions, and lots of cool extras like hands-on labs, meet-the-expert conversations and social events. Of course, I'm most excited about engaging with customers who are interested in data privacy. Along with talking to as many folks as I can, I'll present recent insights from our privacy maturity study at my IT Management session on Tuesday afternoon.I'm also thrilled to be part of important discussions on bringing more diverse talent into IT, both with my session Courage. Code-Switch. Curate. and during Tuesday afternoon's Cocktails and Conversations executive speed-mentoring event. This week is going to rock!

Data privacy is so relevant now. A confluence of eye-opening headlines, and a rapidly changing global regulatory environment, has brought privacy to the forefront of business conversations worldwide. I'm heartened to see this because the discussion is long past due.

The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enforcement, now in effect, marks the start of a new era. GDPR is the first regulation to save out for itself the same level of proactive investigation and enforcement as any other of the protective legislative frameworks such as antifraud, financial controls, or product safety. Like the EU, the rest of the world also wants to use digital servicesandbe subject to decisions based on fair and ethical principles. We should have been conducting business this way from Day One of the digital age, but we didn't, so here we are: GDPR now.

The entire issue of privacy truly comes down to data. When data flows outside the data center the rules for handling it may change. No single country or region owns the rules; each will interpret and observe privacy differently according to its values and cultural norms. While GDPR is the world's strictest regulation to date, Europe is not alone in advancing the protection of its citizens' data. Other international efforts such as APEC's Cross Border Privacy Rules, the EU-US Privacy Shield, and legal data protection regulations and frameworks in 126 countries and across 47 US states prove that responsibly handling people's data is serious stuff, and getting more so.

That's a good thing. Privacy is good for business