Last week I wrote about how much we enjoyed talking with everyone who came to see us at Cisco Live as well as InfoComm, a conference with thousands of products from hundreds of exhibitors and more than 39,2015 attendees.  It was great to learn how our video solutions are adding value to your businesses. We’re very honored that rAVe awarded us Best of InfoComm awards in two categories. Best New Videoconferencing Product: Cisco SX80 Codec The SX80 codec is a powerful audio and video platform that enables integrators to incorporate high-definition video collaboration applications into large and purpose-built meeting rooms. In addition to its technical capabilities, the SX80 is also a standout on aesthetic merits having received the Red Dot design award last year. More details about the SX80 here: Best New Videoconferencing System: Cisco Conferencing Experience Cisco Collaboration Meeting Rooms (CMR) lets people join meetings from any device – whether video endpoint, desktop or mobile. It provides a business quality, consistent video and web conferencing experience, whichever device people use. And CMR scales easily, enabling hundreds of participants to join meetings.  See a demonstration here: End-to-End Experiences Creating the best video collaboration experience requires the combination of great endpoints and service. It’s the service that enables video and web conferencing capabilities. And the service that lets people join and participate in meetings easily, without concern about the technology behind the experience. Any Deployment Model Cisco CMR delivers that video and web conferencing service via on-premises, cloud, or hybrid deployment models, giving you the flexibility to choose the model that works best for your own environment. Delivering Business Outcomes Of course, what really matters is the value that our customers gain from deploying Cisco’s video collaboration solutions.  CAME Group have improved relationships and increased customer retention, by taking advantage of their investment in CMR Premises and combining it with a WebEx Meeting Center subscription to enable CMR hybrid. With CMR Cloud, BAUER cut time to market by 10% as an advantage over competitors, increased productivity by 30%, and employee satisfaction has gone up 10%. Further Reading My colleagues Tom McCafferty and Snorre Kjesbu have both recently posted about the industry recognition that our video collaboration portfolio is receiving right now. Tom McCafferty: Bringing Our “A” Game: Cisco Again Recognized as a UC&C Industry Leader by IDC Snorre Kjesbu: Clear and Differentiated Video Wins the Day ... View more

Last week I wrote about how much we enjoyed talking with everyone who came to see us at Cisco Live as well as InfoComm, a conference with thousands of products from hundreds of exhibitors and more than 39,2015 attendees.  It was great to learn how our video solutions are adding value to your businesses. We’re very honored that rAVe awarded us Best of InfoComm awards in two categories. Best New Videoconferencing Product: Cisco SX80 Codec The SX80 codec is a powerful audio and video platform that enables integrators to incorporate high-definition video collaboration applications into large and purpose-built meeting rooms. In addition to its technical capabilities, the SX80 is also a standout on aesthetic merits having received the Red Dot design award last year. More details about the SX80 here: Best New Videoconferencing System: Cisco Conferencing Experience Cisco Collaboration Meeting Rooms (CMR) lets people join meetings from any device – whether video endpoint, desktop or mobile. It provides a business quality, consistent video and web conferencing experience, whichever device people use. And CMR scales easily, enabling hundreds of participants to join meetings.  See a demonstration here: End-to-End Experiences Creating the best video collaboration experience requires the combination of great endpoints and service. It’s the service that enables video and web conferencing capabilities. And the service that lets people join and participate in meetings easily, without concern about the technology behind the experience. Any Deployment Model Cisco CMR delivers that video and web conferencing service via on-premises, cloud, or hybrid deployment models, giving you the flexibility to choose the model that works best for your own environment. Delivering Business Outcomes Of course, what really matters is the value that our customers gain from deploying Cisco’s video collaboration solutions.  CAME Group have improved relationships and increased customer retention, by taking advantage of their investment in CMR Premises and combining it with a WebEx Meeting Center subscription to enable CMR hybrid. With CMR Cloud, BAUER cut time to market by 10% as an advantage over competitors, increased productivity by 30%, and employee satisfaction has gone up 10%. Further Reading My colleagues Tom McCafferty and Snorre Kjesbu have both recently posted about the industry recognition that our video collaboration portfolio is receiving right now. Tom McCafferty: Bringing Our “A” Game: Cisco Again Recognized as a UC&C Industry Leader by IDC Snorre Kjesbu: Clear and Differentiated Video Wins the Day As ever, I value your feedback. Let me know which factors you feel are key to a successful end-to-end video collaboration deployment. ... View more

Do you ever get to the end of your working day, and realize that you have no idea whether the sun has been shining, or it has been pouring with rain all day?  Sometimes, it is only when I’m in video meetings that someone else will actually notice for me that the sun is shining outside my window! Talking to colleagues in the U.K. while I was visiting San Francisco for Cisco Live brought this point home.  In the U.K., the persistent cloud cover had disappeared, giving way to one of the UK’s rare heatwaves. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, temperatures dropped, and we huddled in jackets and sweaters. It wasn’t meant to be this way! Did you make it to Cisco Live?  If so, I hope that you had a chance to get to some of the great keynote sessions. My favourite was from Rowan Trollope, in which he demonstrated Cisco’s new video collaboration endpoints. The new products are making video collaboration simpler and more cost-effective than ever. His demo included an illustration of how Cisco Collaboration Meeting Rooms (CMR) bring people together easily and effectively. Richard McLeod includes an excellent summary in his recent post: “Cisco has the only video collaboration solution that combines proven, business-quality, multiparty video and web conferencing, with the choice of on-premise, hybrid, and cloud-based deployment.” In my last post,  I talked about how much easier it is to collaborate when you can use whatever device you have at hand, whether a smartphone, desk phone, desktop or meeting room video system,  With Cisco CMR, this becomes a reality, offering a single meeting experience across devices – one meeting, with a consistent experience.  Being able to meet easily and conveniently, makes working together, sharing ideas, and even checking out the global weather system, a far more enjoyable experience! ... View more

Did you know that the Guns N’ Roses anthem Sweet Child O’ Mine was originally written as a practice guitar riff? A friend told me this as I recently struggled to play it, making sounds closer to ‘chopsticks’ than to one of the most famous guitar tracks ever created. The fact that I was playing a borrowed guitar may have made it more difficult, though. Playing a familiar instrument is so much easier, if only because you know its foibles! The same is true of many of the smartphones, tablets, phablets (I have one – it is fab!), and other devices that we use every day.  Using a device that’s very familiar – where I know the controls, how to get the best experience, and don’t need to think too hard to use it – makes things much easier and less stressful. When I join meetings, I don’t want to work out how to use a new and different system. How to mute (and unmute!) myself. Or how to see any content being shared? If you typically work from an office environment like I do, having a desktop endpoint on your desk makes the experience so much easier. It’s yours, you know how it works, and it’s as familiar as a standard phone once was (back in the MTV heyday of Axl Rose). And when you can’t be at your desk for a particular meeting, being able to join from whatever device you have at hand – your smartphone, for instance – takes away the stress. With WebEx support for Cisco TelePresencevideo meetings rolled out in EMEA earlier this year, and the Jabber client for iPhone and Android, options are available. No special equipment required. Now my colleagues and I can join meetings from a whole range of devices. I can get great, business-quality video in the office, and still be able to join meetings while on the move. I can choose when and how I connect. And not having to learn a new set of controls for each device makes everything so much easier. I can focus on the meeting itself, rather than how to join and how to make the technology work. For more tips about online meetings, read Angie Mistretta’s great post “Surviving the Conference Call.” In it, she characterizes different caller personalities. Are you a hoarder?  I certainly am! And I’m talking to a Cruncher as I write this. (But don’t tell him I mentioned it.) This is my very first blog for Cisco.  And as we build up to Cisco Live starting on May 18th, I’m looking forward to my second ever visit to the fabulous city of San Francisco.  And maybe borrowing a guitar What are your experiences with moving between devices for online meetings? Or, if you have any suggestions about how I can improve my renditions of “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” please share! ... View more