Preparing for tomorrow’s panel at Fast Company’s Innovation Uncensored event in New York has been an interesting process. That’s because I’ve been asked to describe how I predict the future rather than what the future will look like. This topic caused me to focus my attention inward, rather than looking outward as I usually do.
Accurately predicting the future can be challenging. As Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist who received the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, once said, “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”
While predicting the future isn’t an exact science, it can be accomplished with surprising accuracy. Here’s how I do it. Read More »
Tags: Fast Company’s Innovation Uncensored, futurist, innovation, Internet of Everything, IoE, Niels Bohr, predicting the future
Cisco Community for Connected Health
Given your interest in innovative and transformative healthcare solutions, we encourage you to register for the Cisco Community for Connected Health. You’ll receive our quarterly newsletter which highlights real-life customer success stories and promotional offers as well as invitations to healthcare webcasts and events.
You’ll also be the first to know about our annual Community for Connected Health Summit, a half-day event held on the first day of the annual HIMSS conference. If you missed this year’s Community for Connected Health Summit, you can still watch the replays as experts from Cisco, Long Island Jewish Health System, Lake Nona, and Intel discuss how innovation is transforming the patient experience.
Join the community now to see how Cisco healthcare solutions can help you simplify workflows, facilitate BYOD, promote care-at-a-distance, and improve patient experiences.
Tags: connected health, healthcare
In my last blog, I discussed the benefits of Smart City cloud management capabilities. An intelligent IP-enabled network unites multiple services onto one infrastructure, allowing for tight operations management and lower expenses. Operating this network remotely, through the cloud, further enhances the capability for sustainable, effective city management.
As Smart City visions emerge in various projects in local government, we will see a combination of new ways of thinking, designing, planning, executing, and managing. Busan, South Korea has already discovered the powerful benefits of cloud infrastructure to create Smart+Connected Communities solutions. The government partnered with companies to create a Mobile Application Center to utilize city assets and the connected network. (You can also watch a video series, “Cities of the Future,” on Songdo, South Korea and how this new connected Smart City was designed, planned, and built.)
There are some important steps that other cities and governments can take to harness the power of the cloud to become more connected, efficient, and sustainable. A process on how to answer the Smart City call to action is further outlined in Cisco’s POV paper, “Smart City Framework,” and video.
1. Use one intelligent, multiservice IP network.
This is the overarching mantra of a Smart City—connect systems and services to improve city livability. While it can seem daunting, it’s important to remember the long-term benefits of a connected city, especially using cloud management. Some of the most promising Smart City projects have shown that it’s possible to use the network to achieve some major goals of state and local government, including efficient city management and economic, social, and environmental sustainability.
Savvy government leaders are recognizing the untapped power of the network and incorporating its potential into the early stages of planning and development. Many cities have experimented with including information and communications technology (ICT) solutions through small-scale “proof of concept” projects. Since budgets are so limited, it can be difficult to adopt a purely centralized approach, which means trying new techniques and learning from the enterprise sector.
2. Build a foundation for public-private partnerships.
Government agencies and city leaders cannot create smart, connected urban communities alone. Frameworks are needed for relationships between the public and private sectors.
Winning strategies seem to be the ones that enable citizens, business leaders, and policymakers to drive job growth, increase economic opportunity, and provide improved citizen services. The goal is simple: enable effective partnerships by linking governments with private enterprises and citizen organizations focused on creating economically competitive, socially cohesive, and environmentally clean communities. Innovative ICT solutions can be critical tools for those reinventing enterprise, government, and city services. This kind of collaboration between the public and private sectors can provide successful conditions for these new business models, which—ideally—encourage the private sector to take a more active role in upgrading city services and infrastructure.
3. Regulations are needed to standardize the uses of ICT.
Governments regulate the three traditional utilities—water, gas, and electricity—with a clear and consistent framework. City leaders are discovering that the broadband network has become the fourth utility. Regulations are necessary to standardize the uses of ICT in developing new urban communities and in providing services to the public.
It is essential to consider design principles for Smart City network regulations that can accelerate development. Governments should consider their role, and the desired outcome of regulations. Incorporating ICT requirements and standardized procedures into Smart City developments will take serious consideration and planning.
As cities continue to experiment with the network and cloud, there will be fantastic opportunities to hear from leaders about their progress, mistakes, and opportunities to readjust. In September, Meeting of the Minds will offer a podium for leaders to discuss what has happened thus far in their journey to become a Smart City, and what is to come in the future. If you are considering next steps to become a Smart City, I would highly recommend this event. As we all work to become more connected, efficient, and sustainable, collaboration among all companies, individuals, and organizations is vital.
Stay tuned to the Cisco Government blog for the next installment of the cloud for local government blog series or click here to register and reserve your copy of the complete compilation of the blog series, including this two-part blog as well as a variety of cloud resources, which will be available in May.
Tags: Busan, Cisco, city systems, cloud, Cloud Management, connectivity, government, IBSG, infrastructure, Intelligent Network, smart, Smart + Connected Communities, Smart City, Songdo
We are proud to announce Cisco WebEx Meetings for Android version 3.0, available today in the Google Play store. Web conferencing is one of the leading applications being used on mobile devices. With over four million mobile downloads, WebEx is the leader in mobile conferencing. Supporting iPhones and iPads, Android smartphones and tablets and the new BlackBerry 10, WebEx has broad device support with the strongest feature set. Our WebEx app allows users to start, join and schedule, and host WebEx meetings. In the meeting, users can quickly connect audio, chat with participants and see shared content in both portrait and landscape orientation. We continue to invest in and introduce new functionality for WebEx Meetings on mobile platforms and our user base continues to grow. On Android alone we have seen a 248 percent year-over-year growth.
WebEx Meetings for Android
IDC estimates that by 2015 the number of mobile workers will reach Read More »
Tags: Android, Cisco, cloud, collaboration, Microsoft, mobile, mobility, unified communications, video, WebEX
I am often asked what it takes to create a successful telepresence experience. Usually, I respond with requirements like: a high-speed network, great lighting, good acoustic space and the right equipment. However, after a trip I took late last year, I’m going to add “stable power” to the list, and here’s why.
In late 2011, my customer The Hershey Company – you may have heard of them – invited me to be involved with a new project they were kicking off with the goal to enrich the education of underprivileged youth in both the U.S. and Ghana. Hershey wanted to create a common, virtual classroom so 80 elementary students could learn together based on a curriculum developed by teachers in both Hershey, Pennsylvania, and Ghana. The obstacle they faced was how to connect the students, which ultimately led to my visit to Ghana.
Throughout the summer of 2012, I worked with the Hershey Telepresence support team to equip a space at the Milton S. Hershey Foundation headquarters with a C90 codec, two Precision HD cameras, an AudioScience Microphone array, a document camera and some displays. The plan was to duplicate this setup at the Assin Fosu school in Ghana. The ever-revealing reality of a “less than ideal” environment for telepresence required scaling back the Ghana design to an SX20 codec, one display, two microphones and a document camera. The endpoints at both locations were then registered to a VCS Expressway to enable firewall traversal and easy connections across the public Internet.
Read More »
Tags: c90 codec, Cisco, distance learning, e20, education, hershey, sx20 codec, TelePresence, vcs expressway
