John Furrier and Dave Vellante, theCUBE co-hosts, spoke with Nina Buik, CMO Connect Worldwide during the last day of HP Discover 2013, in Las Vegas.

The discussion was primarily focused on Connect Worldwide, its goals, and the Hewlett-Packard community.

HP Networking is the hot topic around HP, because they’re doing well, they’re making money, and Connect Worldwide is actually building a community around this initiative. Connect has been traveling the world, doing a roadshow of sorts, talking about various topics (BYOD, software-defined networking), and ultimately fostered two special group meetings here at the HP Discover event.

It’s exciting to see that not only HP Network and customers are coming to these events, but customers of other big brands, such as Cisco, who are coming here to learn more and hear from other customers how they like the products.

HP loves when new people come and see the community and ecosystem around the product line. Connect Worldwide is facilitating that. Its objective is to do just that, making sure that at these special group meetings the keys are turned over to the customers. Connect is basically guiding them, giving them things to talk about. They capture and advocate on their behalf, and feed that information back to HP.  Many times there are representatives from HP in the room, capturing themselves, as it helps them build better applications based on the information from people who are using their technology.

Connect Worldwide started in the US, quite successfully, and now it has moved on the road. Its goal is to increase awareness, not sell, and the feedback from people was incredible so far.

People come to these events to meet new people, make new friends, grow their professional network, and to increase their awareness about new products and solutions. They get to hear from other customers ideas of how they are utilizing different products and solutions in their environment.

The vibe from customers has been incredible worldwide, and it proves that the HP brand has meaning for them and that HP is still a leader of this industry.

See Nina’s full interview below: