In March, I make an annual journey from Dallas to Orlando – not to visit that famous mouse or take a Spring break. No, I am there with thousands of IT, telecom, and networking professionals who have descended upon Orlando to attend Enterprise Connect, the leading conference and expo on enterprise communications and collaboration.
This year, both Jimmy Ray and Robb (along with the amazing TechWiseTV crew) joined me to capture all of the excitement, announcements, and cool demos.
If you missed the conference, don’t fret. We have all of the highlights here!
First, I caught up with Rob Lloyd immediately after his keynote to get the scoop on the Internet of Everything and how it will impact businesses.
More than 20 years ago when INTEGRIS Health chose to invest in collaboration technologies, little did they know they were making a decision that would one day save lives.
With more than 16 hospitals and 9,000 employees throughout Oklahoma, INTEGRIS is the state’s largest health care system. An early adopter of telemedicine, they implemented video technology in the early 1990s. But what started simply as an effective way to connect hospitals has grown into a life-saving program that has decreased stroke mortality rates and increased access to health specialists.
What’s INTEGRIS’ secret? A team of top medical professionals armed with Cisco’s leading edge collaboration technologies. Solutions like Cisco TelePresence and Cisco Jabber allow two-way, interactive collaboration between doctors and patients to support INTEGRIS’ telehealth programs that treat everything from mental health illness and speech impairments to stroke and Hepatitis C patients.
The recent weeks of teleworking controversy has been interesting to follow for anyone passionate about collaboration technologies. There is no doubt that teleworking offers significant work/life balance benefits, as exemplified by Cisco´s own Angie Mistretta in her recent blog post. On the other hand, it is equally evident that companies that do not invest in the right tools or training for effective remote collaboration aren’t realizing the true potential and benefits of teleworking.
Being part of a leadership team with people scattered from the Russian border, through Oslo, Boston, Texas and California has made it very clear to me that a lot of innovation, time and money would have been lost if we did not have the proper collaboration tools. Simply said, bringing all the right people into the same office is generally not an option in a global operation.
In my team, the primary tool for collaboration is the Cisco TelePresence EX series personal systems; we all have endpoints on our desks at the office and at home. This is essential to us because, be it late night or early morning, the number of overlapping hours when we are in our respective offices are just too few. Personal telepresence ensures in-person communications within the team whenever we need to meet, and it also allows us to attend other meetings over telepresence at any hour ensuring we’re able to capture all of the details and have maximum impact.
I recently saw a blog post from my colleague on how video technologies like Cisco Remote Expert are completely revolutionizing the way we do things; for example, applying for your wedding license via video.
It was his blog that made me think about my own upcoming nuptials and the role that video collaboration played in my wedding planning. And while I didn’t apply for my marriage license via telepresence, I did however do something pretty cool that I wanted to share.
I don’t personally consider myself a bridezilla, no comment on what my bridesmaids and husband-to-be would say, but I did find myself in a tizzy regarding my wedding dress. Like any bride, I wanted the support of my closest family and girlfriends when I went dress shopping. However, I was on the hunt for a dress during a trip to my home state of Louisiana and my sister, who’s my best friend and maid-of-honor, was in Virginia.
She’s my older sister, so I’ve been asking for her opinion since I was a kid. When it came to my dress shopping, I was upset at the thought of not getting to share that moment with her. I had to think outside of the box to make sure she was there for the experience — and boy did I ever.
It’s happened to you many times – you’re in a store desperately trying to find a clerk to give you more information about a product you intend to purchase. But no such luck. Cisco is changing that with its Remote Expert Smart Solution for Retail.
A recent article recapping a keynote at last week’s Enterprise Connect with Cisco’s Robert Lloyd, highlighted how Cisco wants to make the customer experience not only easier, but more enjoyable. What’s the overarching goal? Making sure the customer has a highly-personalized experience and is equipped with information to make their final purchase decision.
Once retailers get that prospect into a store they can’t afford to risk losing sales from customers left unsatisfied with the service they receive. Cisco’s Remote Expert Smart Solution for Retail enables retailers to provide customers with consistent, fulfilling and positive shopping experiences. Using real-time, life-like video from screens positioned throughout stores, experts, can connect via video to share documents, videos, websites and any other content helpful to customers. This access to experts can reassure them about quality, functionality and how it might fit individual customer needs.
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