Kim Austin

3 min read

The first day of Cisco Live 2017 Las Vegas is in the books. It was a busy day, to say the least. The morning started with the opening keynote and jumped right into the World of Solutions and tech sessions throughout the day. It was nonstop technology. An overview of the day's events with a spin toward the collaboration world.

3 min read

What’s up for the collaboration fans among the badge-wearing masses at Cisco Live this week? Plenty! Education sessions, innovation talks from execs, demos in World of Solutions, an entire village of partners, testing for certifications… Like I said, plenty. Whether you're here in Vegas or attending online, there's plenty to keep you going.

4 min read

Are you headed to Orlando for InfoComm 2017? We’re packing up our favorite collaboration demos and heading to the Orlando Convention Center to share how you can use our tech to simplify the way your teams work.

2 min read

Schools at all levels are finding that collaboration technology can help students and teachers connect -– whether for group projects, online lectures and coursework, or spontaneous ad-hoc sessions. With the Cisco Digital Education Platform, institutions can provide a secure and seamless integration of collaboration technology including Cisco WebEx and Cisco Spark with other learning-management systems to ensure their students and faculty are able to do their best work.

2 min read

Norway has few protected forests; many risk being lost. Biologist Trude Myhre uses Cisco Spark to share data with her team to document the loss and push for stronger protections.

4 min read

Things were a bit quieter at Enterprise Connect today as the event came to a close with a few morning sessions and the final summary panel. The bits and bytes and shiny new hardware and software are great, but as many people repeated this week – it’s about the experience, it’s about the people, it’s about what technology allows us to do that makes the difference.

2 min read

In today’s episode, I’m pleased to share that Cisco received the Best of Enterprise Connect 2017 for Cisco Spark Board. This morning started off on a very positive note when we Jens Meggers was invited to the stage to accept the Best of Enterprise Connect 2017 for Cisco Spark Board.

2 min read

Today’s episode features the Cisco keynote presentation from Jens Meggers and some cool demos. Today was the first day of keynotes with Cisco, Twilio, and Amazon Web Services. It was an interesting morning with three very different presentations.

4 min read

In today’s episode, I cover a few of the day's panel discussions and provide an overview of the latest Cisco product announcements. Cisco execs Javed Khan, Chris Botting, and Jens Meggers held strong on three good panels, And we announced more innovations and capabilities for the Cisco Spark platform. All in all, it was a busy day -- and a good one.

2 min read

Few people would disagree that teamwork delivers results. But for decades, recognition systems in business have focused on individual achievement. This encourages the belief that if you want to get ahead, you have to make all the magic on your own – or at least make sure you’re the person to get the credit for it.

2 min read

"Our schedules are chaos, but we’re living our dream, raising a big family and owning our business. That’s where Cisco Spark comes into play." Cecilie Sindum, Orthodox Design.

6 min read

Avaya’s recent announcements have put a lot of people into the decision process. Making a major business technology purchase isn’t something you can take lightly. To figure out who you trust with your unified communications and customer care, asking a lot of questions will get you the answers you need.

2 min read

Cisco designed Cisco Spark to address the things that get in the way. It’s designed to make these issues disappear. That’s a good thing. It means teams can focus on what they’re doing, not the tools they’re using to do it. Integrate Cisco Spark with your existing tools and the way people actually work. Use bots to help automate your work. Help bring teams together. It’s not about telling employees to adapt a whole new paradigm. It’s about giving them tools to simplify the way they interact and move work forward.

3 min read

In case you missed it, here’s an overview of “all the stuff about Cisco Spark” released on January 24th – from blog posts to videos and product information.

3 min read

In Industry shake-up times like these, you may worry about your contact center solution – and the impact on your customers: Will my solution still have support? Will my maintenance costs rise? What about new capabilities and innovation? If you're responsible for your company's customer care or unified communications (UC) solutions, these questions can keep you up at night. But there's good news. Many businesses have successfully changed contact-center and UC vendors.

3 min read

Collaboration is important. You need to collaborate. These are phrases often heard in the workplace, but the true value of collaboration can often get lost in translation. And how to go about properly implementing and executing is often not given the attention it deserves.

5 min read

It’s Thursday and the sun has set in Las Vegas. That means it’s still hotter than blazes outside, but we’ve closed the books on Cisco Live 2016. It was a busy week of summer camp for geeks. How busy? CMO Karen Walker threw some mighty stats at the closing keynote crowd: The Cisco technical team […]

2 min read

Tuesday was predictably exhausting. While the keynotes and innovation talks didn't focus specifically on Collaboration, it was everywhere. Maybe it's my opinion, but when it comes down to the root of what we do -- it all comes back to collaboration. Very little of what we do is as individuals in isolation. Anywhere. On with the day's highlights...

4 min read

And we’re off! With 28,000 people attending in via three locations in Las Vegas and nearly 100,000 tuned to the online broadcast, Chuck Robbins had the attention of a lot of people today. No need for a gradual start -- although Robbins did question the wisdom of morning keynotes (especially in Las Vegas).

5 min read

Everything we do is about continual evolution. We’ve fundamentally changed our delivery models, the pace of development, and the ability to provide you with greater benefits. But our focus hasn’t changed: Everything we do comes together under simplifying communication, making it more intelligent and intuitive so that you can focus on your business. So in case you’ve missed anything in the flurry of new things over the past couple months, here’s a recap,

1 min read

If you want your own business to remain relevant, now is the time to drive digital transformation and collaboration. But what does that mean? And how do you do it? Join us from 12n to 1p PT on Monday, July 18 for a #CiscoChat on digital transformation with @ChristopherIsak. Cisco’s collaboration team, @CiscoCollab on Twitter, will moderate the conversation.

4 min read

Another day, another gathering focused on the evolution of technology at Code Conference. Big names, big ideas, and a lot to think about. Executives and activists. IBM, Google, Facebook, Gates Foundation, Twitter, Cisco, Musk…

2 min read

Cisco joined Vox Media as a premier sponsor of this year’s Code Conference. Not only is Cisco a premier sponsor of this year’s conference, but the Vox team is using Cisco Spark to power “Code Connect,” the conference messaging and collaboration platform.

3 min read

Another busy day of Enterprise Connecting comes to a close in scenic Orlando. With Cisco’s announcements and Rowan’s keynote yesterday, my Wednesday was a bit quieter than Tuesday. (Not quiet, mind you — just quieter…) Collaboration Platforms with Jonathan Rosenberg My first session this morning was at what felt like a very early 9 a.m. […]

3 min read

Apparently Monday was just a warm-up. Tuesday started with several announcements before sunrise and just kept going past sundown with the Cisco Reception. The energy level throughout the day? A strong buzzing. And there was a lot to buzz about, starting with the morning press release kicking off the day with announcements tied to Cisco […]

3 min read

Enterprise Connect definitely got underway today in Orlando. The sessions grew more crowded throughout the day and the halls got busier. I heard a lot of talk about cloud, hybrid, UCaaS, and WebRTC just in passing conversations. (And I finally stopped looking for small dogs – the jingle of the badge lanyards somehow sounds like […]

2 min read

It was a busy day in San Francisco. OK, it’s probably always a busy day in San Francisco. BCV0XCUdUYAAVGOOut the second day of Cisco Collaboration Summit was definitely a busy one. Consultants and analysts toured centers of innovation, partners dug deeper into the announcements from Tuesday, and customers grilled executives.