WebEx: Ideas in Motion

Blog Action Day: Use WebEx To Help Create a Better Climate

Today is Blog Action Day - a single day of the year where bloggers from all over the world, all walks of life - join together to create a single voice on a single subject:

First and last, the purpose of Blog Action Day is to create a discussion. We ask bloggers to take a single day out of their schedule and focus it on an important issue. 

By doing so on the same day, the blogging community effectively changes the conversation on the web and focuses audiences around the globe on that issue. 

This year the topic is Climate Change.

Rather than try and come up with a new blog about all the ways WebEx helps people save time, money and cuts down on travel costs, we thought it might be easier to let you choose the story that fits you best - and we've thrown in a few that don't include WebEx! 

The founders of Blog Action Day believe that,"Out of this discussion naturally flow ideas, advice, plans, and action." That's what we believe too and why we started PasstheBall.com. 

We invite you to come to PasstheBall.com and share you ideas about Climate Change in our Environment area. Ideas get better when then are shared.

What to join the conversation?

It's not too late to blog. And if you want to follow what else is happening today, go to Twitter and search on #BAD09.

  

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.

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!

Confessions of a WebEx Addict

WebEx is addictive. I’ve been a “user” for four years now and I have no intention of kicking the habit. In fact, I loved WebEx so much I joined the company in 2007 (just before we became a part of Cisco). Here’s why I’m hooked…

A habit for highly effective people
I have attended a lot of face-to-face meetings throughout my career, and this time-honored tradition goes on today. But until I discovered online meetings, I never realized how much the time, space and travel expense limitations of meetings can impact your business. Yet many professionals go on doing things this traditional way, insisting on face-to-face meetings for every business need.

Let’s face it, teams are globally dispersed and the world is moving too fast for the traditional approach. I now use WebEx on average 6 times a day, including online meetings, brainstorming, staff updates, all-hands meetings, vendor communication and impromptu problem-solving.

Sometimes the WebEx is combined with a face to face meeting, but 80% of the time I am at my desk. If I had to fly, drive or run down the stairs for every meeting, I couldn’t do it. The productivity gain from meeting online has been enormous for me, and I have not had to sacrifice any effectiveness in my communication.

I enjoy meeting people face to face or with Cisco Telepresence (an amazing immersive experience) but it’s not available at my fingertips all the time. For the job I do, give me WebEx and give it to me now.

Put the show in show-and-tell
Why not just use a conference call? I remember those too. Audio is fine, and it’s relatively inexpensive. Unless of course you count the cost of the long verbal explanations, the misunderstandings, wondering who’s talking, large media files blocked by email, and the inability to quickly get answers to critical questions. 

A picture is worth more than a thousand words. I say show me, don’t tell me. 

Even when I sit in a physical conference room, I will login to the available WebEx along with the remote participants (most meetings are a mix of face-to-face and online.) Instead of staring at tiny text on a blurry projection screen, I use the WebEx to see clearly on my laptop, and capture and share visual information immediately. No poor admin has to transcribe whiteboard notes to send to everyone the next day. I’m also a slow note-taker, so I like getting the network-based recording of the meeting so I can fill in the blanks later, jumping to just the parts I need. 

A new way of working
I am old enough to remember a business world where one person would speak and everyone was expected to pay full attention. This is still a good idea sometimes, like when your boss is presenting.

But let’s be honest. You get invited to some meetings with too many people and no clear agenda. Your role is not really defined and you sit there just in case you’re needed.

For me, the ability to work productively (multi-task) in a WebEx with my digital world at my fingertips is a godsend. I even find myself having sub-conversations around the topic being presented. It’s like kicking someone under the table and passing them a note (in chat) without getting caught. I get the info I need immediately, making me look like a superstar when I’m called on. Hey, you’re only as smart as your resources, right?

If you’ve been to a conference keynote lately, you’ll see the audience behaving the same way. They’ve got their iphones and laptops open, twittering to their social network about what’s being said. Information is flying faster than ever and the multi-tasking work style is being brought into the office by workers (especially Gen Y) at a rapid pace. I’m choosing to embrace reality and join the crowd on this one.

So yeah… I’m hooked on WebEx and I’m not sure I can live without it now.  I would survive if you took it away, but you better offer a 12-step program in your health plan.

Wanna try it?  Everyone’s doing it. Get a free trial of  WebEx and let it take you to the next level.

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

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.

Spare the Air: It’s about more than cutting travel costs…

In this recent article in the San Jose Mercury News, companies are making serious decisions about cutting back on travel costs. They are using “big products” to solve “big problems.”

"In a trend that could transform the way companies do business, Cisco Systems has slashed its annual travel budget by two-thirds — from $750 million to $240 million — by using similar conferencing technology to replace air travel and hotel bills for its vast work force."

While this focus is on saving money – the issue of travel becomes even more pressing on a day like today when residents of the San Francisco Bay Area have been asked to work from home as we face yet another “Spare the Air” day due to excessive heat that traps gas-based emissions.

You don’t have to go “big” to save “big”

There is a low-cost solution to online collaboration that’s worth checking out – especially if you are trying to cut costs or be a good citizen – it’s WebEx. I am a recent convert. I admit, I really didn’t understand the true benefits until I starting using WebEx.

I used to get on the phone and talk with my colleagues while we all looked at the PowerPoint I emailed out. Sure we did okay, “Is everyone on slide 12 now?” I would ask and wait to get confirmation. We did what we had always done.

But then we signed up for the WebEx Free Trial and gave it a shot. What a difference. I had no idea I could see someone else’s desktop (or that they could see mine). I didn’t realize I could edit their document while we talked – or they could see me make the edits to the PowerPoint so they knew how to do it themselves next time.

An alternative to your daily routine

For those of us in the Bay Area, its Spare the Air. Where you live, it might be weather or traffic or simply the desire to work from home so you can spray the kids with the hose this afternoon. Any way you slice it, using WebEx can help you work smarter.

What have you got to gain? Give it a try.

BART Strike? No sweat – you can still get your work done from home!

In the California Bay Area, there’s talk of a BART* strike that will have a huge impact on commuters who rely on public transit to get to work. But this situation isn’t unique to the Bay Area. In fact is a problem that faces everyone who has to rely on some sort of transportation to get to work.

But for those who need to collaborate with their team and can use a computer, there are alternatives.

We found two great ideas at PasstheBall.com, offer telecommuting as that alternative.

Idea: Tax incentives for business that support telecommuting
Nicole from York, Pennsylvania suggests we “give incentives for businesses that utilize telecommuting.” Her point is that “this would help save on energy costs for the company and would benefit the employees by allowing them to save on gas and possibly even daycare for children.” She also points out that, “This also benefits the environment because less people are commuting to and from work, and those that still need to be in the office will suffer from less traffic as there would be less people on the road during rush hour.”

Idea: Telecommute One Day Per Week
Janster from Sunnyvale, California, thinks we should “start a worldwide telecommuting day campaign.” She explains how it would work: “Employees would work from home one day per week. Imagine the CO2 and lost productivity reductions if there would be just 10% less commuters on the road each day.”

If it turns out the employees at BART do strike and you can’t get to work, we want to invite you – and anyone else who wants to work from home effectively – to give WebEx a try. It’s free and you’ll see why we get so excited about using WebEx to share ideas.

If you do give it a try, let us know what you think. Comment here or post a note on our wall on Facebook. Commuting to work should be as easy as WebEx.

*BART is the Bay Area Rapid Transit. You can get strike update information here and you can actually subscribe to email alerts here.