Collaboration is the new way to work

Daily demos of Cisco WebEx meetings on your iPhone

2009-01-22T13:17:00.001-08:00

Here's the Demo

If you curious about Cisco WebEx meetings on your iPhone, you can now join a meeting with one of WebEx's demo masters right from your iPhone.

From your iPhone go to http://m.webex.com/viewdemo.php and click on the Join Meeting link. If you already have the Cisco WebEx meeting application installed on your iPhone, you will immediately be able to join the meeting. If not, your iPhone will access to AppStore so you can install the meeting application.

Please note that this live demo is only from 9:30 - 11:30 AM pacific time during weekdays.

So go to the following link from your iPhone: http://m.webex.com/viewdemo.php and only during the following hours:
San Francisco: 09:30-11:30
New York: 12:30-14:30
London: 17:30-19:30
Amsterdam: 18:30-20:30
Tokyo: 02:30-04:30
Sydney: 04:30-06:30

If you're not sure about your own timezone, go here

Experience Cisco WebEx meetings on your iPhone

2009-01-08T10:11:00.000-08:00

Do you want to want to experience Cisco WebEx meetings on the iPhone?

When we announced WebEx Meetings on the iPhone at Macworld, we received many excited responses from iPhone users. However a couple of people were disappointed that their WebEx site was not yet iPhone enabled.

So for all of you, I have started a meeting that is free to join. First install the Cisco WebEx meetings application on your iPhone. You can get it for free from the AppStore. Then access this blog from your iPhone (blueandgreenrevolution.blogspot.com) and then again from your iPhone, click on the link below to join your meeting.

To join the meeting on your iPhone

go to wbx://wbs27beta.webex.com/wbs27beta?MK=346165731

WebEx Meetings on the iPhone

2009-01-06T12:56:00.000-08:00

Join or Start your next Cisco WebEx meeting right from your iPhone.

Today, we launched WebEx meetings on the iPhone. From now on, you can truly collaborate from anywhere (at least from anywhere you have a wi-fi or 3G signal).

I'm at MacWorld where we are officially launching this meeting capability and customers are really excited.

Anybody can download the WebEx meetings for iPhone application from the Apple Apps store. Best of all, it's free :-)

If you want to see how it works, check out the video below.

Thanks

jan

Blackberry Bold vs iPhone

2009-01-04T15:30:00.001-08:00

The Battle of the 3G Status Symbols*
* so far most of my colleagues and business associates all seem to get very excited whenever they see a BB bold or iPhone 3G. I don't see the same excitement for other 3G devices so I am not considering them a must-have toy (aka status symbol) and am not considering them in this blog entry.

I got several comments on my recent tweet and fb entry; "you've heard it here first (not). Blackberry is a tool, iPhone is a toy (and the blackberry storm is a dud)"

Some people did not agree and others did not understand. So here's why I said what I said.

First, I really like both of my 3G devices however I feel RIM hit a bulls eye with the Blackberry Bold as a great business communication and collaboration device.

The Apple iPhone 3G is a wonderful communication and entertainment device but comes up short as a business collaboration device.

Top 3 things I really like about both devices:
* Phone quality is great on both devices
* Wi-fi AND 3G! yeah baby, almost guarantees me high b/w all the time. (Note to RIM: Why release the BB Storm without 3G? Doesn't make any sense to me)
* Form factor. Both devices are very appealing to the eye and fit very well into my hands.

Blackberry Bold Pro's and Con's
PROs
* Email. The BB Bold is my best email friend. Frankly I don't think anybody does corporate mobile email as good as RIM.
* Keyboard. The Bold's keyboard is very very good, maybe the best they ever build. (another note the RIM: stop producing keyboards with 2 letters per key. I just can't get used to it).
* Cut and paste. Makes writing email much easier. The fact that it works between applications is the icing on the cake. Copying an address in email or SMS and pasting it in google maps has saved me time and frustration.
* Blackberry browser: this browser is fast both in wi-fi and 3G mode. The fact that it automatically shows the zoom icon once a page is loaded is very good product design.
* Screen. The resolution of the screen on the bold is great, easy on the eyes and great contrasts
* Battery life. No complaints here, I get 2-3 days on average and well over 1 day when I use it heavily
* Voice dialing. Great when it works.

CONs
* Downloading Apps. when I download apps, they don't always show up in the download folder. So it takes time to look for them.
* Voice dialing is not perfect. I can't get it to understand my wife's name so I'm essentially not using this feature.
* UI/UE. Not the most intuitive UI and UE, ok but not an iPhone...
* Screen size. I know, do you want a fixed keyboard or a big screen. it's one or the other (or a bulky phone)

iPhone Pro's and Con's
PROs
* UI/UE. Very intuitive and very very slick. And the fact that every application has the same UE makes it soo easy to learn and use
* AppStore. At first I thought Apple was a bit dictatorial in they way they force everybody to go through the appstore to get new applications, but I now understand the benefits of keeping it very strict. No learning curve on any new application I download. Unfortunately my kids love it too and have found many games they have downloaded as well. There are soo many EXCELLENT applications on the appstore. Very very good move by Apple to open up the SKD to outside developers.
* int'l keyboard. Very handy when having to type in multiple languages. Also access to it using the "globe" is very clever.
* Browser. Safari on the iPhone absolutely rocks.
* Pinching. Can zooming in on content be any easier.
* ipod, phone, safari and email. Who needs a computer at home. As a matter of fact, it's so good, that I don't even bother using the bb bold for music and personal entertainment.

CON's
* No running apps in background. the iPhone does allow you to run different apps at the same time. You can't jump back and forth between apps. Not very business and user friendly. People are multi-taskers. The Bold allows this and it's great.
* Keyboard. I'm still struggling to type fast on the apple keyboard. I still type too many mistakes that are not found by the spelling suggestions.
* No copy-paste.
* Business email. No good out of the box solution that is easily accepted by corp IT and security organizations.
* No voice dialing. Critical for a lot of people (when it works)
* No video. Hello Apple, people love to shoot video from the cell phones.

I love both of my 3G devices. The fact that email on the bold is still better is the main reason for my bold statement: Blackberry is a tool, iPhone is a toy.

another sweet social media collaboration app

2009-01-02T14:56:00.000-08:00

qik; streaming live video from your mobile device no matter where you are. Just image the power of this eyewitness app of the future. You can shoot video from your mobile device and upload it to qik. You can set your setting on qik to post the video in a tweet or link it to fb. Or you can do a live stream from any event directly to qik.com for the whole world to see.

Cisco UC 7.0 Mobility Manager...sooo sweet

2009-01-02T13:03:00.001-08:00

I upgraded my CUCM (Cisco Unified Call Manager) account to UC 7.0 and apart from enabling click to call from my Cisco WebEx Connect account, the next best thing is Mobility Manager.

So what's the big deal you may say. Well here we go

* Sweet part number 1 : Single Number Reach. I only have to publish my office number and CUCM will not only connect the call to my desk number, but to any other number that I have set in the system. This could be my cell phone, home number, vacation house, hotel room....you get the point. No matter where I am I can receive my office call. No more having to publish several numbers to my contacts. I can be reached at one single number, my office number. And my voice mail will always go to the same voice mail box. Easy for you and easy for me. And of course the nice thing is that I can set policies for when CUCM will call the other numbers, so if I really don't want people to reach me, I can set that as well... :-)

* Sweet part number 2: Mobility Extension. If I pick up the call on my cell phone and walk back to my desk, I simply hang up my cell phone, and the call will be transfered back to my desk phone allowing me to easily continue the discussion there. In the same way, if I need to leave my desk I can push the call to my cell phone, hang up my desk phone and walk away and nobody on the call will have noticed.

janster

Samantha Update; Making WebEx Mindnumbingly Simple

2007-07-26T14:23:00.000-07:00

Finally, my Samantha update....

For those of us who live and breathe collaboration every day, using on-demand collaboration tools is completely 2nd nature. Personally, I've been in this space for almost 5 years, first at PlaceWare and now WebEx and frankly, I could not imagine my life without real-time communication tools. I feel I would be back in the ice ages. Without my cellphone, blackberry, IM and WebEx, my life would be quite more complex. I can work where ever I have an Internet connection and phone reception. My team knows my presence info and how to contact me and frankly does not care where I am. I am available to answer questions, escalate issues and jump into a meeting, regardless if I am at work, working from home or on the road. And since I know where the off bottom is on my cellphone and my blackberry, my wife has only threatened to "do something big" to me a couple times. :-)

That's for those of us for whom web 2.0; office 2.0; mash-ups and collaborative applications actually means something. For everybody else, it may be fair to assume that they may be just a little bit uncomfortable with a web meeting. But as most of us know, once teach somebody to take their first steps, they will be running in no time.

So that's where Samantha comes in; a virtual meeting assistant who helps the user with their first web conferencing steps. I've developed several versions of Samantha and in the first 6 months of the program, we've seen some very impressive results. So feel free to let Samantha take you by the hand. We've even localized her for the Latin American and Spanish market; Bienvenidos Claudia!

and

If you believe Samantha has helped you become a better WebEx presenter, leave a comment to this blog

--jan

Samantha - Your Personal WebEx Assistant

2007-02-03T13:44:00.000-08:00

In December, I had this "crazy" idea to add a virtual assistant to the WebEx Free Trial. The idea was to help users of the free trial better understand the value of WebEx by giving them their personal virtual assistant who would do a quick walk through of WebEx Meeting Center, and get the user comfortable enough to start playing with the service, invite others to his meeting and leave with a strong call to action to get the users to make their next meeting a WebEx meeting. So far the results have been a little overwhelming. There is almost unanimous agreement that Samantha is a great idea and will help dramatically in improving the overall usability and comfort level of/with WebEx. We're actively working on adding Samantha into different areas of WebEx. I would stay...TO BE CONTINUED...

If you want to see Samantha in action; you can sign up for a WebEx free trial here.

New Media Stuff

2007-01-25T17:19:00.000-08:00

So, the question is, how do I best post a recording of my WebEx meeting to my blog?

Well I can do this: Listen to the recording of my WebEx meeting.

Maybe I can embed the hyperlink into an image

Drop me a comment with your thoughts

Google stuff is still not working perfectly...

2007-01-25T16:41:00.000-08:00

So Blogger.com is supposedly out of beta...but for me to post my Google document to my blog, I need to set my settings to Blogger.com (Beta). When it was set to Blogger.com, all i got was the error message below.

Having said that, I am pretty impressed with the ability to publish the document directly from Google docs to the blog. That is cool.

2007-01-25T16:40:00.000-08:00

Jan 25, 2007 (4:35 PM)

This is my Google Docs test document. I'm very curious how this works in combination with my blog. When I first tested this in October of 2006, I just could not get this to work. Let's see if this works now.

In great anticipation...

And...after several tries, I still don't seem to be able to do this...all I get is this error message

WebEx Connect Launch Video

2007-01-25T15:29:00.000-08:00

In September, I made my WebEx acting debut at the WebEx Connect Launch Party. Click here to see the video on YouTube.

Office 2.0 -- What is it all about

2006-10-13T20:13:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week there was a very good office 2.0 conference in San Francisco. It's pretty amazing what the SaaS Revolution has in store for all of us productivity workers. But what is Office 2.0? IT Redux, a blog by Ismael Ghalimi has a very good summary of office 2.0 and what it has in store for us all.

It's biggest promise (all your content and the software you need to create the content is online) is it's biggest hurdle (last mile connectivity issues).

I look forward to next year's office 2.0 conference to be able to see the progress that has been made.

WebEx Connect

2006-10-13T19:49:00.000-07:00

If you are wondering what WebEx Connect will do for you, here's a good blog to read

SaaS TCO White Paper

2006-10-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

I spoke at the SIIA On-Demand Conference in San Jose, Ca on November 8, 2006 where I presented my white paper: Software-as-a-Service; A Comprehensive Look at the Total Cost of Ownership of Software Applications.

I wrote this white paper for the SIIA (Software and Information Industry Organization) where I currently serve as the chairman of the Marketing and Communications Committee for the SaaS Executive Council at the SIIA.

Welcome to my Blog

2006-10-13T13:07:00.000-07:00

Working in Marketing for a Silicon Valley business 2.0/web 2.0/office 2.0 company it is almost expected that I have my own blog. I will be blogging on trends in the Software-as-a-Service industry. My "more than just $0.02" thought leadership contribution.

Happy blogging everybody :-)