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It was way back at Interop in Las Vegas this year where one of our PR guys, Ben Stricker, asked if I would be interested in the tour of Petco Park coming up as part of CiscoLive in San Diego.  I said ‘yeah!’ for a number of hopefully obvious reasons and then volunteered to have our team shoot footage of the event.  We planned and worked back and forth as the event got closer and I had been working on a storyline that focused on the amazing things that MLB Advanced Media was doing with their streaming media empire.


Authors

Robb Boyd

Producer, Writer, Host

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Has your child visited with Santa yet?  Then you know the excitement of hearing that jolly laugh and the “Ho Ho Ho” that accompanies Santa’s twinkling eyes.  But, what about the children who are hospitalized over the holidays and unable to visit with Santa at the local mall?

Santa uses Cisco video solutionsDuring December, Santa is using Cisco video collaboration technologies to visit children at 31 children’s hospitals throughout the US.  The hospitals use iPads with Jabber, video monitors, and webcams in hospital playrooms to connect children with Santa at his North Pole workshop.  Cisco TelePresence mobile carts are wheeled into hospital rooms so that children who are confined to their rooms can share holiday wish lists with Santa and get updates on their favorite reindeer.

Now in its 6th year, the Cisco Santa Connection allows Santa to remotely connect with hospitalized children, many of whom would not otherwise have been able to see Santa. Cisco is proud to be able to touch the lives of these children with the hope and happiness of a personalized visit with Santa using Cisco technologies.

Read about Santa’s first virtual stop at Children’s of Alabama and view the full list of participating children’s hospitals.



Authors

Joyce Perrelli

Healthcare Program Manager

America’s Field Marketing

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The Social Innovation Summit (SIS) is a place where really nice people who do really nice things come together to share really important innovations on ways to improve society…really!

As a veteran of many conferences where hierarchy and title matter, I often found conversations to be stilted, led by elders pontificating on their topic of choice. At SIS, every conversation began or ended with the words “How Can I Help?”  Age, gender, and politics were irrelevant. The currency of the day was “let’s do something together to make this a better place.”  Generosity of time, a spirit of sharing, and an egalitarian approach to courtesy was pervasive.

Beyond the conversation and camaraderie, these were the topics I learned about at SIS that changed my outlook:

Continue reading “Five Social Innovation Summit Stories That Changed My Outlook for 2013”



Authors

Mary Anne Petrillo

Senior Marketing Manager, Digital Strategy

Corporate Social Responsibility

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With the end of the year fast approaching and the 31st Annual Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas this week, this post is dedicated to a quick reflection on emerging data center trends and their impact on security.

The global technology analyst firm Ovum[1] expects the market to become further focused on cost-savings and efficient internal IT delivery methods with broader virtualization, cloud and the use of converged infrastructure systems in 2013.  This closely mirrors the agenda for the Gartner Data Center Conference where the agenda shows focus on trends such as IT Operational Excellence, Optimal Cloud Strategies and Delivering Greater Business Value.

Continue reading “What Will 2013 Bring for Your Data Center Security?”



Authors

Evelyn de Souza

Cloud Data Governance Leader

Chief Technology and Architecture Office

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This week the world celebrated the United Nations International Day for Persons with Disabilities.

So let me ask you a question. What does disabled mean to you?

If you say the word aloud, what comes to your mind? Wheelchairs, white sticks and hearing aids, maybe. Go a little deeper and you might think of less visible disabilities – autism, learning difficulties. I’ve heard disability described as a “long-term impairment that makes it hard to accomplish daily tasks.” If you think about it this way, then conditions as varied as depression, asthma or eating disorders might be described as disabilities.

How many people do you know that might be considered disabled in this sense? My guess is that that number is much greater than you might initially have thought.

Continue reading “Redefining Disability”



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From baby boomers to generation X to digital generation of the twenty-first century, it is more important to find similarities in people expectations and experiences than to focus on the differences.  We all want respect, peace, love, lightness, happiness and joy. And it is not hard to get these things if we follow simple principles. Continue reading “Inspiring across the generation- what does it mean to me?”



Authors

Punam Nagpal

Engineer

Quality Metrics

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Welcome to the first in a series of previews of what Cisco will be showing at National Retail Federation Convention and Expo  2013, January 14-15 in New York City.

Cisco released  Catch Them and Keep Em retail research this past January at NRF 2012 .

For NRF 2013 and we conducted surveys in multiple countries for our next release of consumer research.

Jon Stine, director of Cisco IBSG  and Lisa Fretwell, senior director of Cisco IBSG will be presenting the  results at NRF  Big Idea session on Monday, January 14, 2013 at 9:15 – 10:00 a.m at Room 3D04, EXPO Hall, Level 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW7afZcPwm0

Here is some information about the new research:

Continue reading “Cisco NRF 2013 First Look – New Research announcement at Big Idea Session”



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Yesterday at the Cisco Asia Pacific, Japan and Greater China Partner-Led Network Conference that took place in Bangkok, we took the opportunity to announce the recipients of the Cisco Smart Service awards. The purpose of these awards is to recognise our partners and customers from the region who showed forward-thinking approaches in the delivery and integration of Cisco Smart Services. The winners were chosen for their innovation and expertise that enable “Smart Everywhere” for their end-users across the region.

The awards are divided up into three categories; partner awards – for partners who used Smart Services to accelerate growth of their services business; vendor awards – for vendors who have demonstrated innovation and operational excellence for Cisco Services; and customer awards – for those customers that have used Smart Services to fuel their business performance, efficiency and productivity.

Continue reading “Cisco APJC Recognises its Smart Services Champions”



Authors

Linda Horiuchi

Senior Manager, Australia and New Zealand PR

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The first rule in improvisational comedy (I have heard) is to say “Yes, and…” to everything.  How different would the current fiscal cliff debate be if improvisational comedy rules were followed?

White House: “I’d like to raise tax rates on the wealthiest 1%, so that we don’t have to raise taxes on the middle class.”
Congress: “Yes, and we’d like to lower the corporate tax rates so that we can be more competitive globally.”
White House: “Yes, and I’d like to cap tax deductions for our wealthiest so we can help reduce the deficit.”
Congress: “Yes and we’d like to decrease spending by 5% (you can take it from anywhere you’d like.)”
White House: “Yes, and I’ll see you at the bill signing ceremony.”
Congress: “Yes, and Happy holidays.  Have a great break with the spouse and kids.”
White House: “Yes, and you too. Wait, I got you a gift. Just a little something to say thank you for your leadership.”

(Hugs.)

And scene.

See how simple that was? Everybody wins and our nation’s optimism and predictability are restored!! Saying yes and being optimistic can have great rewards.

Actually, in my view, optimism and good cheer seem to be trending up. I was driving into work this morning feeling a bit surly because the traffic in the Bay Area was particularly bad.  Then, I remembered that heavy traffic is actually a good sign.  Heavy traffic in Bay Area means people are working. Generally, the worse the traffic the better the economy.  I do try to be optimistic, but sometimes we all can lose perspective.  There seems to be more optimism and good cheer going around generally.  Is this an economic indicator?  Or, is it because we’re into the holiday season?

Continue reading “Optimism, Fiscal Cliff, Improvisational Comedy and #RiseAbove”



Authors

John Earnhardt

No Longer at Cisco