It’s almost November, which means we’re about to begin what is now an annual basketball tradition. For the fourth year in a row, the NBA Development League Draft will be conducted entirely via WebEx!

On November 1, beginning at 3:30 p.m. Eastern, all 18 teams will make their picks from the D-League draftee talent pool to boost their 2014-15 season rosters.

Instead of making the teams travel across the country to one place, or attend a long, tedious audio conference call, D-League teams will participate from the comfort of their team offices as if they gathered together in the same room. Through the use of the built-in video conferencing in WebEx each team will link to all the other team representatives and they will see, hear and interact with each other in real-time. By combining all the tools the teams need – voice, video and content sharing – in one place, we’re giving each of the 18 teams the best opportunity for a great draft experience from anywhere in the country.

One of the many cool things about my job is seeing all the fascinating ways customers use Cisco’s products. And it’s especially exciting when I get to see customers use our technology with something everyone is avid about – sports! Whether you are a basketball, baseball or football fanatic, managing a fantasy team, or keeping up with the latest prospects, or watching the up and coming players it is all part of the excitement. Through the use of WebEx conferencing, we get to bring these worlds together even more. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, nba, sports, videoconferencing, WebEX

I spent the last eight months on the front lines of the virtual demo world for Cisco. Working from our headquarters in California, I met with people from all over the world to demonstrate our latest products — without a single plane trip. Using collaboration technology sales teams can avoid travel expenses, sell more, and increase productivity.

Most significant business purchases require some form of travel. Companies need to send sales experts out in to the world to demo their products. Or, depending on the products or the situation, customers often travel to the vendor’s site. Although travel involves expense and time, personal interaction is important to customer relationships. Travel can make the sales process more cumbersome and time consuming. But without travel, you limit the degree of direct engagement you might have before a customer makes a buying decision.

How Can Remote Demonstrations Add Value to the Sales Process?

Remote product demonstrations are providing companies with a less-expensive option to engage with customers. And the best part of it is that neither customers nor your technical experts have to travel as much. Just as video is changing the nature of meetings, it’s also a fitting solution Read More »

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, collaboration meeting room, jabber, remote product demonstrations, sales, TelePresence, travel costs, video endpoints, videoconferencing, WebEX

While it sounds too good to be true, it can be simple to build seemingly complicated video installations. Like a custom-built house, you can build video-collaboration rooms to specification. And custom doesn’t always have to mean complex. Cisco is helping organizations do that today by creating a solution with powerful codecs, intelligent imaging technology, and flexible software.

I’m often asked how to quickly build training or briefing rooms with presenters on both ends. People usually ask about a briefing room with 24 classroom seats or a 100-seat training room. They typically have three key requirements:

• Local presenter or when the presenter is in the room
• Remote presenter or when the presenter is calling in
• Interactive discussion between different sites with local presenter at the podium

This requires multiple screens, Read More »

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, conferencing, integrated systems, SX80, TelePresence, video, videoconferencing

There are roughly 10,000 firefighters in Los Angeles County who are responsible for the lives of 9.8 million residents. Getting the proper training for all of the fire departments in the county is of the utmost importance in order to maintain a safe community.

Training difficulties

Mandatory classes for all L.A. County firefighters are held annually at one location to maximize the instructors’ time. The problem with this approach is that firefighters are spending several hours outside of their jurisdiction to attend the classes, which affects response times. To adequately staff stations during training, fire departments spend excess dollars for travel and replacement firefighters.

So, they began searching for a way to save money and enhance firefighter training programs during a period of government budget constraints. Shortly after, the Los Angeles Area Fire Chiefs Association (LAAFCA) received grant funding from the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) Program to help to support their high-threat, high-density communities.

Virtual technology for enhanced training sessions

The LAAFCA decided to use the grant to invest in telepresence, or video conferencing, technology to help them meet their financial and training goals. Telepresence was scalable and could be manipulated to fit the needs of the different-sized fire departments in the county.

With HD cameras, microphones, speakers, and lighting, the video systems would allow one highly-qualified instructor to conduct trainings from one location to multiple departments throughout the county in real time.

Since the integration of telepresence, L.A. fire departments have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in training and travel costs, provided multiple virtual training sessions with the same level of high-quality emergency support, recorded previous course lectures for replay at any time, and improved firefighter response time.

“If there is a major emergency in the region, all of the county’s firefighters can respond with the same level of high-quality emergency support. Video conferencing offers these benefits to the trainees in the most efficient way possible.” – Christopher Donovan, Fire Chief at Monrovia Fire Department, California.

If you would like to learn more, read the full case study, and let us know how technology is helping your local first responders.

We also invite you to join our upcoming live webcast on June 5 – our industry experts will cover everything you need to know to create a unified, interoperable public safety IT environment. Register Now

More to come! Be sure to check in for all our upcoming Friday blogs on the latest trends, challenges and technologies impacting public safety. Follow the hashtag #CiscoPublicSafety and @CiscoStateLocal and @CiscoGovt on Twitter for updates, and visit the Cisco Public Safety site for more information on solutions.

Tags: first responders, govtech, Police One, Public Safety, UASI, videoconferencing

I’ve been talking for a while now about how effective video collaboration is and how video technology can enhance and improve the way businesses collaborate. Many of you may still think that videoconferencing is only for the larger companies with multiple locations and large budgets to cover a video technology investment, but I disagree.

Here are five reasons that that I think midsize businesses should consider using video collaboration.

• Video Collaboration products are easy to use: At Cisco we design our video technology products to be intuitive and easy to use. This means the user interface in the smallest video endpoints works the same as the controls in the largest, so anyone can make a video call anytime they need to.
• Video is becoming the norm: Many organizations are realizing the benefits and ROI of using video collaboration to extend their business boundaries. Meeting with partners and customers around the world – just like they are around the corner – have enabled organizations to do business in ways they never thought possible before.
• Utilizing video can increase productivity and profits: Read More »

Tags: #ciscomidsize, Cisco, collaboration, midmarket, smb, SX10, TelePresence, video, videoconferencing