WebEx: Ideas in Motion

Nominate Your Favorites for a LinkedIn European Business Awards

We know business folks work hard. We want to make sure they get rewarded.

That's why we are partnering with LinkedIn on the LinkedIn European Business Awards.The awards will recognize exceptional business success both on a personal and company wide level, specifically rewarding innovation and collaboration in business. The European Business Awards are open to all members of LinkedIn across Europe, with individuals and companies of any size eligible to enter. Entrants can either nominate themselves or others for the awards online. 

The awards will be judged by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, PY Gerbeau, the famous French entrepreneur and business consultant, and James Campanini, the head of Cisco WebEx for EMEA and Latin America. 

The winner of each category will be awarded a live WebEx session with one of the judges, with the final overall winner receiving an expenses-paid trip to travel to London for their personal meeting with PY Gerbeau.

To win, professionals and businesses will have to demonstrate how they have found exceptional business success as a result of collaboration and sharing ideas and provide tangible proof of achievement.

Click in and add your recommendations! Winners will be announced in March 2010.

  

Join Rock the Vote’s Online Event on Healthcare - Register Now!

Interested in Healthcare Reform?  Learn What’s at Stake for You

Join this incredible national event on Oct. 21st as we bring together a fascinating array of panelists including Heather Smith, President of Rock The Vote, Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy, and U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius (you may have seen her on The Daily Show).

Register now. 

At WebEx, our goal is to foster discussion  - in this case it’s about healthcare – especially among younger people who may not be aware of the long term impact of the decisions being made in Washington D.C.

You can’t afford to be uninformed.

Did you know 18-29 year olds are the most uninsured age group in America? It's true. And without affordable healthcare, many of us could be exposed to a lifetime of hurt. We'll discuss how reform will affect young people in particular, and we'll help answer key questions about what's at stake for you and all Americans. For a great example of how quickly the lack of healthcare can impact a young person, take a look at this very personal story supported by Pete Wentz. It got very personal, very fast for Pete.

What are your thoughts?

Prior to the event, we want to hear from you. This event belongs to you and we want to make every effort to tailor the content to the issues that concern you most. Post your ideas and stories at www.PasstheBall.com. It’s a great way to participate before the discussion. And when you register, be sure to include a question you’d like the panelists to address.

Register Now!

Event Details: Wednesday, Oct 21st at 4PM PT | 7PM ET

  

How To Create a Culture of Collaboration

The re-reorganization
Companies today are not just reorganizing their org charts around people. They are reorganizing around ideas. A new collaboration culture is emerging out of necessity, as virtual task forces are being formed to solve problems and outrun the competition. Nimble teams need nimble collaboration tools.

Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Then why aren’t more CEOs racing to deploy new technologies to support these teams? Because many are not yet convinced that this stuff works. I hear it from frustrated middle managers all the time:

“Hey I get it, but the big boss doesn’t understand the benefits.”
“If our department head can’t physically see us in the office, she doesn’t trust that we’re working.”
“How do you maintain good relationships with customers if you can’t shake their hands?”

The leader sets the tone for the company culture, and culture drives technology adoption. But there has to be a measurable payoff for any technology to really stick.

Where innovation begins
It’s public knowledge that Cisco has saved millions of dollars in travel costs using its own products, especially WebEx and Telepresence.  I believe the widespread adoption has occurred for two reasons.

First, our CEO John Chambers has promoted online collaboration as a way to thrive during the tough economy.  Secondly, Cisco’s collaboration suite offers many choices for employees depending on the situation.   

Cisco’s Telepresence delivers "wow" factor impact with its “almost like being there” experience, (any CEO would personally love to have one in their office or boardroom.)  WebEx has a "wow" factor of a different kind – working in harmony with other Cisco collaboration products to bring web conferencing to the fingertips of every single employee.    

This is where I believe innovation really begins - not in the boardroom, but in the mind of the individual employee, toiling away on the road or in a quiet cubicle, often the closest person to your customer in the entire company.  

Innovation and proof can be stimulated at this level by letting the individual
- easily share great ideas

- work faster with a nimble team to make them better

- gain agreement with management

- streamline time to market

- publicly celebrate the team’s accomplishment.

Turning ideas into action
Company culture won’t change overnight. If your CEO is struggling with taking a giant leap into new collaboration technology, give them a few baby steps first. Pick a mission-critical business priority, align a creative, cross-functional team to it, and ask for a flexible collaboration platform to help bring your good ideas to life.  Measure your pilot, and then build on your success with a moderate expansion.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
This is viral adoption of the best kind – people seeing their colleagues use technology to help solve problems and create measurable value. If the CEO is presented with a low-risk, fast-ramp solution to transform the business culture… isn’t that an easy thing to embrace?

David Goad is a senior marketing manager with the Cisco Collaboration Software Group. davigoad@cisco.com.

Teamwork Matters: You have the ball… now what?

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Business collaboration is like a basketball game. Whether it’s NBA level (enterprise) or a pickup game in the park (small business), there’s no question it’s a team game.  With all due respect to Lakers fans, even Kobe Bryant couldn’t win if he took on five able players by himself… and I’ve seen him try. Every player contributes for a team to win the game.

One key to great teamwork is great passing.
Each player gets ownership of the ball for a few seconds, doing their part to help get the team into shooting position. You dribble and run a few steps, make a couple of moves and advance the ball up the court before passing the ball again.  But without speed, accuracy and good communication with your teammates, you’ll lose the ball to the other team every time.

It’s not so different in business.
How do you advance ideas in today’s fast-moving, interconnected world? It’s not about knowing everything, or bringing an idea to life all by yourself.  It’s about building a team, a network of trustworthy people, who will help you advance the ball up the court before your competition can mount a defense. These people may be officially on your local team, outside your company or even outside your continent.

You need an edge.

That’s the great thing about having today’s collaboration technology at your fingertips. Tools like WebEx give you an edge, empowering you to form an effective team from anywhere on the planet and virtually pass the ball with speed, accuracy and good communication. You can even bring on extra players from the bench at any time, get their contribution and send them back to the showers before the referee has time to notice. (See how Grote Industries beats their competition to market with WebEx. View / Listen.)

It’s a global game.

You've got the ball and the championship is on the line.  If you are equipped with the right tools and the ability to pass the ball perfectly, you’ll wear out the competition before halftime.

Try WebEx and see how your passing improves.

David Goad is a senior marketing manager with the Cisco Collaboration Software Group.

“Communication is crucial for managers in a recession”

That’s right. “Communication is crucial for managers in a recession,” according to an expert featured in today’s Calgary Herald.

“You have managers with great intentions, but doing more of the day-to-day activities than they used to do before," says Craig Brown, vice-president for Ontario and Western Canada with staffing firm Randstad. "You get that tunnel vision. It compounds the uncertainty because the person employees look to for leadership -the boss -might not be sharing as much information because they have less time and more work, too.”

He makes a great point. We are all trying to do more with less and that’s when communication tends to get traded off for pressing deadlines, the need to prove you are doing a good job and generally being overwhelmed. Add the complexity of having to work with people that aren’t sitting near you – and the difficulty is exponentially increased.

It doesn’t have to be that way. If you haven’t tried WebEx, you don’t know what you are missing. It works like you do:

1. Want to eliminate confusion – you need more than a teleconference – WebEx lets you share your desktop, literally type words that might be misunderstood of you are audio-only and work together on projects everyone can see the outcome at the same time.
2. Need to work with someone who’s at home, in another country or on the road, WebEx has minimum technical requirements – it’s so easy I can get my mom on it and that’s saying something – all you need is a browser and the meeting URL or number.
3. Need to a personal touch – use your webcam so people can see your face and read your expressions.

But here’s the most important thing, you can try it free. It’s kind of fun and you’ll be surprised what it can do. You get to share your desktop and files, you can use the WebEx phone bridge or just call direct. The result is you will get things done much faster than doing it the “old fashioned way” and your team will thank you for helping them get the job more efficiently.

“There's great potential in these times to have even stronger teams,” Craig Brown says.

Don’t let hard times keep you from communicating with your team. Give WebEx a try.

Ken Blanchard WebEx: Keys to business success in economic hard times

On Wednesday, June 10, Ken Blanchard, world-renowned expert on leadership and management, conducted a WebEx on the benefits of collaboration and how it can help businesses be successful in hard times. He spoke to the power of ideas and why having a good idea just isn’t enough.

Why collaborate?

Ken says, “Today you can't develop all the competencies your need fast enough to stay competitive." His point is simple; we need help to keep up with the pace of change. “If you don't collaborate,” he says, “you are limited by your own ideas. Collaboration should include customers.”

Our schools and businesses don’t foster collaboration

Ken made some interesting points about how schools don’t foster collaboration. He wonders why we don’t want to encourage students to work together – instead we pit them against one another by grading on a curve! “We should want kids to work together to win,” he stressed.

 “Businesses make the mistake of focusing on evaluation rather than coaching,” Ken explained. “We want employees to work together! Not compete.” Sure he’s met people he doesn’t like or are hard to work with, but Ken said his mother taught him to “look for the pearl” in other people - their wisdom; what they had to offer.

Blanchard’s Keys to Collaboration

1. Model it – managers need to ‘just do it’!

2. Be a learner - look for people you can learn from!

3. Be a humble high-performer – determination and humility are qualities that make the best leaders.

If the work is good, share and give credit; if the work is bad, leaders need to take responsibility. He expanded on this idea, “people with humility don't think less of themselves, they think of themselves less!” His emphasis: leaders need to focus less on ‘me’ and more on ‘we.’

Don't compete. Complete.

"Big benefit of collaboration,” Ken said, “is you achieve more and you enjoy it more. The best leaders think of results and people.” Blanchard talked about the value of trust in tough times. “This is what Obama does [trust and seek collaboration],” Ken concluded. “He has a generous heart and wants to get us all working together. He understands the value of ‘don’t compete, complete’.”

Click here to listen to the WebEx. You can also grab the slides here. This presentation was one of a series connected to our Pass the Ball campaign benefiting Teachers Without Borders. If there is someone else you’d like to hear from via WebEx, let us know – comment on this story or post on our wall!

Ken Blanchard - Live! Wednesday, June 10th - Register Now!

There's nothing better than scheduling a little break in your week that will also deliver value to your business! We have that little break coming up this Wednesday, June 10th. Take an hour out of your day and listen to one of the "most influential leadership experts in the world and is respected for his years of groundbreaking work in the fields of leadership and management."

Ken Blanchard will be hosting a WebEx to talk to us specifically about sharing ideas in business as a way to make them better. It's all part of our "Pass the Ball" initiative designed to get everyone to start sharing ideas and collaborate with others to help them grow. You can learn more about Passing the Ball on our website.

If you don't have an idea, that shouldn't stop you - you can rate or comment on the ideas already there. The best part is, when you do any of those things - share, rate, comment - you trigger a donation to Teachers Without Borders, an organization shares ideas daily with teachers and students around the world.

Register now for this event:
Ken Blanchard
Wednesday, June 10th, 9AM PDT | 12PM EDT (UTC-7 hours)