Collaboration The Workspace: A New World of Communications and Collaboration

Content Security SaaS Solution for Cisco WebEx Meeting Center, Training Center and WebEx Connect

Collaboration platforms are often used to share valuable content, such as confidential presentations, recorded Web conferences and a wide range of proprietary content. Sharing is critical to effective collaboration, but many organizations are looking for a way to control access to their valuable content. Working with the Cisco WebEx Developer Community, Modevity, LLC has integrated their ARALOC™ Digital Rights Management (DRM) solution into the Cisco WebEx Meeting Center, Training Center and WebEx Connect platforms.

The ARALOC DRM integration with the Cisco WebEx platforms is an industry first.  No other collaborative platform has integrated a digital rights management solution to their collaboration offering.  In this ‘security centric’ business environment, concern over intellectual property and confidential content theft and misuse has made rights management a priority for companies in every market segment.

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Posted by Dave Uhlir at 08:14AM PST

Start your Innovation Engine: Cisco I-Prize Returns!

We’re thrilled to announce that Cisco is launching its second global I-Prize competition. Building on the tremendous interest we garnered the last go around, we are calling all innovators, entrepreneurs, technologists and free thinkers to help us identify the next big idea!

The new I-Prize is very similar to the first one – a global competition open to all, an opportunity to interact and collaborate with like-minded innovators around the world and a grand prize of $250,000.  Register now

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Posted by David Hsieh at 09:30AM PST

Collaboration Predictions for 2010

In “Collaboration Predictions for 2010,” Cisco’s Senior Vice President for our Voice Technology Group Barry O’Sullivan provides a view of prospects for collaboration markets in the coming year that emerged over the course of 2009. Barry’s global team is responsible for developing the company’s IP telephony systems, IP phones, customer contact solutions, and unified communications applications including presence, messaging, conferencing, business-to-business unified communications, and customer collaboration. Click here for the full xChange Magazine story or read below.

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Posted by Doron Aronson at 01:32PM PST

Ho Ho Ho! Santa and Companions in Courage Visit Hospitalized Kids via Video

A few years ago, I had the privilege to participate in a wonderful program I’ll never forget.

The Cisco Santa Connection enables children who are unable to leave the hospital for the festive holiday period to share in some of the Christmas spirit. Using video collaboration technology, the children can visit with Santa and share their Christmas wishes with him. Santa comes down from the North Pole and visits the Cisco headquarters to help make this happen.

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Posted by Leanne Schrotzberger at 02:20PM PST

Thriving in the Clean Economy

As I’ve told you before on this blog, I am a full time telecommuter. In order to be most efficient in my job, I use many of Cisco’s technologies, from Cisco WebEx online meetings to Cisco TelePresence to create facetime with my coworkers, to collaborate on projects, and to be a fully participating member of my team, even while I’m not physically in the office. Earlier this week, I was in a meeting with colleagues in Dubai, Sydney, Hong Kong, and San Francisco. We covered a variety of topics in 90 minutes, and no one had to travel, either via car or airplane. It was amazingly quick, easy, and we were able to move on with our work rather than grab a tedious, productivity-robbing, red-eye to get back home.

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Posted by Leanne Schrotzberger at 03:59PM PST

Sharing is Caring Using Cisco Collaboration

By Terry Bayer, Chief Operating Officer at Molina Health Care.

Molina Healthcare is a managed care organization that arranges the delivery of healthcare services to people who are eligible for Medicaid. With 1.4 million members in 10 states and 2,700 employees throughout the United States, people are the main focus on our business. Collaborating both internally and externally is critical to our success.

In our business, we’re acutely focused on managing care for our members but also managing our administrative costs. That’s where the importance of collaboration comes into play. It’s very important that we leverage technology to help reduce the cost of direct care delivery and administrative services. As we have grown, we have worked with Cisco to build upon our current technology and maximize long term ROI.

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Posted by Doron Aronson at 09:56AM PST

Why I’m Excited about Cisco WebEx Mail

I’m excited about Cisco’s announcement today of Cisco WebEx Mail on three levels - as a Cisco employee, as an industry observer, and as an end-user.  Let me address two of those in this blog post.

As an email user, I am an IT nightmare.  I receive large graphics files, video files and MP3s. My mailbox is full all the time.  So I have created close to 100 PSTs, on my hard drive.  Those emails are no longer on the server, no longer available to be backed up, no longer availability for e-discovery.  And I complain about it.  So the option of moving to Cisco WebEx Mail with up to 35G capacity while using that familiar Outlook interface as well as my Blackberry is exciting. Thankfully I’m scheduled to be one of the first group of Cisco employees on Cisco WebEx Mail.

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Posted by Alex Hadden Boyd at 10:35AM PST

The New Collaboration Experience

We’re living in a new world. It’s more complex, it’s more global, and it’s moving faster than ever before. For organizations everywhere, these realities are forcing a shift in the nature of work: how we work, who we work with, when we work, and where we work. This is the new normal, and it demands a new collaboration experience.
 
Beginning on November 10^th, watch the replay of Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers as he shares Cisco’s vision for collaboration and its ability to drive innovation, productivity and competitive differentiation in today’s new normal.  

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Posted by Doron Aronson at 12:07PM PST

Kroma Rolls Out Red Carpet With Cisco Collaboration

By Chris Tillett, CEO, Kroma Makeup  

During the 2009 Oscar Awards, Kentucky Derby and Emmy Awards, celebrities who peeked into their gift bags found samples from Kroma Makeup, owned by renowned makeup artist Lee Tillett.  Headquartered in Maitland, Florida, we develop and manufacture all-natural, botanical makeup products, distributing them through apothecaries, dermatologist offices, plastic surgeons, and spas throughout the United States. Customers can also purchase Kroma products through our online store and from our retail store in Orlando, FL.

Our company is able to remain competitive with multi-billion dollar juggernauts due to the fact the we are light on our feet and that we pay more than the usual attention to customer service.  So that means that any technology that we deploy must be unobtrusive, simple to operate, and enhance our image.  Also, our President Lee Tillett demands that it JUST WORK!  No excuses, no problems.  Thank goodness we partnered with Cisco!  Not only has UC been simple to operate and rock solid, it has even enhanced our competitive edge.  We now can take two laptops anywhere; whether we are at a celebrity gifting lounge or a KROMA launch party and work just as if we were connected with our home office.  The Cisco IP Communicator has been invaluable!  By adding WEBEX to the mix, we have been able to even save money on celebrity gifting by offering virtual sessions whereby Lee consults with celebrities on anything from new looks, custom powdered foundations, or even eyebrow shaping.  As a matter of fact, we have just added virtual sessions to our services card so that clients can get assistance from anywhere. 

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Posted by Doron Aronson at 09:19PM PST

Cisco Learning Partners Breaking New Ground with Collaboration

By Irene Kinoshita, President of Ascolta

Ascolta Virtual, Fusion, and Simulclass are examples of how we utilize collaborative technologies such as Cisco’s WebEx and TelePresence to provide an effective training solution to clients enrolled in our Cisco classes.  These collaborative technologies allow us to transform the traditional instructor led classroom environment into an online virtual classroom with the added convenience of attending from wherever you choose eliminating the need to travel.

Although we have been teaching courses in a virtual environment for over 10-years, delivery technologies like WebEx and TelePresence have vastly improved to provide the student with a much more robust learning environment.  By introducing TelePresence as part of our solution, we find that it enhances the human experience eliminating the “detached” feeling often encountered from other distance learning offerings.  And, as technologies advance so do our instructor’s facilitation skills.   We continue to refine and perfect our teaching methods to incorporate all the tools and resources provided via these technologies to fully maximize the learning process.

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Posted by Doron Aronson at 10:39AM PST

New Ways to Join Cisco WebEx Meetings from an iPhone!

I’m really excited about our latest version of Cisco WebEx Meeting Center for the iPhone.  In version 1.3, available now in the AppStore, you can now hand off your web conference session from your iPhone to your desktop, join by a meeting number, and when you get dropped (still happens!) automatically have your audio reconnected. These new features are in addition to the current feature set:  joining a Cisco WebEx Meeting from your iPhone, attending a scheduled meeting, viewing presentations, applications, desktop, live annotations, and chatting with attendees. 

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Posted by Alex Hadden Boyd at 05:11PM PST

Collaborate with Confidence

Collaborate with Confidence

By Maurizio Taffone, Business Development Manager, Cisco

There is no doubt that collaboration technologies - from social networking to unified communications and video technologies – offer substantial business benefit and competitive advantage. These range from reduced travel and increased productivity to the ability to create sophisticated virtual enterprises that span continents.

At the same time, however, and as businesses adapt to take full advantage of these tools, security threats are evolving. Staying ahead is vital to ensure that business innovation and development is not jeopardized. With the proliferation of mobile devices and the growing options for work locations, no area can now afford to fall outside of the organization’s security policy. The key is to address all of this without detracting from the business’s agility.

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Posted by Doron Aronson at 01:46PM PST

Enabling IT to Maximize ISR G2 and Video Communications

Jeanne Beliveau Dunn, general manager, Learning@Cisco and Himanshu Desai, director, advanced services for Cisco, discuss evolving job roles that map to a new age of video and collaboration.

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Posted by Doron Aronson at 09:55AM PST

Why Cloud vs. Premise is the Wrong Question

I’m an unabashed Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) believer.  I spent the first 10 years of my career defining and building traditional enterprise software and the past 11+ years building SaaS solutions (the last 7 with WebEx (now Cisco)) and from where I sit the benefits of SaaS are undeniable.  The reasons are pretty simple.  We can build SaaS software faster, deploy it more quickly and operate it more reliably – all at lower cost than traditional enterprise software.  So the logical conclusion is that “on-prem” is dead and everything is destined for the cloud – right?  Actually no, premise-based infrastructure still has a major role to play in future deployments.  Why? Equally simple reasons: physics, user experience and lawyers.  Let me explain…

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Posted by Alex Hadden Boyd at 09:28AM PST

Cisco Collaboration Technologies Fostering Innovation at Proctor and Gamble

Proctor & Gamble (P&G) today is a ninety billion dollar company with about three billion people around the world that use their products. Increased collaboration with Cisco Unified Communications and TelePresence has helped P&G meet its sustainability goals.

Watch this video to see how Proctor and Gamble is becoming the world’s most collaborative company and how they’re fostering innovation using Cisco collaboration technologies.

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Posted by Doron Aronson at 02:09PM PST