Cisco Rocks!
Cisco Rocks!
Kerri Page,http://www.novasim.com/ , Garnett Newcombe, http://www.hpcemployment.org/contact.htm, and I went to Cisco, yes, me, Diana Mercer from Peace Talks Mediation Services, Inc., www.peace-talks.com, (here's the press release from Make Mine a $Million about the Cisco awards, www.makemineamillion.org), http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2006/prod_073106.html, in San Jose for a focus group about small business technology needs on January 31. While I figured that they’d spend time asking us about our Cisco Systems IP Phones, http://www.ciscosystems.com/en/US/netsol/ns641/networking_solutions_packages_list.html, the technology package which we won as part of the Make Mine a $Million program, I didn’t realize that they’d also give us an interactive demonstration of all of the different applications for the phones as well as related technology.
Cisco is doing some amazing stuff. The IP Phones they installed for us can be customized in an incredible number of ways. Just one example: We can use an auto-attendant which clients may access after hours, with a second auto-attendant for mediators to use so that when they check their voice mail without interrupting office personnel. That tiny feature, which barely scrapes the surface of the features the phone can offer, will be incredibly valuable for our practice.
That same phone can be customized to include a database….including things like taking attendance for schools, or checking inventory availability for a warehouse or retail application. It was mind blowing, frankly.
My favorite application is that we can expand the system using either software phones installed on laptops and connected to the internet, or additional handsets in remote locations. For example, our Cisco technology package includes a handset for me at home, so if I’m working from my home office, the phone rings just as it would if I was at Headquarters….apart from the inevitable barking dogs at my house, callers would be unaware that I wasn’t at my Peace Talks desk. When I place outgoing calls, recipients’ caller ID shows the Peace Talks number, so I don’t have to worry about client calls on my home or cell phone at 3 am.
And, I must say, we love our Cisco partners, Creative Business Concepts, Inc.,http://www.cbconcepts.com/, Larry Boyd and Jim Froggatt have been terrific. They’ve really listened to our needs. They came ready to not only install and program the phones, but to switch gears as we discovered additional possibilities for applications and programming. Jim, especially, is a huge asset. He was a technology trainer with the US Army, so he knows how to teach technology applications without going over our heads. We decided to learn the basic features of the phones, installed February 2, 2007, for a couple of months and then Jim will come back to do some additional programming for some features we’d love to have but didn’t want to overwhelm ourselves with all at once.
Last but not least, Cisco treated us like rockstars. They gave us a demonstration of their [very amazing] videoconferencing technology, which is so realistic that it looks like you’re actually in the room with folks who are half a world away. While that application is a bit expensive for Peace Talks at the moment, as it’s installed in business centers and business hotels, and later adapted for small business use, it’s a technology we’ll be able to use to do mediations. The 3 large screen TV’s gave us so much real time detail that I was able to read micro-expressions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-expression on people’s faces. Before, when I thought of videoconferencing, I imagined pixellated web cams with sound that didn’t sync with the jerky movements on the screen. Now, it’s 99% as good as being in the same room with someone. Unbelievable!
Thanks, Cisco!
Kerri Page,http://www.novasim.com/ , Garnett Newcombe, http://www.hpcemployment.org/contact.htm, and I went to Cisco, yes, me, Diana Mercer from Peace Talks Mediation Services, Inc., www.peace-talks.com, (here's the press release from Make Mine a $Million about the Cisco awards, www.makemineamillion.org), http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2006/prod_073106.html, in San Jose for a focus group about small business technology needs on January 31. While I figured that they’d spend time asking us about our Cisco Systems IP Phones, http://www.ciscosystems.com/en/US/netsol/ns641/networking_solutions_packages_list.html, the technology package which we won as part of the Make Mine a $Million program, I didn’t realize that they’d also give us an interactive demonstration of all of the different applications for the phones as well as related technology.
Cisco is doing some amazing stuff. The IP Phones they installed for us can be customized in an incredible number of ways. Just one example: We can use an auto-attendant which clients may access after hours, with a second auto-attendant for mediators to use so that when they check their voice mail without interrupting office personnel. That tiny feature, which barely scrapes the surface of the features the phone can offer, will be incredibly valuable for our practice.
That same phone can be customized to include a database….including things like taking attendance for schools, or checking inventory availability for a warehouse or retail application. It was mind blowing, frankly.
My favorite application is that we can expand the system using either software phones installed on laptops and connected to the internet, or additional handsets in remote locations. For example, our Cisco technology package includes a handset for me at home, so if I’m working from my home office, the phone rings just as it would if I was at Headquarters….apart from the inevitable barking dogs at my house, callers would be unaware that I wasn’t at my Peace Talks desk. When I place outgoing calls, recipients’ caller ID shows the Peace Talks number, so I don’t have to worry about client calls on my home or cell phone at 3 am.
And, I must say, we love our Cisco partners, Creative Business Concepts, Inc.,http://www.cbconcepts.com/, Larry Boyd and Jim Froggatt have been terrific. They’ve really listened to our needs. They came ready to not only install and program the phones, but to switch gears as we discovered additional possibilities for applications and programming. Jim, especially, is a huge asset. He was a technology trainer with the US Army, so he knows how to teach technology applications without going over our heads. We decided to learn the basic features of the phones, installed February 2, 2007, for a couple of months and then Jim will come back to do some additional programming for some features we’d love to have but didn’t want to overwhelm ourselves with all at once.
Last but not least, Cisco treated us like rockstars. They gave us a demonstration of their [very amazing] videoconferencing technology, which is so realistic that it looks like you’re actually in the room with folks who are half a world away. While that application is a bit expensive for Peace Talks at the moment, as it’s installed in business centers and business hotels, and later adapted for small business use, it’s a technology we’ll be able to use to do mediations. The 3 large screen TV’s gave us so much real time detail that I was able to read micro-expressions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-expression on people’s faces. Before, when I thought of videoconferencing, I imagined pixellated web cams with sound that didn’t sync with the jerky movements on the screen. Now, it’s 99% as good as being in the same room with someone. Unbelievable!
Thanks, Cisco!
Labels: I heart Cisco
posted by Diana Mercer at 11:00 AM
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