The immigration bill approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last night represents a major step forward on high-skilled worker reform.  Our nation has a strong culture of immigration, and we need to do more to encourage, the best, the brightest, and the most ambitious minds from around the world to live and work in this nation, driving innovation and creating jobs.

The legislation will accomplish these goals by significantly reducing  the green card backlog and by providing a workable solution on H1B visas.

Great thanks to Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah and Senator Chuck  Schumer of New York for their perseverance in reaching this agreement. Cisco will continue to work with members of the Senate and House to ensure that the final legislation works for the high tech industry and our employees.”

This is my third 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 my second blog, I discussed the importance of building trust-based relationships and networks to make collaboration work for you.  In today’s blog, I share how you can turn these human interactions into business results. 

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Engage.  We use the word engage every day. It’s rich with meaning and covers a wide spectrum of relationships. We are engaged with our families, colleagues, and customers; engaged with an idea, a process, or an initiative.  And when engaged, people are passionate and committed.

At its core, collaboration is people interacting with people. In the global Cisco Collaboration Work Practice Study, employees told us that successful collaboration depends on encouraging natural human interaction, enabling participation and engagement, and fostering a collaborative culture.

“You really need to focus on the people aspect first. Get individuals to feel engaged and continue to be engaged. I think too many times we rely on the technology.” – Study Participant

In my previous blog, I discussed the importance of not losing sight of the “human element.”  Taking the time to build relationships leads to trust, which is fundamental for collaboration. To turn human interactions between collaborators into concrete results, companies must Read More »

Tags: Cisco Collaboration Work Practice Study, Cisco TelePresence, collaboration, culture, cwps, daniel pink, instant messaging, technology

By Jason Kohn, Contributing Columnist

There’s plenty to love about Jamaica: the weather, the food, the music, the gorgeous beaches and mountains. But there’s one area where, according to one study at least, Jamaica is lagging behind: information technology.

This shouldn’t necessarily surprise. While some Latin American countries, especially Brazil, Chile, and Argentina, are seeing significant economic and IT growth, investment in the Caribbean is growing much more slowly.

Read More »

Tags: broadband, caribbean, economic development, entrepreneurs, ICT, Jamaica, start ups

Last week, Cisco employees, partners and customers joined forces to raise money forThe Special Olympics by enjoying the music of four live bands competing to be crowned winner of ‘Battle of the Bands 2013’.

As we’ve mentionedpreviously, Cisco is proud to partner with The Special Olympics to help raise money for the charity. The Special Olympics strives to create a better world, using the power of sport to foster the inclusion of all people, especially those living with an intellectual disability.

The live music event, held at Sydney’s Hard Rock Café, featured four bands from Cisco and its partners Alphawest, Dimension Data and UXC battling it out in front of a crowd of 300 people. Ticket sales for the evening, combined with a raffle and further donations, have helped to raise a mammoth $12,000 for The Special Olympics.

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Over the past year or so, from time to time, I’ve blogged about what we in Cisco Services have been doing with our Management and Orchestration solutions – for example Cisco Intelligent Automation for cloud – which I discussed in the Automation domain in my Cisco Domain Ten series, and also here, when we introduced a new release.   Cisco’s Automation and Orchestration technology has applications beyond cloud Infrastructure as a Services (IaaS), so let me tell you over a few blogs what else our Cisco Services team can help you achieve with this flexible automation technology, where customer needs for simplicity, automation and end user productivity are in the driving seat.

I’ll start with Desktop Virtualization Automation – specifically in the provisioning process.  And while I’m at this, let me highlight our upcoming Bright Talk Webinar, scheduled for May 29th at 8am PST (5pm CET), where you can see a demonstration of our Desktop Virtualization Automation solution in action- you can register for this seminar here.

Read More »

Tags: Cisco Domain Ten, Cisco Unified Management, intelligent automation, orchestration