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On Monday I trained in the Cisco offices in Raleigh to learn all about Cisco’s NEW (Network Enhanced Workspace) features. The workshop was geared towards sales associates, specifically helping them to most effectively use all of the tools they are selling. Monday’s session worked with BlackBerry users, whereas Tuesday’s is reserved for the iPhone.

The morning session started with NEW provisioning, which means employees must request a NEW account. A NEW account affords the user access to Cisco collaboration tools such as Quad, Pulse, and Show and Share (more on those later.) My local contact at the company, Ted Mead, reports that access is restricted, so not every employee is granted an account

Our instructor then moved on to Device Procurement, which covered tools such as the 9971 IP phone with camera, Bluetooth, and the 7921 wireless phone. Desktop Phone Integration and BlackBerry Mobile Applications followed. However, my BlackBerry model is too old to support CUMC (Cisco Unified Mobile Communicator) and WebEx Mobile.

Later we went over the Social Software, for which I was most excited. I learned that these tools are still in Alpha mode within Cisco, meaning employees are still learning how to best integrate them into their work flow. I have faced difficulty utilizing these technologies myself because they are Cisco internal, and they have existed as yet another medium for me to update. However, now I feel reinvigorated by their collaboration power, and as a way for me to stay more connected to those back at Cisco.

Quad and Show and Share hold real potential for the public sector in my opinion. They provide a secure way for students, faculty, and staff to stay connected. Think of Quad as “Facebook on steroids,” as our instructor (reluctantly) called it, and Show and Share as a private video sharing and editing platform. I did not know that one could edit videos within Show and Share, so I now look forward to exploring this feature in the future. The final Social Software piece is Pulse, which facilitates finding experts on certain subjects within your network.

The afternoon was reserved for one-on-one help provided by Ted Mead, and a few others. I had my official Cisco Badge made:

All in all, Monday was a valuable day. I’ve met some more Cisco employees, expanded my knowledge of Cisco’s Collaboration tools, and look forward to sharing this information with interested parties at Wake.