Collaboration Anywhere: Cisco TelePresence Benefits & Capabilities

Cisco TelePresence at work.

So with our large announcement at the end of March, one of the things that is important to understand is what some of the benefits of the new capabilities and products will be. And so, one of the biggest things is what we say about being able to deploy TelePresence really everywhere and for to be able to be used by everyone.

So with number of enhancements to our endpoint portfolio, we have now got products that can be deployed in more spaces, can be deployed faster, can be deployed more cost effectively and that’s really important for companies of all sizes to be able to do that to make sure that the return on investment is really solid and fast.

And then on the application side, what we are doing is extending the value of telepresence going from live face to face meetings to a whole variety of other applications. And what that does is that makes TelePresence a more valuable solution, so you can do all sorts of things with it.

 It also means that it’s helping companies implement video and of course, all companies are thinking about how these video — using video more effectively. So how do you use video for live communications, how do you use it for asynchronous communications, how can you expand video from a telepresence room to any device that’s enabled video, that could be everything from a desktop PC to a video — iPhone to, who knows what else would come next.

And so all of these things together is starting to help Cisco to be able to articulate a vision or bring the vision to reality of being able to deploy video in many ways to many locations so that people can use it very flexibly and start to think about video as a really effective communication vehicle for collaboration.

– Erica Schroeder, Director of Marketing, Cisco Telepresence

Polycom Video Conferencing Equipment Reduces CO2 Emissions Part II

Video conferencing systems like the Polycom HDX 4000 help workers reduce their carbon footprints.

Scott Whitney: Now is Polycom receiving any feedback from their own customers about this issue?

Bob Preston: Oh, we are and we are getting a lot of feedback from our own sales team. We have a lot of companies asking; small companies, large companies, Fortune 1000 types. We see a lot of it here in the United States, we see a lot of it in particular in EMEA where the carbon emission reduction in reducing carbon footprint has become a big initiative.

Scott Whitney: So, Bob, outside of where Polycom can directly help folks, where are some of the other areas that companies are focusing their attention on to make things better here?

Bob Preston: Well, there are some obvious things that companies can do and I am no expert in some of these areas and neither is Polycom. But certainly their physical environment is one area where companies are looking to reduce CO2, their reduction of their air conditioning, power usage because power actually, energy in the form of electricity is primarily created through burning oil, right? So it’s a big way to reduce carbon emissions, simple things like replacing their light bulbs with fluorescent lamps can make a big contribution. Also in the manufacturing procedures, for example, the processes that are used to bring in products to market, are those clean, are they polluting and both chemical use and also putting carbon into the atmosphere.

Other area is in human resources and travel policies. So are companies encouraging their employees to car pool, are they providing incentives to employees for buying hybrid cars, things like that, anything to get their employees to contribute to their own reduction of the carbon footprint is a big step in the right direction and kind of (filing), this is where Polycom fits in as IT leadership. There are a lot of power saving IT pieces of equipment today, you know, and policies to turn off computers, monitors and devices when not in use and obviously, for Polycom it’s collaborating through conferencing, both video and voice as opposed to, you know, getting you in a car or hopping on a plane and traveling to (EMEA).

Scott Whitney: Do you have any firsthand experience with how Polycom themselves as a company is trying to do better within the company itself?

Bob Preston: We are trying to get better as a company in all of these areas, in particular where our physical environments and trying to create an environment where we can be ecologically minded and have our own global sustainability program where we can start to measure the impact that we are having, also in our manufacturing policies and the HR travel policies as well and we are a big user of our own technology; we are probably one of the most video-enabled companies…

Scott Whitney: Sure.

Bob Preston: Around and we really walk the talk when it comes to using our own technology to reduce travel. For example, we get asked whenever we book the travel reservation, we get asked by our travel department with an email that says, “Gee, do you really need to travel or you know, could you use video conferencing as an alternative to conduct this meeting?” And so, you know, it’s one of those little cool things that Polycom is doing to get its employees to really think about it. You know, they need to get in their car, that they need to hop in that plane or can they use video as an alternative.

Scott Whitney: And what is Polycom doing to help their customers to better attain their own environmental or green goals?

Bob Preston: Well, Polycom really sees going green and the process of that through our technology as a three-step process. And the first step is through an assessment program that we offer as a service. It starts as step one, an initial benchmark in network assessment to determine is your internal IP network really ready to fully take advantage of a video or voice system and to what degree would you benefit and what are the best practices that you could implement within your company to best utilize our collaborative technologies. That’s kind of step one, you know, are you ready, is your network ready and is your company capable of utilizing our technology to the full advantage.

Step two really goes into the next phase, which is, “Okay, as a company, we want to be green, we want to really tap into Polycom equipment and use it collaboratively to stay closer to home, not travel as much to reduce our carbon footprint. And so, this is really now rollout planning. So, “Gee, what is the current assessment of how travel and CO2 emissions could be reduced through our collaboration tools and namely video again, and how would you best roll out those collaboration tools to achieve the desired level of CO2 reduction?” so, it’s kind of a best practices assessment but now for green, you know, how do you get your company to really achieve those carbon reduction?

And then the third step would be really tracking it, what are the metrics, okay. So you have installed this video conferencing equipment now, your hope is to reduce carbon emissions, do you know if it’s being effective and we make a lot of recommendations to this service when we go in on how you can track the metrics of your video usage and there are similar simple manual method as well, I mean recorded no logs for example or how people do that, so you could track the usage. There are also some utilities that are being developed and Polycom is looking at one of them currently, which actually reside on your video endpoints or on your management system that actually automatically sort of tracks the usage and conducts an assessment of the actual miles that are saved from a travel perspective.

Scott Whitney: Now, with these three steps, the assessment, then the rollout and then the tracking, is this something that Polycom is actively providing to their customers today?

Bob Preston: It is. It’s an optional service that’s offered through our professional services group but it’s all rolled into one service even though I mentioned this as three particular steps. And it’s an assessment service that is available today than we are providing and it’s, you know, quite effective in helping companies understand their utilization, their network readiness and their ability to use our equipment to go green.

Scott Whitney: It’s great, Bob. Finally, where should I go for more information about this?

Bob Preston: Well, you are free to contact me. I am heading up the green initiative of Polycom.

Scott Whitney: Great. Bob, thanks very much for joining us on the show.

Bob Preston: Okay.

Scott Whitney: And to the person listening right now, thank you. Until our next show, I am your host, Scott Whitney. We’ll see you next time.

Polycom Video Conferencing Equipment Reduces CO2 Emissions

The Polycom RPX HD telepresence system in use.

Scott Whitney: Welcome everybody to episode number 31 of Polycom OnDemand. I’m your host, Scott Whitney. And for today’s show, we are going to talk about the motivation driving many companies to becoming a more environmentally friendly organization.

Hello again everybody and welcome to Polycom OnDemand, the show that demonstrates how collaboration technology can make your life much, much easier. We can be reached on the web at PolycomOnDemand.com and our email address is podcast@polycom.com. You can use that email to send us comments or to submit questions for us to answer on subsequent shows.

Polycom, like many other organizations today, is aware of the need to become more and more environmentally conscious as an organization. Additionally, the company is noticed to rising requests from its customers to help them better realize their own green goals. To talk about the environmental challenges facing companies today and to highlight what Polycom is doing to make things easier, we welcome VP of Enterprise Solutions Marketing, Bob Preston, who is calling from his offices in San Diego, California.

Bob, welcome to Polycom OnDemand.

Bob Preston: Hey, Scott. Thanks so much for having me today.

Scott Whitney: It’s a pleasure to have you here. Hey, Bob, why don’t we start by having you to describe some of the reasons companies are beginning to become more focused on being more green or environmentally friendly?

Bob Preston: You bet. I think just overall there is a more significant awareness today in society on global sustainability and the importance of that and there are a lot of things that are leading to that. For example, this whole notion of global warming and the attention that Al Gore and other politicians have brought to that, some of the awareness on impact of greenhouse gases on climate change, and then just more companies are wanting to participate in that from a standpoint of being a good corporate citizen, and they are getting, in some cases pressure from stakeholders like their employees or their communities or even shareholders if they are a public company to start to make some changes. And so we are starting to see some of this in the market now in terms of companies really becoming motivated to reduce their CO2 levels specifically.

Scott Whitney: And it would seem to me that CO2 emission is probably the biggest concern companies have, right?

Bob Preston: Well, CO2 is the largest contributor to greenhouse gases, so it has gotten the most attention. Certainly anytime you are burning a fossil fuel such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel through you know, transportation, such as taking an air flight or driving your car, trucks, that might be delivery vehicles for certain company, you are contributing to your CO2 footprint of the company. So that’s gotten a lot of attention. It’s also an easy thing to benchmark from an energy efficiency standpoint because it can really graph the impact of polluting fuels in one single measure of being CO2.

There is also the Kyoto Protocol, which is an international treaty to reduce CO2 emissions by 5% by 2010. California, we have Governor Schwarzenegger, who has made the aggressive goal to try double that reduction to 10% by 2010 and actually get all the way to 20% reduction from a corporate perspective by the year 2020.

Scott Whitney: Now I’m curious, are companies really buying into this or is it more of just like a small percentage of organizations making a lot of noise?

Bob Preston: Well, we are getting there but there is a clear trend. About 33% of companies say that they have increased their usage of collaboration tools such as video conferencing or voice conferencing to reduce their carbon impact and you have about 28% of companies, which have actually a carbon emission policy now. So that’s not all companies and corporations, but we are getting there and this is all coming from a Wainhouse Research project that was out on August of 2007, and they are pretty clear that the next several years we will see a deepening of this type of interest and purchasing of a necessary tool and understanding to really start see companies reduce their carbon emissions.

To be continued…

Cisco TelePresence Suites Go Public

You are here and here and here and here. How can you be in one place and many places at the same time? Welcome to Cisco TelePresence Suites. Once inside, the first person you will meet is our receptionist.

Hello, welcome to Cisco TelePresence Suites.

Who may be hundreds or thousands of miles away. The receptionist will confirm your reservation and introduce you to your dedicated host.

My name is Merika and we will begin with gallery.

Great.

This way.

Here’s the gallery, our concept space. This is where we have other Cisco product demonstrations and special events. You can also use our screen to view different Cisco TelePresence Suites. You will find seating here, if you need a spot to huddle with your colleagues before your meeting or debrief afterward.

Check it out. The news wall displays information about Cisco TelePresence’s destination cities around the world. It’s almost time for your meeting.

Notice your meeting information displayed right outside your suite.

Step right inside. When you are ready to begin the meeting with the other party, all you need to do is press the connect button.

“Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us here today. My name is Tom Draver, I’m the VP of Sales. So, let’s start with some introductions.”

“Jennifer Londrina, Human Resources.”

If at any point you need to pause your connection, press the mute button. As your meeting comes to a close, a countdown will appear on screen. If you need to extend your session or need immediate assistance for any reason, just use the call button.

Cisco is here to choreograph all your logistics, including the arrangement of premium services for your business partners in their host city.

“Good morning to all of you in Sydney and good afternoon to those of you here in San Francisco.”

When it comes to sustaining long distance business relationships, nothing can replace face to face communication.

Cisco TelePresence offers a reliable way to increase face time while reducing costly travel. As customers discover new uses for Cisco TelePresence, the human network will grow.

And as relationships span ever greater distances across the globe, Cisco TelePresence Suites can play a vital role by bringing people together, to focus on each other, a common task, a shared moment.

How can you be in one place and many places at the same time?

Cisco TelePresence Suites.

Welcome to the human network.

Polycom Video Conferencing Equipment for Corporate Distance Learning Part V

So, I can do this from rooms into other rooms in any of my sites as well as down to the desktop. So the greater accessibility of reaching all of my employees is substantial. Not only that but the achievement that I have with substantial cost savings for example, the time and cost of travel so that the time out of the office not only for me as a trainer, so my training team to — we have to think of all the resources I have to pull and I can minimize my resource and presenter time issues with this. I also, I’m doing it for the employee and their cost, the cost of the travel, the cost of renting these rooms. You know, with geographically disbursed and a global team, I have to deal with these and immigration type issues if I’m going to try to bring them all into one site. And so, especially when you get into some place like a European environment, that really has an impact.

So there’s a lot of cost savings. Those are the top two right off of the top of my head. But then, I think there is another caveat to all of this. Now, it’s more or less of an improved instructional environment for me because I can do the modular learning and the chunking. I can increase my frequency which increases my knowledge retention. I can expand my reach to not only the employees but any of these other companies that I actually work with; they might be resellers or franchisees. I can specialize the training for that group and that makes it exciting for me.

I think that’s a huge outcome when you look at this technology. And then something I didn’t even mention, which is one of my favorites, and that’s when I look at bringing in subject matter experts. Typically, when I want one in a traditional environment, it takes me XYZ number of days to get on their calendar and if they have to travel to come do it, it is just a major headache to figure out all of these issues we are setting up this training. If I can say to that subject matter expert, you know what, Scott, you are my subject matter expert today, “Scott, would you be able to spend one hour of your time on this date and I need you sometime between this hour and this hour and you just do it from your desktop, what do you think?”

Scott Whitney: That’s easier, right?

Marci Powell: Yeah, that’s one of favorite things is the greater access to subject matter expert.

Scott Whitney: Actually it probably increases their probability of gaining access to those experts as well.

Marci Powell: By far.

Scott Whitney: Right.

Marci Powell: Oh, yeah.

Scott Whitney: Very good. Hey, Marci, thanks for joining us in the show today.

Marci Powell: Well, thank you, Scott.

Scott Whitney: Until our next show, I am your host, Scott Whitney. We’ll see you next time.

For additional information related to video conferencing equipment and its role in corporate distance learning, call 1-800-224-7083 or visit us on the web at: http://www.ivci.com/videoconferencing_polycom.html