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As children all around the world are eagerly anticipating Santa’s arrival on Christmas Eve, children in hospitals around the Americas were able to get their wish list in before the big day. This month, Cisco teamed up with several children’s hospitals with a Santa Connection project, which allowed children not well enough to visit Santa onsite to still communicate their wishes to him from their bedside using Cisco video.

I was able to work with one of these hospitals, Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore, to augment the Santa Connection experience with a ‘Santa tracking’ app, which allowed children to know how close Santa was to making his virtual appearance to individual rooms in the hospital. An elf traveling ahead of the Santa Video team carried an iPad displaying a live webpage showing the location of the much-anticipated video visit. Here is a screenshot of the app experience:

santa_tracker_2

Utilizing the Connected Mobile Experiences solution, which includes the REST APIs provided by the Mobility Services Engine (MSE), we were able to show the children where the Santa team was in relation to them – with a Santa icon where Santa’s video crew was and a smiley face showing the child’s current location. Continue reading “Looking for Santa? Use Cisco Location-Based Wi-Fi!”



Authors

Uday Pyda

Software Engineer

Mobility Services Engine (MSE) Team

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chowjBy Joe Chow, VP & GM, Cisco Connected Devices BU

The Set-top box sits at the heart of our home entertainment centers, providing hours of enjoyment for the best of what’s on television. Over the past few years, it has become clear that we can do better when it comes to reducing set-top-box energy consumption.

That’s why Cisco has engaged in a robust dialogue with energy advocates, television providers, other equipment manufacturers and, ultimately the Department of Energy (DoE), to see if common ground could be reached on the energy efficiency of set-top boxes. Today, we are pleased to announce that a voluntary agreement has been forged.

This agreement preserves the highest quality consumer television experience, while making significant reductions in energy usage and greenhouse gases. This is a landmark agreement, which saves consumers money, protects the environment, and provides regulatory certainty for manufacturers and providers alike. That’s what I call a win-win-win.

Here’s what the agreement will do:

This agreement will save consumers at least $1 billion annually in energy costs, it will save 500 megawatts of energy every year (enough energy to power 4 million light bulbs all year round) and will prevent five million tons of CO2 emissions per year.

It commits PayTV providers to deploying energy efficient set-top boxes to at least 90% of all subscribers nationwide. Additionally, Cisco and other manufacturers are committed to design, build and provide set-top boxes and multifunctional gateways that meet stringent energy efficiency requirements, while maintaining the ability to provide the anytime, anywhere, any device video experience consumers have come to expect.

Cisco is proud of this agreement, and we look forward to providing our customers with cleaner and greener set-top boxes, so we can all return to our regularly scheduled programing.



Authors

David Yates

as Director of Service Provider Video Marketing at Cisco

SP360

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Well what a fantastic year it has been in the British Innovation Gateway (BIG) programme — Cisco’s initiative to discover, support, and accelerate innovation and growth amongst tech-based “start ups” across the UK.

We started the year with the objective of achieving a minimum of 3 things – running another successful BIG Awards competition in 2013, opening our Innovation Centre in the Shoreditch district of London, and hitting critical mass with the National Virtual Incubator. But as we come to the end of 2013, it is clear we have achieved so much more!

Things kicked off in January when I joined several hundred like-minded people at the great Spigit Innovation Summit (SIS 2013) in Dana Point, California and we presented a keynote on the BIG programme and how it sits at the centre of our London 2012 Olympic Legacy. It was fantastic to share the stage with such inspirational leaders and speakers as Sir Ken Robinson (a TED veteran) and Paul Pluschkell, founder and CEO of Spigit (now Spigit Mindjet), not to mention many of their leading Innovation customers such as Citibank and Novartis who also took part.

Continue reading “Cisco UK Makes BIG Progress Toward Tech Innovation in 2013”



Authors

Tom Kneen

Business Development Manager, CTO Office, UKI

GEO - Sales UKI Mgmt

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The 21st European MPI Users’ Group Meeting, EuroMPI/AISA 2014, will be held in Kyoto, Japan, 9th – 12th September, 2014.

In addition to the main conference’s technical program, EuroMPI/ASIA 2014 is soliciting proposals for one-day or half-day workshops to be held in conjunction with the main conference.  It is intended that those workshops are aim to discuss on ongoing work and latest ideas related to applications with message passing paradigms.

The Call for Papers will be separately announced, and will also shown in the conference page.

Continue reading “Call for Workshops: EuroMPI/Asia 2014”



Authors

Jeff Squyres

The MPI Guy

UCS Platform Software

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Deloitte’s 2013 Annual Holiday survey came out with some staggering statistics:

  • Nearly 7 in 10 shoppers will use their smartphones and tablets to shop this holiday season.
  • Nearly half of all shoppers will use social media to assist in shopping.
  • 73% of shoppers will be influenced by coupons and promotional offers.

Retailers both online and in-store can no longer ignore the power of mobile technology and social media influence with shoppers. Shoppers using mobile devices inside stores are actually more likely to make a purchase when being presented with the right information. In fact, this isn’t only true for retailers, but across all industries. Whether it’s guests, visitors, patients or passengers, there’s a real opportunity for businesses to make an impression via the mobile device.

Today I am happy to announce our latest Cisco Wireless Software Release 7.6. As you may recall from Sujai Hajela’s State of Cisco WLAN blog earlier this week, Cisco’s Wireless group has been ahead of the competition with our dedication to delivering cutting edge, high performing technology to our customers.

Many features in Release 7.6 were designed specifically to enable our customers to take advantage of the latest mobile trends. Here are some of the highlights:

Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX)

CMX for Facebook Wi-Fi is a joint Cisco — Facebook solution for guest Wi-Fi. Continue reading “Naughty or Nice: Cisco Wireless Rewards Release 7.6 Innovations to All”



Authors

Udayan Palekar

Senior Product Line Manager

Wireless Networking BU

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Every year for the last seven years, Cisco and its Santa Connection program have brought video collaboration technologies to hospitals across North America for child patients to virtually connect with Santa Claus in the North Pole.

The children get the opportunity to ask Santa what they want for Christmas either by video chatting on iPads using Cisco Jabber or through Cisco TelePresence and mobile carts. For these children, it’s a chance to enjoy the holiday season during their hospital stay.

Cisco Santa Connection 2013This year, Santa visited U.C. Davis Children’s Hospital virtually on December 12, and spoke with several of the kids – each with unique requests for what they wanted for Christmas.

But one boy named William, who’d been staying at U.C. Davis due to a recent injury, asked Santa for something really special. When it was his turn, he told Santa that all he wanted for Christmas was for his father to come home from Cairo, Egypt.

William’s father has been stationed overseas in the military, but little did William know that his father had been granted leave to come home to see him. So Cisco and U.C. Davis thought they could make their reunion extra special.

On December 19, during William’s dad’s flight back from Cairo, Cisco asked Santa to make a special visit to see William. Santa then brought an iPad to William’s bedside for a call with his dad. Santa told William his dad was currently at the embassy of Cairo – only the call “mysteriously” dropped.

Santa then told William instead to close his eyes and wish for his Dad to be there in person. And just seconds later, William’s dad came through the door!

Needless to say, William, his dad and the rest of the family were overjoyed to have everyone together again.

We were so pleased that Cisco, the U.C. Davis Children’s Hospital staff and Santa helped to make William’s wish come true just in time for Christmas!

 



Authors

Mike Haymaker

Healthcare Industry Marketing

No Longer with Cisco

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If it seems as if the roles of chief information officer (CIO) and chief diversity officer (CDO) rarely overlap, think again. In today’s hypercompetitive — and hyperconnected — global marketplace, inclusion, collaboration, and technology are merging as essential drivers of innovation and business success. And the relationship between the CIO and CDO may never be the same.

Indeed, fostering a policy of inclusion and diversity in your organization isn’t just the right thing to do; increasingly, it is also the profitable thing to do. And, it’s a clear business imperative, since great ideas come from all corners — and levels — of the organization.

In a Cisco survey of 7,500 companies, 93 percent of enterprises with a formal policy of inclusion reported that their collaboration technology investments outperformed their business value expectations. That’s just one example of the inclusion/diversity/value equation at work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Iu1JsCPMU

Continue reading “The IoE Enterprise: Diverse, Inclusive, and Hyperconnected”



Authors

Joseph M. Bradley

Global Vice President

Digital & IoT Advanced Services

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Now that the Holidays are upon us, and we look forward to 2014, the Cisco Small Business team continues to raise the Small Business networking bar with the introduction of the all new Cisco RV325. This Dual WAN, 14-port VPN Router, provides all of the same performance, security and reliability of the RV320 launched last June. Both routers are perfect for fast-growing small businesses or branch deployments. So if you are looking for more ports in the same enclosure, the RV325 is the Small Business router to take a look at.

RV320 and RV325
RV320 and RV325

Like the it’s smaller sibling the RV320, the RV325 is a perfect match with the Cisco Small Business SG300 Series Switches and WAP500 Series Access Points. As you saw from my last Blog, the WAP551 and WAP561 boasts a nice feature-set including Captive Portal and Single Point Set-up. The WAP 551/561 are controller-less Access Points meaning additional hardware is not required. The SG300 Series offers a nice blend of features at an affordable price and are designed Small Business. It has most of the features that can be found in today’s Enterprise-class Switches.

This formidable combination makes for the perfect solution for that many Small Businesses and Organizations can take advantage of. Add in our portfolio of award-winning Cisco Small Business Services, and you have a solution that all that guarantees a positive experience from Cisco Small Business Team.

One Option for this solution is the newly launched 200 Series of Smart Switches. There are four new models including 10-, 24-, 26-, and 50-port switches. These Full Power PoE Smart Switches are a great alternative as they offer a generous feature-set, solid performance and even greater affordability.

SG200 Series PoE Smart Switch
SG200 Series PoE Smart Switch

 

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year’s from the Team at Cisco Small Business.

 

 

 

 

 

 



Authors

Marc Nagao

Product Manager

Small Business RV Series Routers

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The odds of qualifying a lead if called in 5 minutes are 21 times higher versus 30 minutes. The odds of calling to qualify a lead decrease by over 6 times in the 1st hour.

Forbes

In my most recent blog, I approached the idea of revenue-generation marketing needing to have proof in the pipeline. Of course you can re-read my previous blog, but “no matter how great your strategy may be, you should check the metrics to make sure it’s working” nicely sums it up.

I also touched lightly on how sales and marketing should align in order to make revenue-generation marketing successful and that is the topic I would like to focus on in this blog. Continue reading “Alignment Between Sales and Marketing is Crucial for Revenue-Generation Marketing”



Authors

Sherri Liebo

Vice President

Global Partner Marketing