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If you’re going to NRF, you might be interested in how to build customer relationships, maintain brand loyalty and boost sales. If your answer is a resounding YES, don’t miss our mobility events.

Here’s our line-up next week in New York.

Engage and Entice Your Customers with New Wi-Fi Solutions .

Date: Tuesday, January 15, 1013
Time: 9:15 – 10:00 a.m.
Room: 3D04, EXPO Hall, Level 3

Speakers: Bob Friday, CTO, Mobility/Wireless

Cisco Mobility CTO Bob Friday’s Big Ideas speaking session Tuesday Jan 15 will teach you how to use your wireless network to more effectively engage and entice today’s mobile, tech-savvy shoppers. Your takeaway: How your wireless network can help you enhance the in-store shopping experience.

 

We’re putting on two hot, mobility-centric demos at Booth #252:

  • Cisco BYOD Smart Solution
    More and more employees, suppliers, and customers want to bring their own devices onto your wireless network. This demo teaches you how you can support trouble-free access for all users, on any Wi-Fi-enabled device. Takeaways: How to improve employee productivity and customer service with a more secure BYOD environment.

View video of demo overview

  • Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences
    Learn how shoppers are behaving in your store and use that information to engage and retain them. See for yourself how Cisco and our partners can help you deliver personalized, highly targeted mobile services including location analytics, powered by Cisco ThinkSmart. Takeaways: How to optimize the customer experience to enhance store profits.

View video of demo overview

 

Some of you may know that we recently acquired Meraki—don’t forget to check out their booth at Booth #1283 to learn more about the benefits of the cloud to edge and branch networks.

See you there!

For more information on all of Cisco’s activities at NRF 2013, please visit our event website at www.cisco.com/go/nrf.

For the latest reports from the show floor including news, photographs and videos, please follow us on the Cisco Retail Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Linked In and blogs



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For more than a decade, Cisco and the Cisco Foundation have supported the American Red Cross (ARC) and its efforts to help people displaced by natural disasters around the world.

This support has taken many forms — from matching employee giving campaigns to corporate donations to product donations, such as Cisco data and voice communications equipment and volunteers that enabled ARC’s Hurricane Katrina response in 2005. Many of our employees volunteer with ARC, and some have been trained to work at relief shelters through the organization’s Ready When the Time Comes program.

Three months ago, the Red Cross faced one of its largest and most geographically dispersed deployments ever when Hurricane Sandy marched through the Caribbean and up the East Coast, sweeping away homes, destroying entire neighborhoods, and uprooting thousands of families.

ARC_deliverAmerican Red Cross volunteers Jessica Elam and Gilbert Abney distribute hot meals in heavily devastated Staten Island, New York on November 6, 2012. Photo: Talia Frenkel/American Red Cross

Within hours of Sandy’s landfall in New Jersey, Cisco committed a corporate contribution of US$1 million to the American Red Cross to be used for direct aid to the affected areas.

In addition, the Cisco Foundation set up the Hurricane Sandy Relief Campaign and pledged to match up to $2 million in Cisco employee contributions to the campaign, matching $2 for each $1 contributed by employees.

As of January 2, the campaign has raised more than $464,000 for the ARC’s U.S. Disaster Relief and International Response Funds through employee contributions and Cisco Foundation matching — along with an additional $145,000 for 14 other disaster and hunger relief agencies.

Our strategic and ongoing partnership with the American Red Cross is part of Cisco’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts to meet critical human needs — such as access to food, potable water, shelter, and disaster relief, as well as long-term economic opportunities.

“The American Red Cross is at the forefront of the world’s most devastating disasters,” said Peter Tavernise, executive director of the Cisco Foundation. “Many of us are frustrated and want to help when we see the devastation on television. Our partnership with and support of the Red Cross gives our employees a way to contribute in a meaningful way to people who are affected by these catastrophes.”

ARC_foodFatima Velasquez, a volunteer for the American Red Cross, provides snacks to Jennifer Rivera from a Red Cross mobile feeding unit in the Rockaways, New York, on January 2, 2013. Photo: American Red Cross/Virginia Hart

Three months after Hurricane Sandy, approximately 1,000 Red Cross workers are still on the ground. To date the Red Cross has distributed more than 6.7 million relief and clean-up items and provided more than 9.6 million meals and snacks. ARC is still serving thousands of meals each day in New York and working with partners to distribute thousands of additional food packages every day.

Please read more about the American Red Cross Sandy relief efforts and donate today.



Authors

Alexis Raymond

Senior Manager

Chief Sustainability Office

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As global financial markets become more interconnected and diverse, trading environments have become increasingly dynamic and responsive to real-time conditions. It is important for participants across the trading value chain to capture new business opportunities while reducing risks associated with today’s financial markets.

Register today for our complimentary 60-minute Webinar on, Jan. 22 at 11:30 a.m. ET, hosted by Wall Street & Technology, to discover how a High-Performance Trading Fabric architecture and new innovations like Cisco Algo-Boost and the Cisco Nexus 3548 can help financial firms address challenges and capture opportunities in today’s financial markets.

Join our roundtable executives: Alex Tabb, Partner, TABB Group; Paul Jameson, Senior Director, Financial Services, Cisco; and Dave Malik, Senior Director, Solutions Architecture, Cisco Advanced Services.

The roundtable will discuss: Continue reading “WEBINAR: Enabling High-Performance Trading Alpha: Beyond Low Latency to Sustained Performance”



Authors

Colleen Crafton

Americas Lead

Financial Services Industry Marketing

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After a well deserved break and perhaps a bit of indulgence over the holidays, we are now back to the books and looking ahead at what 2013 has in store for education.

Last year we watched as school districts embraced mobile learning and universities relied more on collaborative technologies. Those that took the leap and accepted new tools and educational models were rewarded with improved student performance, accelerated partnerships and more.

With a landmark year for education technology behind us, now is the time to harness the momentum and drive innovation forward in 2013. So as we slither into the year of the snake, here are four high impact trends worth watching:



Authors

Kerry Best

Marketing Manager

Public Sector Marketing

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Are you in the market for a new car in this year? Automotive retailers compete for your business in one of the most competitive industries, so reducing infrastructure and operating costs is key to selling you a car at the price you want.

Hendrick Automotive Group is the second largest privately held automotive retailer in the US, with 7,000 employees and 80 dealerships. Watch the 3:39 minute video for more information on how Hendrick is running every mission critical application on UCS, saving more than $100,000 annually, and helping the IT department become a profit center while offering superior service to both their employees and customers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-v67MwzHHA

You can read the entire story here, Hendrick Automotive Group

A Better Data Center with Cisco UCS

What’s been your experience with consolidation and virtualization in your data center?  Are planning to use UCS in your data center? Join the conversation.

>> Interested in reading UCS customer success stories in your region?  Read more at Data Center Case Studies

>> Yes, Cisco UCS servers are really that good, Read Bill Shield’s blog

>> To find out more about Cisco Unified Data Center solutions,

go to: www.cisco.com/go/dc and Cisco Unified Computing Systems at www.cisco.com/go/ucs.

 

 

 

 



Authors

Carol Shottes

Marketing Manager

Marketing

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Do you have trouble viewing, controlling, and troubleshooting the causes of poor end-user application experience?

You may be suffering from low application visibility in your network, a side-effect of the flood of devices pouring into your workplace, the phenomenon commonly known as BYOD.

Symptoms include: difficulty prioritizing mission-critical applications and subflows, incorrect network capacity planning, overloaded bandwidth, network downtime, poor quality of experience for users, and major headache for IT.

Luckily for you, Cisco has Application Visibility & Control (AVC) for Wireless!

Cisco AVC solves all the problems of low application visibility and more with its integrated suite of Cisco technologies, including Network-Based Application Recognition 2 (NBAR2) and NetFlow version 9. NBAR2 can identify more than 1000 applications and support application categorization, with the ability to update the protocol definition; while NetFlow version 9 selects and exports data of interest, allowing for easy consumption of application performance statistics by Cisco and third-party management tools.

Check out this short 2 minute video on the basics of AVC:

For more information, check out Cisco AVC for Wireless



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chowjBy Joe Chow, VP, Connected Devices, Cisco Service Provider Video Technology Group

Today Cisco announced the launch of a UL-certified, all-digital, wireless-based home security and automation service with AT&T Digital Life. Cisco built and will provide the Digital Life control panel and back-office provisioning and applications life-cycle management system, which allows customers to monitor, protect and manage their homes using a smartphone, tablet or PC. It launches in eight markets in March, and up to 50 by year-end. While broadband provider agnostic, the service uses AT&T’s nationwide wireless network.

The Digital Life controller uses five radios to control and manage appliances, lighting, and HVAC; remotely lock or unlock doors; even detect water leaks. In addition to the five radios, the controller includes an Open Services Gateway initiative (OSGi) software framework, Home Plug AV (to communicate with connected IP devices over the home power network), 24-hour backup, and advanced diagnostics. Continue reading “Cisco Behind the Scenes of AT&T’s New “Digital Life””



Authors

David Yates

as Director of Service Provider Video Marketing at Cisco

SP360

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This is our sixth preview of what Cisco will be showcasing at the 102nd National Retail Federation Convention and Expo on January 14 and 15, 2013 in New York City.

Today’s retail stores need be more technology enabled than ever before supporting new generation of shoppers that expect a convergence of physical and digital experiences.  Today’s retail information technology teams need to enable mobility, cloud computing and video technologies to create a create a compelling shopping environment.

In our store in a box demonstration, we will demonstrate how Cisco can help you consolidate in-store servers to increases business agility and reduce operating costs. In our simulated in-store environment, we will demonstrate how we can support in a single chassis: routing, switching, a virtualized point-of-sale application on unified computing, unified workspace for store reporting, physical security with video surveillance and in store wireless access.

With this lean and agile platform, retailers can support today and tomorrow’s technology needs in a cost effective manner.

Please watch this video about the Store-in-a-Box demonstration and then mark your calendar to join us at Cisco Booth #252 at NRF 2013.

I look forward to seeing you there!

 

 



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Many organizations and education institutions entering the New Year are seeking significant changes in instructional models and improvements in employee skills to achieve 2013 organization goals. Social Learning Communities have emerged as a primary strategy to achieve these goals.

Check out this short video about how social learning can remove barriers caused by space, place and time, while increasing collaboration and results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhV_ljV-v88

35 percent of organizations are actively encouraging and making time for social and informal learning, and 52 percent of organizations are unblocking and leveraging social networks to support learning, according to a recent study.

Continue reading “Social Learning Communities Keep Users Engaged and Growing”



Authors

Jeanne Beliveau-Dunn

Vice President and General Manager

Cisco Services