Interop is always an interesting bellwether for the tech industry, and by this indicator things look pretty good. The show in Las Vegas this week featured 475 exhibitors —100 more than last year — and was expected to draw 20,000 attendees, a 10% increase. The large main hall of the Mandalay Bay conference center was filled almost to capacity.

Tech, of course, isn’t what it once was. Across town in the cavernous Las Vegas Convention Center where Interop used to be, some 45,000 people were gathering for the International Council of Shopping Centers. And earlier in the month the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show drew 60,000 attendees.

But show goers flocked to Interop to hear about everything from security advances to wireless developments and New Data Center technologies. And they came to hear Cisco CEO John Chambers, who delivered the keynote address.

Chambers trotted out his familiar theme of the future being about collaboration. But he backed it up with some new material.

Time magazine’s man of the year in 2006 was you — you the individual who blogs and drives the new digital democracy. “They got it wrong," Chambers said. “It should have been us. Today it is all about social networking, collaboration." Collaboration, Chambers said, will drive the next wave of productivity, which he expects to result in 3% to 5% yearly productivity gains through 2012.

Cisco has already morphed its business model in anticipation of the gains collaboration can deliver. The company evolved from a formal hierarchical organization model to command and control (centralized decision making handed down to peer-based operations) and today has moved on to a model driven by peer-level collaboration and teamwork, Chambers said.

Technology is what makes it possible, but ultimately this is not a tech problem, it’s a people problem, Chambers said. “The first few years were painful. We had to get rid of some vice presidents that didn’t get it, didn’t understand how to work if they didn’t have direct authority. But now we’re moving faster than any other company. We can innovate at a much greater speed than competitors."

To collaborate with customers in a social network sense, Cisco has created I-Zones where people can pitch ideas. The I-Zones have generated several thousand ideas, Chambers said, 250 of which were feasible. Out of that 12 business plans were worked up and three new business units were spawned, although he didn’t name them.