I’ve often said that the boundaries between work and life are blurring. I use Twitter every day to collaborate, talk with friends and engage in conversations I don’t normally have in the natural course of my business day.  It’s amazing to send out a tweet and to have people react immediately.

And while technology lets us send a single tweet to people around globe, it has other fantastic benefits, too—it also lets us attend a conference without having to even board a plane.

Join me at Cisco’s Virtual Partner Summit March 1-3, 2011 to see live keynotes, breakout sessions that will help you prepare a customer for a cloud solution, and a chance to ask me and other Cisco executives questions during live video chats. (All without having to leave home.) Register today.

Want to hear more about the topics that are top-of-mind for me as I head into Partner Summit?
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Tags: architectures, business, ciscops11, cloud, data center, padma, padmasree warrior, partner summit, partners, twitter, video, virtual partner summit, virtualization

This article was written by Jeffrey, one of our Cisco ūmi users.

These days, it seems as if staying in touch means putting families further out of touch. With email, cell phones, texting, etc, we have begun to lose the real value of a meaningful face to face conversation.  Over the course of my testing with Cisco, it has been made very apparent to me, that they aim to change that in a radical way.

My wife and I have always been close to our families. However, most of our family is scattered across the country. With our closest family being over 1,000 miles away, it has made it extremely difficult to keep in touch the way we would like to. The ūmi system has brought the much needed face to face time that our families have wanted for a very long time.

With ūmi, our parents can now see their grandchildren grow literally right before their eyes. The periods of time between actual visits seem much shorter now because every day, we can talk with our family as if they were sitting right in our living room. The full 1080p resolution makes it actually feel like they are sitting in our living room.

For my family, a majority of our use will come from talking with family that we wouldn’t be able to see otherwise. Keeping that connection is extremely important to us, especially when it comes to our children. Now our children have the chance to see every single one of their relatives, not just from a picture. Establishing and maintaining that bond is something that ūmi will help us do.

Overall, ūmi has brought an immense amount of joy to our family. With communication being a key factor in our lives, Cisco has stepped up to the plate and far exceeded our expectations on what it means to stay in touch over long distances. It has brought many smiles to not only my face, but the faces of my children as well. It is those smiles that will remain in the memories of everyone we talk to using ūmi, and Cisco made it happen.

Tags: away, Cisco umi, loved ones, together, ūmi, video

Does it really matter where you are? Increasingly it might; even for the rich media applications that customers are starting to deploy on their networks. Location services are already emerging as a powerful transformative force in consumer electronics. Smartphone applications can already use your location to do anything from finding you the nearest Thai restaurant to locating the nearest available parking space. Increasingly essential tools for modern life in the big city. But location is also emerging as a subtle and yet important service when applied to rich media applications.

Modern network infrastructure is increasingly able to pass location information to connected endpoints enabling a new range of location based endpoint services. At the mundane level, these location services are useful in logistical management of rich media applications. For surveillance, the ability to locate and track the movements of IP surveillance cameras enables improvements to dynamic asset tracking and loss prevention. This doesn’t just apply to the increasing number of wireless IP surveillance cameras but also to wired cameras. Relying on a connectivity test may enable an administrator to check whether a camera is still active but that’s no guarantee that the camera is still located in the correct location and is monitoring the right “scene.” For digital signage applications prevalent in retail and entertainment venues, the most common method of determining which content should be streamed to a particular media endpoint is usually based on location. The media endpoint located in the lobby of a sports stadium is highly likely to be playing media content which differs from that sent to a player in an executive suite. By applying location services, dynamically learnt from the network, it’s possible to automate the provisioning of these media endpoints and even ensures that the correct content is played, even if the endpoint is moved from one location to another.

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Tags: business video, enterprise networks, medianet, rich media applications, video

Pink cut-out hearts, red roses and a box of chocolates can only mean one thing. It’s almost Valentine’s Day! What are you doing for this romantic holiday?Not everyone is lucky enough to be in the same location as their special someone, and the time and money involved in flying cross-country often keeps us from spending time with those we love the most. With Cisco ūmi*, you can see your loved ones without even leaving your living room.

Here are some ideas if you’re celebrating via Cisco ūmi this February 14:

• Pick a delicious recipe and have each person make the same meal. You can even cook “together” by pointing your ūmi camera at the kitchen. Once it’s all ready, sit down and share your culinary creations together. Even better if you light a candle and decide on a bottle of wine to “share!” Read More »

Tags: Cisco, Cisco umi, connecting, home telepresence, together, ūmi, Valentine's Day, video

What is Cisco ūmi? Think of it as a TV-based video conferencing tool designed for consumers to help stay connected with our loved ones (for now in the US). You and the person you want to connect with each get a Cisco ūmi, hook it up to your TV, pay a monthly fee and you’re ready to chat away with grandma and grandpa on the East Coast or with your son or daughter in college. Wondering how to set it up? Check out Cisco ūmi social media manager, Zoya Fallah’s blog and first video message using this product. Then, read Alisa’s story on how she used ūmi to connect with grandpa.

Now that you have a better understanding of what Cisco ūmi is and what it does, let’s shift gears. The purpose of this blog post is to share with you how we introduced this product. This launch wasn’t just about a new product, but about a new experience…Our goal was to show through Read More »

Tags: Case Study, home telepresence, launch, social media, ūmi, video