Recently Cisco commissioned a study with The Economist Intelligence Unit to survey 862 business leaders on their sentiments about the value of in-person meetings and the impact on more than 30 business processes including initial meetings, project kick-offs and contract renewals. Business leaders were virtually unanimous in agreeing that in-person communication is more effective, powerful and conducive to success; with 75 percent stating it is absolutely critical to the health of their organization. (For those of you who prefer infographics, here is one with the results).

However, our desire for closer, more synchronous communication is being challenged by globalization, distance, and increased pressure to reduce costs or “do more with less.”  Telepresence is the most effective way to bridge the in-person gap, and as OJ Winge mentioned in a recent speech, it is helping to drive innovation and positive social change in all industries and businesses of all sizes.

But an interesting debate remains, while the majority of business leaders agree in-person is the most impactful communication, 60 percent of communications are not real-time. So what gives? Read More »

Tags: economist, effective communications, in person communication, panel picker, sxsw, TelePresence, video collaboraton

A few weeks ago, Soneco successfully completed their interoperability verification and testing (IVT) with medianet  for its product ICmyNet.Media through the medianet systems management Cisco Developer Network  (CDN) program.

By working very closely with the medianet team through CDN, the ICmyNet.Media team added support to performance monitor enabling our customers to gain visibility into the network, to learn more about the performance of their media flows and to perform faster troubleshooting.

ICmyNet.Media is web based network monitoring tool that leverages medianet performance monitor and gives you valuable insight in your network media flows. It allows you to: Read More »

Tags: business video, enterprise networks, ICMyNet, media monitoring, medianet, performance monitor, rich media applications, TelePresence, video

The number of innovative ways video can be used these days is astounding. I advocated in my last post the benefits telepresence can deliver for remote workers, but it is extends much further— it is transforming how we communicate, collaborate, educate, provide healthcare, service customers, and more!  The days of low resolution video conferencing or video only in the executive boardroom are long gone.

A recent CIO slideshow did a great job at highlighting the innovative use cases for video conferencing and telepresence  – all the way from 3D holograms to Cisco’s own Jabber. The technologies CIO references show the vast ways these solutions  are transforming the way we work, communicate, and collaborate.

Read More »

Tags: Cisco, Jabber Video, pervasive video, remote expert, TelePresence

Imagine a world where iPhones can only call other iPhones and Blackberries can only call other Blackberries, and where traditional land-line phones and mobile phones are separate islands of technology.  A world where you need a specific browser for specific web pages, and where you can only send emails to people using the same mail system.This would be a world without interoperability and industry standards.

How can we expect advancements in society (or humanity for that matter), if we can’t communicate with each other, or if technology can’t interoperate with each other?  To achieve this any to any vision we’ve been talking about, or to achieve that ultimate experience where technology just works together and it becomes transparent to what we do every day, we need standards based interoperability.

Read More »

Tags: borderless experience, Cisco, collaboration, Industry Standards, interoperability, TelePresence

Cisco IPSLA has been a very popular tool for network pre-deployment assessment and network monitoring for over a decade now. It has been widely deployed by Cisco customers across all industry verticals.

In an earlier blog, the Medianet team introduced you to a new type of IPSLA probe called the Video Operation (VO) probe. This probe is also referred to as the Built-In Traffic Simulator (BITS). The main functionality of this probe is to generate traffic that mimics real media flows. The intention is to stress the network and do a pre-deployment assessment of the network.

IPSLA VO is a Cisco IOS® functionality. So basically any router or switch running Cisco IOS® can be potentially used to generate IPSLA VO synthetic traffic streams without needing to buy and deploy dedicated hardware probes.

Read More »

Tags: BITS, Custom profile generation, IPSLA VO, medianet