Is your company “anti-social” because there is too much noise? Are you having challenges getting a grip on your various social networking tools? Keep reading to discover how Persistent Systems did it.

Imagine running a global software development firm, with over 6000 employees, nine development centers, spread across three continents, in various time zones. When your business is finding virtual experts for various client projects at the speed of light, instant collaboration becomes essential for success. Persistent Systems based in Pune, India, is one such award-winning software company that has championed their collaboration challenges, with strong tangible results and exceptional employee productivity statistics.

However, their story is not simply about discovering how enterprise social software is much more effective than email, phone, and other traditional forms of communication. They are beyond that point in their journey. Read More »

Tags: Cisco Quad, Cisco WebEx, Cisco WebEx Social, collaboration, employee productivity, web conferencing

Carlos is a modest SME who does not take nearly as much credit for the significant business impact that his social achievements have for his team.

Carlos is very knowledgeable about various social media sites, but where he really shines is on the internal corporate social platform known as Cisco’s Integrated Workforce Experience (IWE). Carlos joined Cisco in Argentina in 2008 as a Translation Validator meaning that he ensures documents being translated into Spanish align with the “Cisco voice” and company branding guidelines. However, he has also been recognized for the excellent work that he does on the IWE by allowing employees to easily interact with one another and share content in a non-conventional, effective manner.

Carlos Single-Handedly Supports the Sales Team’s IWE Needs

In 2009, an IWE initiative dedicated to evangelizing its usage throughout the company was born. While most people struggled to adapt to this new internal platform, Carlos was one of the few who were able to skillfully maneuver the dark waters of this site by using his creativity and vast knowledge of computer languages and coding. Since then, he has supported the Sales team with their diverse IWE needs. Carlos has not only redesigned and built countless selling communities within the Global Platform for Sales IWE Community but also taught many on how to become more adept at using the various tools that the site has to offer.

Carlos is very passionate about using the IWE platform as it is and making the best of the platform’s rather limited functionalities rather than forcing actions upon it that it doesn’t support. Here’s an example of one of his creations, the “Cisco Barbarians Wall of Fame” IWE page:

Read More »

Tags: Cisco Quad, internal community best practices, iwe, meet our SMEs, subject matter expert

Cisco’s collaboration solutions have been front and center over the past two weeks at both Cisco Live and Enterprise 2.0, the premier conference for social business technologies. I had the opportunity to attend both conferences and was energized by the incredible momentum we have in the market with the integrated collaboration solutions we’re providing to the marketplace.

The customers, reporters and analysts I’ve talked to recognize that the notion of a traditional workplace is changing. Employees are more mobile than ever before. People are collaborating across geographic locations and time zones, so work is conducted in a more virtual and time-shifted manner. Social technologies in the workplace allow people to leverage talent, experts, colleagues and customers around the world.

Cisco’s goal is to lead this market transition. At Enterprise 2.0, we unveiled Read More »

Tags: Cisco Live 2012, Cisco Quad, Cisco WebEx Social, collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, enterprise social software, nike

Collaboration is great. But it’s not a Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones, if-you-build-it-they-will-come Field of Dreams scenario. Alas, if all it took was plowing under a corn field and putting down some chalk stripes, I might be out of a job. And out of corn flakes.

We talk a lot about technology and process, but sometimes omit the human aspect. All the technology in the world won’t do much without people using it — unless you’re watching the Terminator machines attempt their takeover. And then there’s always HAL 9000. But those guys are a lot more interested in domination than collaboration anyway.

An organization’s culture is a critical component to successful collaboration. Make all the technology announcements and managerial pronouncements you want – you need an environment that supports collaboration. Read More »

Tags: business collaboration, Cisco Culture, Cisco Jabber, Cisco Quad, collaboration, corporate culture, leadership, people-centric, The Collaboration Imperative

Over the last several months, Cisco has been espousing the virtues of people-centric collaboration and today we’re thrilled to announce that Virgin Media is deploying Cisco Quad, Cisco WebEx and Cisco Unified Communications as part of its Flexible Working Initiative. By putting people and not text, email or the document at the center of collaboration, Virgin is able to foster a more flexible work environment that allows people to work effectively from a variety of office locations including the home. Thousands of Virgin Media’s employees will now be able to collaborate and work remotely with web-driven conferencing, voice, video calls and shared documents from the device of their choice – be it PC, laptop, tablet or mobile phone, using a social business platform to drive a new way of work.

Cisco Quad, Cisco’s social business platform, will act as a virtual knowledge bank accessible via any browser that helps create virtual business communities where filtered and relevant information “finds you” allowing users to find resources and prioritize work in a manner befitting the generation we live in.  WebEx high-definition video helps engage workers and allows them to meet “face-to-face” no matter where they are.

Collaboration technology lets Virgin Media’s employees enjoy greater work/life balance while also giving them the ability to access information anywhere to make decisions more quickly.

For more details, see the full press release.

Read More »

Tags: Cisco, Cisco Quad, Cisco Unified Communications., customer, quad, virgin media, WebEX