For most of us, our lives are full of momentous occasions shared by family – learning to walk, graduating from high school, starting your first job, getting married and having children. For Boston-based public relations practitioner Yumi Bilic , the next momentous occasion in family life was her sister’s wedding. Unfortunately, due to the aftermath of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the Japan native was unable to attend the festivities in Tokyo earlier this month.
After learning about Yumi’s situation, Cisco donated Cisco ūmi telepresence units to her and her family so that they would be able to be together virtually on the special day. With the same name, it was hard for Yumi to pass up the opportunity to see her sister’s ceremony on her HDTV via ūmi.* Not only did Yumi and her husband get to see her family, but she was introduced to her sister’s soon-to-be husband’s family, as well. By attending the wedding virtually with Cisco ūmi from thousands of miles away in Boston, Yumi was able to see, things like her sister’s beautiful bouquet and traditional kimono she changed into for the ceremony as well as finer details like the floral arrangements on all of the tables.
On Thursday, March 24th, over 120 women came together to network, learn and share ideas with one another. Many of these strong and empowering women were entrepreneurs and bloggers who travel and may not get the opportunity to connect with friends and family as often as they would like to.
We demoed Cisco ūmi at the BlogHer networking event, highlighting one of my favorite features: recording a video message in high-definition straight from your television and uploading it directly to Facebook, YouTube and Flipshare.
You may have seen our recent announcement about the changes we’re making to our home telepresence system, Cisco ūmi. Exciting things are happening with ūmi , and we’re pleased to share the following changes with you:
The Midwestern United States is an interesting place to live. My father calls it “the farm belt.” Families tend to grow a bit larger, and people tend to linger closer to home as they grow up. But even the close-knit Midwest family structure can’t completely close the miles that creep between family members as school, career, and retirement priorities take over.
In my case, a family that was so close for so many years suddenly grew very distant when my mom and dad moved to Florida at age 65. My own family also blossomed in that timeframe, growing to four beautiful children, all under age six. While we travelled twice to visit when our family numbered two children, it quickly became cost prohibitive to visit Oma and Opa as the family grew to four (our German heritage shows through by the names we call our grandparents).
For most of us, our lives are full of momentous occasions shared by family – learning to walk, graduating from high school, starting your first job, getting married and having children. For Boston-based public relations practitioner Yumi Bilic , the next momentous occasion in family life was her sister’s wedding. Unfortunately, due to the aftermath of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the Japan native was unable to attend the festivities in Tokyo earlier this month.
