We’ve seen Cisco TelePresence making a difference in health care. Most recently, it helped connect Children’s Hospitals with the North Pole for the holidays, and now its uses have extended to saving lives.

There are few things in life that are more important than your health and the health of your loved ones. Lack of time has become a major factor in people not seeking out the medical care they need. Therefore, health care providers have had to keep up with this ongoing issue and find ways to ensure patients receive the care they need.

Oklahoma’s largest health care system, INTEGRIS was one of those providers. Faced with the challenge of delivering the quality they desired, INTEGRIS was looking for an effective way to connect hospitals throughout the area to increase employee collaboration and improve patient care. With the help of Cisco collaboration technology, Cisco TelePresence and Cisco Jabber, INTEGRIS has established a life-saving program that has decreased stroke mortality rates and increased access to health specialists.

Read more on how INTEGRIS is leveraging Cisco to drive innovation in health care: “Cisco Collaboration Comes to the Rescue for INTEGRIS Health.”

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, Connected, healthcare, telehealth, TelePresence

The importance of improving math education is increasingly urgent. America ranks 25 out of 34 industrialized nations on math tests. Tomorrow’s jobs -- more than 8 million by 2018 -- will require skills in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

Cisco supports an organization, MIND Research Institute, that is using an innovative approach to improving math skills. MIND’s program presents math problems visually, which can show students why their answers are right, as well as why their answers are sometimes wrong. As students move through the math games at their own pace, they receive immediate, informative feedback on each interaction.

Today, about half a million children in 30 states are learning math with the Spatial Temporal Math program, or ST Math. MIND reports that on average, schools implementing ST Math improve their math proficiency as measured by their respective state-mandated tests, at two or three times the rate of their peers.

A student uses the ST Math program. Photo: MIND Research Institute

Cisco support has enabled MIND to, among other things, pilot ST Math with more than 4000 students at 14 schools in Arizona and convert ST Math to an online platform, which expanded the program’s reach from 55,000 students to nearly 500,000, an 800 percent increase, in 5 years.

Read more about the ST Math Program in a Huffington Post blog by MIND Co-Founder & Chief Technical Officer Matthew Peterson.

Tags: MIND Research Institute, ST Math, stem

It’s a complex world of ecosystem partnerships out there, and it’s important to remember that while technology providers such as Cisco and Microsoft compete in areas such as collaboration and unified communications, they’re also tightly aligned in areas such as data center, where there’s a huge opportunity for Cisco and Microsoft partners to take joint solutions to market.

Cisco and Microsoft took another step in that alignment last week, thanks not only to the integration of Cisco Unified Data Center architecture with Microsoft Fast Track solutions, but also joint marketing and other activities to enable partners that sell both companies’ data center technologies.

The integration itself is a compelling one. Microsoft customers, for example, will be able to have programmatic access to the Cisco Unified Computing System, which gives them a lot more insight and control into how their Cisco Unified Data Center assets work in concert with Windows server and application software. (Here are some more of the details, including specifics on Cisco Nexus 1000V and Cisco UCS.)

Also new is that Cisco will offer several Fast Track solutions that provide customers a reference architecture using technology from Cisco and EMC, under the VSPEX architecture, or from Cisco and NetApp, under the FlexPod architecture. Both of those reference designs have been validated for Microsoft’s Private Cloud Fast Track program. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, Cisco UCS, data center, FlexPod, Microsoft Fast Track, partner, private cloud, Scalability Experts, vspex

We’re counting down the days until the Social Media for Savvy Marketers event on April 18 and 19 at the Cisco Headquarters in San Jose and online. As I’m writing this post, we’re doing audio and visual checks and working out the final details. Personally, I’m super excited about Cisco hosting this event for the 4^th year in a row and would like to thank everyone who has reached out to me or someone on the Corporate Social Media Marketing team about this event via Twitter, email, or any other ways.

1.       Download the Cisco Global Mobile Social App for a Chance to Win Prizes

Whether you’re joining us in person or virtually, download the Cisco Global Mobile Social app to play, network with your peers and for a chance to win prizes. The app is available Read More »

Tags: best practices, Cisco, ciscosmt, event, how to, learning, social media, socialsavvy, training

We are heading to The Strip once again next week as sponsors of the Hotel Technology Forum (HTF). This time, we are staying in some very comfortable territory and get to experience our own solutions in action. The Bellagio will be hosting HTF from April 17-19 and expects to have many hospitality leaders pass through its lobby.

In late 2012, the Bellagio along with three other MGM Resorts’ properties completed a Cisco Systems Network Wi-Fi installation.  An instant upgrade, hotel guests and conference attendees no longer have to pay a fee or enter a password to access the wireless local area network (LAN) via their smart phones, laptops and tablets.  HTF show-goers will experience a network that is 30 percent faster than similar large-scale wireless networks as well as all 330 access points The Bellagio has to offer.

Read More »

Tags: bellagio, Cisco, Forum, hospitality, hotel, hotel technology forum, htf, network, technology, wi-fi, wireless, wireless network