Navigating the BYOD onboarding process

I am not a car person. When asked to describe a vehicle, I start with color and the number of doors. Then I stop talking. However, for a short time, I worked for a luxury autos website. I could pick out a Maybach on the streets of Manhattan, I knew when Tesla was launching a new model and I could tell you which James Bond movie featured a vehicle other than an Aston Martin.

Now that I spend my days thinking about wireless networking and mobility, I’ve realized that my perception of Vegas has completely changed as well. Plans used to revolve around restaurants, craps tables and night clubs. Now, as I get ready to head to Interop Las Vegas 2012, I find myself wondering about the network. With thousands of participants simultaneously trying to gain connectivity with all of their mobile devices, I think about mitigating network interference, being prepared for high density and maintaining security for the participants and vendors at the event.

If you’re headed to Interop and these are things you wonder about as your network is growing, here is a heads up on the demos and speaking sessions that you cannot afford to miss.

Go Beyond BYOD with Cisco Demos Drop by our Interop Cisco booth (#1127)

Check out our Insider’s Guide to Interop for a list of great events covering Borderless Networks – everything from BYOD, to WAN Optimization and Cloud Connectivity! Thanks to Lauren for the great scheduler!

And if you were wondering, my car is a goldish, tan, four-door. And (just for fun) these are 007′s cars… not quite the same thing. Maybe one day!

Tags: AP 3600, byod, cleanair technology, demo, high density, Interop 2012, mobility, wireless

Online meetings are a great day to deliver a product demo. They can save time and money, but doing a great job requires you adapt your skill set so you do a terrific job.

In addition to the marketing and public relations skills you already have, you’ll need to learn to embrace the tools you have for the online demo and then pump up the volume on your “wow” factor since having a nice lunch afterward isn’t on the agenda.

Lessons from the Front

Software product manager Gopal Shenoy writes about his recent experiences conducting three demos during online meetings. Two went well and the third “was an outright disaster”.

The bottom line: You can choose to avoid doing the homework to your own peril or spend the time during discovery to start building effective relationships with your prospects.

Nate Westheimer at Innonate offers some firsthand tips (and examples) for pulling together a great demo.

It pains me when people come to demo and, instead of putting on a magic show — showing off how humans (themselves) and software interact — they try to inspire the audience through their words and by speaking about their ideas; or, just as bad, they flip through a bunch of preloaded tabs in an effort to “show” the product, as if pre-loaded tabs are any better than PowerPoint slides.

Technology Do’s and Don’ts

1. Find out some basics before you set up the WebEx.

Will they be in an office, a conference room? Are there likely to be distractions? Do what you can to help them control their experience so you will be heard and you’ll have their attention. Dialing in on a phone line is probably optimum for them to hear every nuance (it also helps if you decide to record the meeting).

Read More »

Tags: demo, how to, Online Meeting, Recording, tips, video conference, WebEX

If you are using WebEx for your video conference, one of the things you may want to do is share information that’s on your computer.

Many people share their desktop -- which means your attendees can see everything happening on your computer. This can present problems if you don’t remember to shut down other applications while you are sharing your desktop. But there are ways to limit what is visible by sharing a document or an application.

Here’s a quick look at your choices [watch video]. Read More »

Tags: demo, how to, Sharing, video, WebEX

We are already well into the planning phase for Mobile World Congress 2012, which will be upon us sooner than we think – and here’s some advice: book your flights soon! And please do come by to visit Cisco in Hall 8, Stand A111 to learn how you can M.O.VE your mobile networks to meet the challenges of and profit from the still-rapid growth in mobile data consumption. We will demonstrate several innovative Mobile Internet solutions that can help you launch new services and business models while optimizing your mobile network to lower costs. We promise to make these demonstrations immersive and engaging, and even hands-on if you’re willing to try! Read More »

Tags: demo, mobile world congress, mwc, Service Provider

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If you got the Thanksgiving week copy of Network World, you’d have seen a feature article on the testing they did on the newest Cisco Wide Area Application Services, or WAAS for short. The Clear Choice test looked at the speed and scalability of the industry’s most scalable WAN Optimization appliance – the WAAS 8541.

Below, we provide an overview of the article, list the highlights of some great testing, and show a fun video that goes through the case for WAN optimization.

Read More »

Tags: Clear Choice, Context Aware DRE, Data Redundancy Elimination, demo, Network World, Test results, waas, WAN Optimization, Wide Area Application Services