If you visited the Cisco booth at last week’s ATA 2013 conference, you might have had the opportunity to speak onsite with a member of the Cisco Grants Strategy Team.  But if you didn’t, we want you to know that the Cisco Grants Strategy Team is still available to help.

We find that many organizations struggle to identify funding sources for telehealth projects.  The Cisco Grants Strategy Team can help by researching Federal, State and Foundation grant opportunities that align with your organization’s needs. 

The mission of the Cisco Grants team is to:

• Deliver grant education/training and funding research services
• Offer feedback on applicant eligibility and project competitiveness
• Provide targeted grant application and writing support
• Consult on post-funding project implementations

Cisco also offers a series of webcasts to help you learn more about specific grant opportunities.  Upcoming webcasts include:

Funding Public Health and Prevention Efforts
May 21, 2013
Register Now

Join Grants Office and special guests from Cisco as we discuss:

• Positioning projects for specific grant programs, such as Prevention and Public Health Fund Coordinated Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Program and the Public Prevention Health Fund: Community Transformation Grants
• Integrating technology and equipment into projects and proposals, including chronic disease management tracking software and other mHealth solutions
• Examples of previously funded projects
• Tips for successful community-wide collaboration amongst local governments (public health departments), providers, patients and policy-makers.

Funding School Based Health Centers
July 23, 2013
Register Now

Join Grants Office and special guests from Cisco as we discuss:

• The latest information on the future of federal funding for SBHCs and their capital improvement projects
• Specific strategies and tips for positioning a winning application to HRSA through SBHCC or any future programming
• Writing technology and equipment, such as telehealth capabilities into SBHCC proposals
• Leveraging national, regional and local foundations for SBHC projects

To learn more about Healthcare Technology solutions and available grant funding, please contact your Cisco Account Manager or Regional Grants Manager at grantquestions@cisco.com.

Tags: grants, healthcare, telehealth, telemedicine

I’ve been a bit remiss about posting recently; it’s conference-paper-writing season, folks — sorry.

But I thought I’d mention that I’ll be speaking at the Midwest Open Source Software Convention (MOSSCon) this weekend.

I’ll be talking about my work in Open MPI, Hardware Locality (hwloc), and other open source projects, as well as Cisco’s role in open source communities.  To be honest, when I joined Cisco (7 years ago… where has the time gone?), the fact that I could keep working in the open source community was one of the major factors in my decision to come here.

Read More »

Tags: HPC, open source

Cisco IT’s Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program allows employees to be most productive on whatever device they choose.  Whether it’s an iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac or PC they can connect to the Cisco internal network easily, but that’s not what this blog is about, if you’re interested in that initiative click here and here. This blog is about how adding a social layer, specifically Cisco WebEx Social, resulted in an improved user experience and reduced caseload and therefore avoided cost.  Personally, I’d like to say the easy onboarding of devices has caused me less wrinkles, but I’ve yet to find a quantitative way to prove that hypothesis true, so let’s stick to the facts:

• In November 2010, Cisco IT had 4,566 cases per 33,354 devices or about 0.14 Cases/Device
• In October 2011, Cisco IT had 3,921 cases per 48,530 devices or about 0.08 Cases/Device
• Cisco IT has had a 52% increase in devices and 16% more users

Read More »

Tags: aaron chiles, Android, blog, byod, case, caseload, cisco on cisco, Cisco WebEx Social, coc-collaboration, collaboration, community, Help, information technology, iPad, iphone, IT, mac, mobility, onboarding, PC, support, WebEx Social, wxs

This is my second blog in a multi-part series.  In my first blog, I introduced insights from Cisco’s Collaboration Work Practice Study and how people value collaboration in the work environment.  In today’s blog, I discuss how building relationships helps foster collaboration.

At its very core, collaboration is about people. This isn’t a new concept. Humankind has been coming together for centuries to collaboratively solve problems, and in that respect, today is no different. What has changed are the ways in which people collaborate.

One of the things we discovered through the Cisco Collaborative Work Practice Study is that people desire relationships and strong partnerships with the people with whom they work. Building relationships and networks that lead to trust is a fundamental element of successful collaboration.  Nearly every participant in the study Read More »

Tags: Cisco Collaborative Work Practice Study, collaboration, leadership, organizational culture, research

When natural disasters strike, our first instincts are to phone or text loved ones; check news and social media sites; and go online to lend support. These connections become our lifelines. In the process, mobile devices become paramount in connecting people to people and people to data.

That’s why the Internet of Everything (IoE) is so critical. In the moments immediately following a disaster popular social media networks, like Facebook and Twitter, serve as quick ways to locate loved ones. At the same time, social media allows those affected to inform multiple people at once that they are okay, with a simple tweet or post.

In a recent Forbes article titled “Everything Changes with the Internet of Everything,” Kevin Maney discusses how the Internet of Everything changes the way we respond in time of crisis. For example, the Google Person Finder (launched during the 2010 earthquake in Haiti) shows how the Internet can make a big difference during emergencies. People can access the site via mobile device or computer and enter into one of two portals to exchange information: “I’m looking for someone” or “I have information about someone.”

Similarly, a networked power grid can pinpoint outages, enabling faster trouble shooting and allowing fellow citizens to lend support (or even power strips, as seen during Superstorm Sandy) where needed. These connections bring communities back together.

We often talk about the power of IoE to connect the unconnected. For disaster recovery, that power is amplified. Through the Internet of Everything we can help expedite recovery and create a more efficient disaster-response effort by connecting processes, data, things and, most importantly, people. When that happens, we’re able to improve the human experience.

Follow Marie on twitter @MarieHattar

Tags: connecting, disaster preparedness, disaster recovery, disaster response, Internet of Everything, internet of things, IoE, IoT, natural disaster, network, network effects