Avatar

Everyday we’re bombarded with seemingly unsolvable issues: healthcare crises in developing nations, struggling education systems, natural disasters that displace thousands or even millions of people. Delivered via 24-hour cable news, our Google newsfeed, or smart phone news apps, it’s easy to feel like the issues are too big, and you are too small to make a meaningful impact.

After attending the 2012 Social Innovation Summit this week, it was abundantly clear that couldn’t be farther from the truth. The Social Innovation Summit brings together top executives and thought leaders from around the globe to discuss opportunities for leveraging technology & innovation to affect social change.

A common theme throughout the summit was the power we all have to make a difference by pushing the limits of innovation to solve the critical problems that are affecting our communities today.

From combating global poverty and enabling at risk youth, to championing the innovations of student developers of mobile apps and digital stethoscopes, thought leaders from around the globe gathered to discuss, listen and learn about phenomenal social innovation initiatives that are transforming the norm around the world.

Dr. William Kennedy a board-certified pediatric urologist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital shared his views on Healthcare in the Digital age and how he is using Cisco TelePresence technology to help families reduce the cost and stress of seeking specialized pediatric care and allow doctors to conduct virtual consultations with out-of-area patients.

Continue reading “The Impact of Telehealth Technology and Social Innovation in Healthcare”



Avatar

The wealth management industry continues to face many challenges as it recovers from the financial crises of the past few years. And while financial markets have recovered most of their losses since 2008, investor confidence has not yet returned and volatility remains high.

Against this backdrop, investors now have access to a wide variety of investment information online, including analyst research, detailed company and sector financial reports, and data visualization tools previously available only to financial advisers. The combination of poor market performance, availability of information, and low-cost business models that put the investor in control are calling into question the fundamental value proposition of wealth management firms and their financial advisers.

To better understand the mind-set of wealthy investors, we conducted our first wealth management survey in January 2011. An important finding was uncovering a relatively young wealthy investor group we called “Wealthy Under-50s.”

As we shared the findings with our customers, new questions arose including:

  •  Is there a desire for technology-enabled interactions among younger wealthy investors?
  • Given that many clients value face-to-face meetings with their advisers, how often would they use a high-quality video option?
  • Is there a “right way” to deploy technology-enabled services and capabilities?
  • Would video services convince wealthy investors with no adviser to hire one?
  • What are the main barriers to the adoption of technology-enabled services?

To answer these questions and provide additional insights about wealthy investors, we conducted our second survey 18 months later, in April 2012.  The findings show rapidly shifting attitudes about wealth management and technology-enabled services. Specifically, we found:

  • After only 18 months, the behaviors and attitudes of the Under-50s in the first survey now extend up to age 55 (“Wealthy Under-55s”).
  • Although Wealthy Under-55s meet more often with their financial advisers, they are less satisfied with those interactions than older investors.
  • Wealthy Under-55s want more personalized investment recommendations, access to more diverse opinions and expertise, and more frequent access to their financial advisers than they currently receive.
  • Wealthy Under-55s believe that technology-enabled services that feature video-enabled access to financial advisers would provide them with better advice and more satisfying interactions than they receive right now.
  • Wealthy Under-55s are much more willing to change advisers.  Twenty-percent of them indicated they were likely to change their primary adviser in the next year, compared to only 4 percent of investors over the age of 55.

And perhaps most important for financial services firms looking to capture a share of this market, Wealthy Under-55s are willing to move at least some of their assets to firms that provide these services (57 percent in the United States, 54 percent in Germany, and 51 percent in the United Kingdom). Continue reading “Reinventing Wealth Management with Technology-Enabled Video Services”



Authors

Robert Waitman

Director, Privacy Center of Excellence

Avatar

Yesterday I introduced you to the Cisco Domain TenSM, Cisco Services’ framework for simplifying data center transformation.  This model is applicable to both business  (enterprise), public sector (e.g. government, federal) and service provider (incl telco) organizations.

Today I will summarize some key challenges that you should consider when planning a transition to cloud (as one example of data center transformation), for Domain #1 – Facilities and Infrastructure.

Cisco Domain Ten – Simplifying Data Center Transformation

 

Continue reading “Cisco Domain Ten: Domain 1: Facilities and Infrastructure”



Authors

Stephen Speirs

SP Product Management

Cisco Customer Experience (CX)

Avatar

Consider the following facts:  In the US, the street value of a stolen social security or credit card number is about $1, and it can be sold for only a few days after it’s been stolen.  By comparison, a stolen medical record number has a street value of $50 and can be exploited over a much longer period of time.  HIPPA and HITECH are the US version of “privacy and security” laws that are getting so much attention in the global healthcare information technologies industry.

Hear from Brian Higgins,  Principal Healthcare Consultant at Comstor US, his perspective on regulating the privacy and security of protected health information and what that means to you, the reseller

Read the full article:  What Partners Need to Know Before Selling into the Healthcare Sector



Authors

Brian Higgins

Principal Healthcare Consultant

Comstor & The Brian Higgins Group

Avatar

When the history of the Internet of Everything (IoE) is written, its success or failure will be determined by answering one question. How did IoE benefit humanity? In the end, nothing else matters.

With this in mind, let’s look at two examples of how IoE will benefit people, both today and tomorrow.

Today—Transforming the World’s Cities
To revitalize the world’s largest cities, City24/7 — a company committed to making public communications more accessible to everyone, everywhere — in collaboration with Cisco IBSG and the City of New York has launched an interactive platform that integrates information from open government programs, local businesses, and citizens to provide meaningful and powerful knowledge anytime, anywhere, on any device. In short, City24/7 delivers the information people need to know, where and when it helps them most.

Located at bus stops, train stations, major entryways, shopping malls, and sports facilities, City24/7 Smart Screens incorporate touch, voice, and audio technology to deliver a wide array of hyper-local (about two square city blocks) information, services, and offerings in real time. The Smart Screens can also be accessed via Wi-Fi on nearby smartphones, tablets, and laptop computers.

The overarching goals of the City24/7 Smart Screens are to: Continue reading “Internet of Everything in Action: Today and Tomorrow #IoE”



Authors

Avatar

Last week, I traveled to Michigan to visit a Cisco customer. The customer was the Utica Community Schools who had recently installed a Cisco Wireless Solution including the new Aironet 2600 Access Point for all their K-12 Schools. I visited the elementary school where I was able to observe how the students used the wireless network in the classroom environment.

While talking with the principal, she told me that since they installed the wireless network, the kindergarten class for example has transformed how children our educated. The children interactively learn through tablets, laptops and computers. Through the wireless solution, a variety of educational applications are enabled where the curriculum is designed for individual student depending on his or her level.

We will be featuring the Utica, MI School System in an upcoming video case study. UPDATE: Now Posted!

In the meantime, we have a webinar planned that specifically covers how Mobility is transforming K-12.  In this webinar, you will learn from the experiences of our guest speaker, Dr. Scott Smith, Chief Technology Officer, Mooresville Graded School District from Mooresville, NC.

We also have Tony De La Rossa, a Cisco Systems Engineer who will discuss the Cisco Mobility solution and how it can effectively be used for K-12.

The webinar is December 11th @ 9:AM PST and you can register here.



Authors

Bill Rubino

Product Marketing Manager

Enterprise Networking and Cloud Marketing

Avatar

In my blog last week I introduced a series of conversations in which Mike Spanbauer, Industry analyst at Current Analysis, Cisco Executives, Jim McHugh and Brian Schwarz discussed several topics.  One of the topics they discussed was the adoption of Cloud technologies by Enterprises.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOY_yx1wE0g

More details on the specific study that Mike alluded to in the video can be found on the Current Analysis website.  Analyst perspectives are always valuable inputs to understand the trends.  At the Gartner ITxpo in Orlando this October, David Cearley, a vice president and Gartner fellow, discussed his vision of the top 10 data center trends of 2012 , and cloud computing was prominent among them. More analyst reports on Cisco Unified Computing System can be downloaded from the Analyst reports page on Cisco.com.

If you are interested in another analyst perspective, tune in to a webcast on December 6, at 9:00 am PST , to hear from James Staten of Forrester Research on their findings and analysis of the Cloud computing frontier.

Recognizing that Cloud computing is an important trend, I wanted to see how Cisco and Cisco UCS in particular facilitate a customer’s Journey to the Cloud.  First, I noticed that InformationWeek recognized Cisco CTO Lew Tucker as a pioneer in Cloud computing.  Second, I found a document by Cisco partner GTSI on the Cloud Maturity model which looks like a roadmap.  The Journey included Consolidation, Virtualization and Automation – three things the Cisco UCS excels at.

  1. Consolidation – The converged server and network access architecture of the UCS promotes consolidation of resources.  The notion of server pools and network port channels allows furthers consolidation and better utilization of the resources.  The ability to run a large number of virtual machines on the same server as a result of superior performance enables consolidation of workloads on the same physical infrastructure. Continue reading “Cloud Computing and Cisco UCS”


Avatar

This week at the Gartner Data  Center Conference in Las Vegas, Cisco Services is unveiling Cisco Domain Ten(SM) – Cisco’s Framework for Simplifying Data Center and Cloud Transformation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnLFReBBV7c

Cisco Domain Ten can be applied to a diverse range of data center projects – from cloud and desktop virtualization to application migration and is equally applicable whether your data center is in enterprise businesses, public sector organizations or service providers.  The video here describes how we apply the Cisco Domain Ten to the private cloud use case, as one example.  We’ll discuss additional use cases in future blogs and associated collateral that I’ll point you to.

Born from our extensive experience over the past years in helping customers transform their data centers, based upon the many cloud deployments – private and public, enterprise, public sector and service provider – that we’ve enabled over the past few years, we’ve formulated this comprehensive framework to help you transform your data center and guide new initiatives including cloud, virtual desktop, application migration, and data center consolidation.  The Cisco Domain Ten framework covers ten key areas – domains – that – based upon our experience – are critical to consider, plan for and address as part of your data center and cloud transformational journey, and is illustrated in the diagram below.  Relating this framework to other key components of Cisco’s data center strategy, you can  think of the Cisco Unified Data Center as the what of the data center, whereas Cisco Domain Ten complements this by guiding you on the how (to transform).

Cisco Domain Ten - Simplifying Data Center Transformation

Continue reading “Introducing Cisco Domain Ten(SM) – Cisco Services’ Blueprint for Simplifying Data Center and Cloud Transform …”



Authors

Stephen Speirs

SP Product Management

Cisco Customer Experience (CX)

Avatar

A little over a month ago we had a chance to present as session in conjunction with Eric Sammer of Cloudera on Designing Hadoop for the Enterprise Data Center and findings at Strata + Hadoop World 2012 .

Taking a look back, we started this initiative back in early 2011 as the demand for Hadoop was on the rise and we began to notice a lot of confusion from our customers on what Hadoop would mean to their Data Center Infrastructure. This lead us to our first presentation at Hadoop World 2011 where we shared an extensive testing effort with the goal of characterizing what happens when you run a Hadoop Map/Reduce job. Further, we illustrated how different network and compute considerations would change these characteristics. As Hadoop deployment gained tracking in enterprise, we found a need of developing network reference architecture for Hadoop. This lead us to another round of testing concluded earlier this year and presented at Hadoop Summit, which examined what happened when looking at design considerations such as architectures, availability, capacity, scale and management.

Finally this brings us to last month and our presentation at Strata + Hadoop World 2012. We met with Cloudera in the months leading up to the event and discussed what we could share to the Hadoop community. We discussed all the previous rounds of testing and came to the conclusion that along with a combination of customer experiences and another round of testing that examined Multi-tenant environments we could put together a talk that really addressed the fundamental design considerations of Hadoop in the Enterprise Data Center.

We went into depth to examine the network traffic considerations with Hadoop in the Data Center to
Continue reading “Hadoop in the Enterprise Data Center”



Authors