By Marc Aldrich, SVP, Global Service Provider, Cisco

We hereby interrupt this helter-skelter year in news, workload and general busy-ness to offer a moment of Zen, in the form of appreciating three trailblazers in our midst.

By "trailblazers" I'm talking aboutYvette Kanouff, Conrad Clemson,andRajeev Raman, who, by their own respective merits, earned noteworthy attention, to be celebrated here and at INTX this week, in Boston.

Allow me to elaborate, starting withYvette, SVP/GM, Cisco Service Provider Business, who will be inducted into the"Cable Pioneers"at INTX on Sunday, May 17. But wait, there's more: She's also included in the CableFAX 100, "commemorating the cable industry's most iconic power list" (results to be announced at INTX,) which she has been included in for years.

Insider background: The table stakes to be a Pioneer are a relatively do-able 20 years of service. That said, few get in who haven't stretched well beyond their salaries to make a difference in 'Stuff That Matters'. In Yvette's case, it's a list too long for a blog, but if I had to bucket her extra-curricular activities, I'd spotlight her Emmy win and patents on VOD-related digital technologies, and countless hours of service in the Department of More Women In Tech! She's relentless, and thank goodness we have her. Thank you, Yvette!

Also in the "good people" category:Conrad Clemson,SVP/GM, Cisco Service Provider Video Software and Solutions, and not just because he's a likable guy and always nattily dressed. He's also a part of the CableFAX 100 list of heavy-hitters, because of his conversationally clear way of explaining the particulars of content protection, headends, clouds, client software, streaming, encoding, you name it. He's a rock star. Congrats and thank you, Conrad!

One more, in the last-but-not-least category, isRajeev Raman, Sr. Director of Strategy, Studio Design, and Product Management, Cisco Service Provider Video Software and Solutions, who was ranked#28 inVOD Professional's Top 50 VOD Professionals in North America. A "serial entrepreneur," he came to us via our acquisition of 1Mainstream, which he founded in 2012 with colleagues from Roku and Apple - and he's a huge part of the reason we're at the front of the pack with multi-screen everything.

He's one of those guys, like Conrad, who can see around the corners of video trends - the latest being that yes, yes, yes, mobile viewing is growing and great, but that thing on the wall called the TV still garners more engagement than anything else. One the one hand, it's because we're getting information and news elsewhere than TV; on the other, it's because our lives and days are much busier than , and it's the place we go unwind and veg out. Thank you, Rajeev!

So - should you bump into Yvette, Conrad, or Rajeev, please join us in offering them a bow and a tip of the hat. Thanks!