WebEx: Ideas in Motion

Minnesota schools use WebEx to connect to the world

We are thrilled to see a school district using WebEx in such a creative way - allowing them to tap expertise and bring a rich educational experience to their students.

Anoka-Hennepin schools are using a $170,000 federal grant to make the sprawling district's world a lot smaller.

The grant is financing a still-expanding video and audio conferencing system that allows students, teachers and administrators to meet and study together, no matter where they are.

Patrick Plant, district chief technology and information officer, said the new computer Web service can allow groups to get in touch via e-mail, Internet, cell phone, regular phone, or television monitor. That, Plant said, will make it much easier for teachers in far-flung schools to hold conferences, for Superintendent Dennis Carlson to deliver important messages to the entire district and field questions from anyone who's plugged in, and for students in an entire school to invite an author or scientist more than 1,000 miles away into their classrooms.

The system, called WebEx and licensed from Cisco Systems of San Jose, Calif., can also be used to expand district course offerings.

"A college teacher might come over to teach economics," Plant said. "Now, we can bring a teacher in without those teachers having to leave their campuses." District officials are also hoping they can use the new system to tap into resources available in other Twin Cities schools.

"There might be courses we want to offer, but the costs are too prohibitive for us to be able to do that," Plant said. "Through a mechanism like this our students would be able to participate in taking courses collaboratively with another school district."

This is just a portion of an article that ran in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune. You can see the entire article here.

Do you have a WebEx story to tell? We want to hear about it! Please let us know via comment on this blog or you can ping us on Twitter and we'll follow-up!

How-To Video: Attend a WebEx via Smartphone!

It's "How-To" Friday - okay, I made that up - but it's a good day to learn a new trick.

And when you do, you have an excuse for following this video on to YouTube when you are done! (If you don't know how to do that, just double click on the video - it will take you to YouTube and you are on your own for getting completely lost in skateboarding bulldogs and evil-eyed squirrels!)

So you were invited to a WebEx but you can't be at your desk? Worry no more, you can jump on with your SmartPhone - here's how!

Want more tips? Visit the WebEx YouTube channel for more!

Fuzzy Slippers? The Shower? Where do you get your best ideas?

There are two myths I want to debunk:

1)      I don’t own fuzzy slippers
2)      I don’t (usually) get my best ideas in the shower

But I do something that is increasingly common: I telecommute.

And telecommuting comes with a set of stereotypes (like the one about working in your fuzzy slippers), most of which are rooted in the 1960s-era concept that anyone doing any serious business did it in an office. But I work from lots of places, and the people I work with are scattered, quite literally, around the world.

My friend and colleague, Andrew Winston, asks “Will Video Conferencing Kill Business-Class Travel?” and he’s not the first to suggest that telework technologies will replace a lot of travel and commuting (and eliminate a significant volume of carbon emissions in the process). Web Worker Daily asks if this is “The End of Cubicle Dwelling?” concluding that many jobs can be easily (and maybe better) done from anywhere.

My colleagues here at Cisco also just released a study showing that tele-commuting increases productivity, flexibility and job satisfaction. 

Convinced? Good. Now back to my question.

If you’re like me, you have ideas. If you’re more like me, you love to talk with your colleagues, friends and other associates. And I know when I do, my ideas get better. New ideas get merged and hatched. And brilliant plans start to take shape. That’s how my ideas turn into initiatives that produce real results.

Sound familiar?

But when I’m sitting at my desk at home, there are no colleagues or friends there to talk with. Just me, my brilliant diagrams and my laptop.

And my WebEx account.

And that’s where things start to get interesting. I immediately reach the people – often scattered around the world - who really help make my ideas great. I can show them – not just tell them – my great idea, and every conversation helps turn those ideas into reality and results.

This is how I “pass the ball.” This is also how I make telecommuting work for me.

I’m not the only one. Take a look at this and this idea that people have shared on making telecommuting work.

Try it for yourself. And share your ideas on how you make telecommuting work for you.

And going back again to my original question: I don’t know about you, but I get ideas at the strangest times and in the most unusual places. But I know that wherever I am, I can act on them right then and there, and instead of letting them wither away in my head,  share them and let others help me make them better – and make them happen.

So, tell us, where do you get your best ideas?

Jeff Weinberger leads the Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives for Cisco’s Collaboration Software Group.