Collaboration The Workspace: A New World of Communications and Collaboration

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

Reconsidering the Rich vs. Reach Continuum: Virtual Events

Is it time to reconsider the notion of “rich versus reach” with respect to the way we hold extended events?

For years, technologists have described the tradeoff between high quality, sophisticated products and those that are available to a very broad audience with the “rich vs. reach continuum.” Central to this concept, of course, is the fact that a product could only offer a rich experience to a very select group of users (often, ultimately, due to cost considerations).

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Posted by Mike Bergelson at 04:23PM PST

Getting To the New Normal (Part 2 of 2)

by Alan S. Cohen, vice president, Enterprise Solutions, Cisco.

I am a recovering (semi-competitive) mid and long-distance runner. At an advanced age (in my late 20s), I finished my last serious competitive race at 5:20 a.m., skidding a finish line on the FDR expressway in New York, having run the inaugural leg of America’s Ekiden. As part of the Washington, D.C. delegation, we ran the relay race through Manhattan at the wee hours – it was primetime television in Japan – and I finished dead last in my segment when I passed the sash to my anxious teammate. Like all runners, I competed against myself. And I lost. I should have known I was out-classed when I stood behind Steve Scott at the starting line. At that time, Scott was the American record holder in the mile, 5K, and several other feats of running prowess.

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Posted by Alan Cohen at 08:41AM PST

Overcoming Barriers to Effective Collaboration

Most companies have barriers within functions and across functions, for example a sales person wanting to collaborate efficiently with another sales person or a sales person collaborating effectively with purchasing and R&D. The situation is further complicated in a world where companies operate globally and have to work across different cultures, languages and time zones. Finally, more and more companies are recognising the advantages of being able to collaborate with external partners and suppliers.

Without a willingness to change the fundamental processes and culture and a flexible underlying infrastructure, organisations risk remaining captive to their legacy environments, forever held back by what’s gone before. As organisations assess their operations as a result of the recent downturn, there is an opportunity to make significant changes that will deliver cost saving in the short term but position the company for unprecedented growth in the future.

By Tim Stone, Cisco Business Development Manager

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Posted by Doron Aronson at 02:39PM PST

Driving Productivity with Collaboration

Truly productive collaboration means being able to interact quickly without boundaries – without being hampered by the need to change devices, launch new applications, or switch between screens. It’s long been recognised that business users don’t care about the technology – they merely want the assurance that they can go about their jobs efficiently and effectively. Whether they need to track down someone and discover their availability for contact, strike up an ad-hoc conversation (by phone, instant message, SMS, email, voicemail, tele-meeting, web conference or video session), or share content securely over a variety of networks, the process should be easy and uniform.

For optimal results, organisations need to free users from any restrictions, provided of course that the resulting collaboration environment is inherently and robustly secure – something that should be a given with the right technology partner. Innovative, high-performing collaboration applications strike straight at the heart of organisations’ fundamental needs to work more dynamically and interactively with partners and customers. Being slick and agile means being able to form and disband teams on the fly, provide timely access to relevant information, regardless of where people are located or which technologies are at their disposal.

By Tim Stone, Sales Business Development Manager

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Posted by Doron Aronson at 03:07PM PST

Innovation in Collaboration

As CTO for Unified Communications at Cisco, I’m involved in all three ways in which Cisco creates product innovations: current product evolution, partnerships & acquisitions, and internal innovation.  My team and I help to ensure that Cisco strikes the appropriate balance between the three as we build products to meet the needs of our customers and partners.

When Cisco innovates, we ensure the usefulness of our innovations with five criteria. We ask whether our innovations enable our customer to:
•    Reduce costs
•    Improve employee productivity
•    Increase customer intimacy
•    Differentiate versus their competitors
•    Innovate within their business

By Joe Burton, CTO and Vice President, Voice Technology Group

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Posted by Joe Burton at 02:57PM PST