Remote work is now commonplace. Video calls are the norm. And most of us experience the “excuse the mess” worry of giving folks a glimpse into our personal lives and spaces.

Remote work equals the new normal

To be clear, this is not an entirely new phenomenon. We’ve sweated our “backdrops” for as long as the video conference has been around. The problem is that our environments are often caught in a perpetual work-in-progress state, leaving them not quite ready for the public stage.

Enter virtual video backgrounds. You’ve likely had some experience using video backgrounds while on video calls, regardless of your preferred solution provider.

Naturally, Webex is here with an expanded solution of our own. We’re certainly not the first or the last, but we’re excited to kick off the Webex Artist Series by offering our unique take on video backgrounds to further our mission of transforming collaborative work by crafting experiences people love.

The inspiration for our backgrounds

First off, practically any background you can imagine is available somewhere on the internet. You want to be at the International Space Station or in a submarine? It’s out there. This reality led us to focus on creating something unique to Webex and aligned with our passion for inspiring vibrant remote work culture.

There are two primary ideas at play.

1. We’re a globally distributed organization working across various time zones, geographies, and cultures. This means we’re influenced by a wide range of “places,” all of which serve as inspiration for the experiences we create. Similarly, we design products for our customers’ diverse teams who are more often than not, remote, and distributed in various ways.
2. Webex has a vibrant creative culture, with designers and artists who have a strong creative point of view they’re eager to express.

These ideas culminate in exciting new video backgrounds for the latest Meetings release for desktop. And backgrounds for our Red Dot Award-winning Desk Pro video conferencing device will follow. [Read more about Red Dot Winning Cisco Webex Desk Pro Design].

The collection

We’re starting with backgrounds from three sets:

Time and Place. These backgrounds represent different natural environments from across the globe, each evoking a mood through simple illustrated form and color.

Environments. These are intentionally unexpected and a little whimsical, inspiring imaginative ways to think about the spaces we occupy for work, play, learning, and more.

Neutrals. We see a need for backgrounds that have texture and color but recede, allowing the meeting participant to be the focus. These have a very practical use for when a calm, familiar backdrop is needed.

These backgrounds are all inspired, illustrated, and rendered by our talented in-house designers in Shanghai, San Jose, Oslo, and Krakow. Go team!

Additionally, users will be able to choose a more traditional photographic background (landscape or executive office) or upload an image of their choice.

Learn more about enabling virtual backgrounds for Cisco Webex Meetings, Events, and Training

The Webex Artists Series backgrounds are just the beginning in a series of personality-evoking experiences we plan to offer. Being on extended periods of video conferencing can be tiring. By offering you a range of options that suit your mood, personality, or audience, we aim to diminish your daily stressors and make working remotely delightful, and uniquely you.

With this and more experience-focused innovations coming in our flagship Webex Meetings product [Read more], we’re excited to offer you new and improved ways of working and connecting with others in the “new normal” of remote work.

If you want to learn more about Webex and the value, it can provide your business, reach out for more information, or get started with our free offer today.

Learn More

Delighting remote workers: Why user experience is important

Why remote work can be more productive work

How to prepare for the return to work

Still Need Help?

What would you like to do?

Join a Webex online meeting.

Learn more about web meetings and video conferencing.

Sign up for Webex.

Visit our home page or contact us directly for assistance.

Future of Work series: Increase productivity

What would you say if you heard this statistic?

“After being interrupted by an email or messaging alert, your brain may not fully re-engage for 30 minutes. If the email requires significant effort, many people never return to their original work.”

I know I’ve definitely experienced the unproductivity pains that interruptions can cause. But I’ve never really thought about what’s actually going on in my brain.

Live webinar with Dr. Don Vaughn

Dr. Don Vaughn, an academic neuroscientist, futurist, and international public speaker, will be joining Cisco Webex for a webinar on August 6, 2020. Register today!

Dr. Vaughn has a love for understanding the brain with focus areas on human perception, augmented performance, empathic bias, and machine learning. Since graduating from Stanford, Dr. Vaughn’s research has been featured on ABC, ESPN, TIME magazine, and the X-Games. Over a million people have viewed his TEDx talk “neurohacking: rewiring your brain.”

Science-based methods you don’t want to miss

In this webinar, Cory Treffiletti, Global Head of Marketing for Webex.com will host and Dr. Vaughn for an engaging conversation on topics around attention recovery. You’ll learn about our brains and the importance of replenishing them. And leave with techniques on how to remove distraction and make fewer choices in the day. Because each and every person is born with a limited amount of processing power, we can only consume and output so much information at a time, and in a day, before we get overwhelmed. This is why it’s important to understand our minds and learn strategies to help us out!

It’s a conversation you won’t want to miss. Register today!

Learn More

How to prepare for the return to work

How to have a webexceptional video conferencing meeting

4 ways to ensure your video conferences are secure

Still Need Help?

What would you like to do?

Join a Webex online meeting.

Learn more about web meetings and video conferencing.

Sign up for Webex.

Visit our home page or contact us directly for assistance.

Another month and another update of Webex Teams. If you’re conscious of your backdrop in your meetings, then this update is for you! Read on to find out more…

MESSAGING & APP EXPERIENCE

A new look for adding team members (Windows & Mac)

Adding new team members just got a whole lot easier. Now, if you want to add new members to an existing team, you will do so in a familiar view already used elsewhere in Webex Teams. You can also leverage another feature of bulk-adding people in this new screen, meaning if you need to add a group of new team members, you can do so easily with a quick copy-paste of up to 30 users at a time.

Add links to your messages (Windows)

Today, you can add a link to text in Webex Teams through mark-down. We’ve improved that experience for you and made it a lot easier to insert a link into a message. You can now select an option to insert a link from the Format Text menu. This will pop up a new dialog box where you can add a link and edit the text of the link that you want to display in your message.

More organization for your settings and preferences (Windows & Mac)

We’ve made a couple of changes in your settings and preferences to make things more organized. We’ve added a dedicated ‘Messaging’ tab, where you’ll do things like setting your default download location, enable spell check, or configure views for your space list. Go to ‘Settings’ on Windows or ‘Preferences’ on Mac and select Messaging to check it out.

Forward a message on mobile (iPhone, iPad & Android)

See an important message you want to share with others quickly? Right now, on mobile, you need to either copy-paste or take a screenshot before starting your search for the other space you want to send it to. This update will let you do this with just a few taps. We’ll be saving you a few steps by allowing you to forward a message directly from one space to another.

Making the most of your message area (iPhone & iPad)

In group spaces (especially larger ones), when lots of people leave or are added around the same time, your message area can get pretty clogged up with notifications that (maybe) aren’t all that important to you. Sometimes, this can cause you to lose the context of messages sent before or after these in-space notifications. You’ll see these notifications grouped and collapsed, with the option to expand if you want to see more detail. This allows users to focus on more important messages.

Compress a file on send (iPhone & iPad)

Sometimes when we’re out and about using mobile data, we need to share a file or an image. Depending on the file size, this can be quite costly on our data. Before, we had a universal option in ‘advanced’ settings on iOS to either always or never compress files you send on mobile. We’re giving you another option; to ask if you want to compress a file as you are sending it. This will be the new default for all users and can be changed in your ‘advanced’ settings.

MEETINGS

Pick your background for your calls and meetings! (Windows, Mac, iPhone & iPad)

Want to share your video during a meeting or call but hide the details of your background surroundings? Or maybe you just want to make it look like you’re on a beach soaking up the sun? If your device meets the hardware requirements, with this update, you’ll be able to blur your background or change it completely for your meetings and video calls. Just hover over your self-view video, select the magic wand to ‘Change Virtual Background,’ and then make your selection.

Making meetings easier (Windows and Mac)

We’ve made some enhancements to the Meetings tab, which lives under the calendar icon in your Webex Teams app. You can use the ‘Join a Meeting’ search box on the top right above your meeting calendar to join a meeting by entering the meeting number, meeting link, Personal Room link, or meeting video address. Clicking on this search box will pop up a list of all your most recent Personal Room meetings. Your meeting list has been enhanced with a clear, daily calendar view with easy navigation to view any day you like.

CALLING

Webex Calling

Add external contacts to your contacts list (Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad & Android)

You can now add some of your contacts from Outlook (Windows) and your Contacts app (Mac) into your Webex Teams Contacts list and group them, making it easy to find someone and place a call. You can also create a new custom contact in your Webex Teams app, and it will be synced across your devices.

Add more phone numbers for your co-workers (Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad & Android)

When you add your co-worker to your contacts list, you’ll now be able to edit their profile and add additional phone numbers for them, such as home, mobile, work, etc. When you make an audio or video call, you’ll see all their number options, so it’ll be much easier to call them at their alternative number.

Every calling option at your fingertips (Windows & Mac)

Anywhere you see the green phone or call button and the video or meet button, you’re presented with many ways to make a call with options like work number, mobile number, video address, or Webex Teams call. If you try to call someone and you’re not set up with the corresponding phone service, you get a notification letting you know you can’t make that type of call. If you’re connected to a device, the icon you see to place a call or start a meeting will also change to make it clear that you’re connected to a device.

Access your mobile voicemail quickly and easily (iPhone, iPad & Android)

When you go to the ‘calls’ tab on your mobile, you can now call your voicemail system by clicking the floating dial pad icon and selecting ‘call voicemail.’

Unified CM

Add external contacts to your contacts list (Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad & Android)

You can now add some of your contacts from Outlook (Windows) and your Contacts app (Mac) into your Webex Teams Contacts list and group them, making it easy to find someone and place a call from there. You can also create a new custom contact in your Webex Teams app, and it will be synced across your devices.

Add more phone numbers for your co-workers (Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad & Android)

When you add your co-worker to your contacts list, you’ll now be able to edit their profile and add additional phone numbers for them, such as home, mobile, work, and so on. When you make an audio or video call, you’ll see all their number options, so it’ll be much easier to call them at their alternative number.

Every calling option at your fingertips (Windows & Mac)

Anywhere you see the green phone or call button and the video or meet button, you’re presented with many ways to make a call with options like work number, mobile number, video address, or Webex Teams call. If you try to call someone and you’re not set up with the corresponding phone service, you get a notification letting you know you can’t make that type of call. If you’re connected to a device, the icon you see to place a call or start a meeting will also change to clarify that you’re connected to a device.

Access your mobile voicemail quickly and easily (iPhone, iPad & Android)

When you go to the ‘calls’ tab on your mobile, you can now call your voicemail system by clicking the floating dial pad icon and selecting ‘call voicemail.’

More calling options! (Windows & Mac)

You can now call someone’s video address (for example, bburke@biotechnia.com) from anywhere in the app that you’d make any other type of call, like when you search for someone, or you’re in a space with that person.Share your screen to a desk phone (Windows & Mac)

You can now call someone from the app and have them answer your call on their desk phone, and you can still share your screen with them. They can see your shared screen from their phone if the phone supports video; otherwise, they’ll see the shared screen from the app.

Trash read voice messages (iPhone, iPad & Android)

You can keep your voice messages list neat and tidy by removing the messages you have already listened to. When you’ve listened to a voice message and no longer need it, you now can send it to the ‘trash.’ From your ‘trash’ folder, you can either recover the message (in case you accidentally deleted it!) or you can choose to remove it permanently.

Add Webex Teams contacts to your mobile device contacts (Android)

If you have contacts and calling features enabled in Webex Teams, you can now export your contacts from the app directly to your contacts on your mobile device. This way, you can go to the contacts on your phone and initiate a Webex Teams call right from there. To use this feature, just tap your profile picture, go to ‘Advanced,’ and turn on ‘Contacts Integration.’

Control Webex Teams from a different application

You can now control Webex Teams from different apps, like Cisco Finesse. Using a different app to control Webex Teams, you can use any of your normal calling functionality, like making calls, answering or ending calls, putting calls on hold and resuming, transferring calls, and even having conference calls with other users.

INTEGRATIONS

Easy access to the Webex App Hub!

Now you can quickly find the Webex App Hub using the new Apps button at the bottom of the left column in Webex Teams. Easily browse for apps like Smartsheet, Servicenow, and RSS bot to set up business-critical notifications and get more work done without leaving a space.

New Asana bot for Webex Teams!

Meet the updated Asana bot for project management in Webex Teams! Now you can create, search, and update Tasks and Subtasks from any group or 1:1 space. Quickly set up real-time notifications for changes or tasks marked complete to keep your projects running smoothly amongst your team. Follow this link to get started!

For more information on this and upcoming updates to Webex Teams, check out our help page here.

Learn More

See all of the Webex Teams Releases here

Still Need Help?

What would you like to do?

Join a Webex online meeting.

Learn more about web meetings and video conferencing.

Sign up for Webex.

Visit our home page or contact us directly for assistance.

Webex makes it easy to share special moments with virtual visits

Quality time with family and friends is priceless. Whether it’s laughing together, sharing stories, or merely talking about every day, connecting with others is vital for our emotional, mental, and social well-being. Webex recognizes the need for connection, so we have made it easy for care facility residents to share those special moments with friends and family. Create moments that matter more often, no matter where you are.

See our ‘Staying connected with virutal visitation’ ebook for more information

The way we connect is continually changing, with more and more people coming together virtually. Grandkids use devices to meet with their grandparents in care facilities without ever leaving their home; doctors provide health consultations virtually; and friends are using their tablets, phones, and even TVs to throw virtual birthday bashes. Webex can help make these virtual get-togethers happen or supplement your in-person visits with more frequent remote visits.

Why Webex?

It’s easy to meet virtually face-to-face with our mobile phones, but what about when you need to meet over a computer or tablet? How do you ensure privacy and security for those more sensitive meetings like doctor’s appointments? Webex can be used on any device, so residents without cell phones or who need larger screens can still meet virtually with family, friends, or doctors. We also have a secure platform that keeps telehealth meetings private and secure, so residents can get the care they need in a secure setting.

The best part about using Webex for virtual visitations is that neither you nor your residents need to be a technology pro to set it up. To ensure that residents are ready to use Webex, we suggest reviewing our quick start guide [LINK] with residents and showing them how to use Webex on their phones, iPads, or computers. As an administrator, you can schedule meetings for your residents and use our resources to set it up, so residents don’t have to lift a finger. It’s that easy!

Connect anywhere, any time with Webex

Whether a resident’s son is across the country, their grandchildren are too young to visit in-person, or life is just hectic, your residents can still connect with their loved ones from anywhere, at any time with Webex. They can share moments that matter with those who matter most. To learn more about how you can set up and administer Webex in your care facility, check out our ebook. It’ll help you create those moments that matter for your residents.

Stay connected with virtual visitation

Want to learn more about Webex and all its features and the value it can provide your business? Reach out for more information or get started with our free offer today.

Learn More

Improving patient diagnoses with video conferencing

Up-leveling patient care with team collaboration technology

Improving patient care and coordination with video conferencing tools

Still Need Help?

What would you like to do?

Join a Webex online meeting.

Learn more about web meetings and video conferencing.

Sign up for Webex.

Visit our home page or contact us directly for assistance.

Accelerated need for technology in the classroom

Over the years, education has evolved from using chalkboards and projectors to a more technology-centric approach – with many schools utilizing smartboards, launching BYOD initiatives, or even providing individual laptops or tablets. In 2020, there is an accelerated need for technology and digital learning platforms, in both the physical and virtual classroom. Technology can help make this new way of educating a little bit easier for both you and your students.

Join our upcoming Webex Community Event, August 4th!

Webex: Simple and secure

Here at Webex, we understand that for educators to use technologies like Webex, it must be simple and secure, especially when working with minors. We take our security seriously, so you can focus on educating and engaging students like never before. Sarah Bandy, a reviewer on G2, chose Webex for precisely this reason. She describes why she chose Webex:

“We were really concerned about security when it came to putting together a virtual program aimed towards minors. It was really important to us to make sure that kids could login easily and that there was no way that we could be hacked while executing the program. The benefit of security and peace of mind is absolutely crucial.”

Need help with integrating technology in your classroom?

Laura Hamill, a Growth Enablement Specialist at Webex, previously taught English and has a few tips on integrating technology into your classroom. Above all, she encourages educators to remember why you’re teaching and to focus on the students when making technology transitions.

Transitioning to online platforms and incorporating technology doesn’t mean changing your unique teaching style or losing a second of connection with your students. In fact, you can even expand those connections and experiment with new ways of teaching. Learning how to use Webex can be quick and easy with our quick start guides, virtual online classes, and exploring its many capabilities. We’ve also got a sneak peek of a few of Laura’s key tips. Check them out!

• Create a routine. Things have been chaotic lately, so sticking to a schedule or creating a routine is vital for both educators and students. Plan out how your class will start their day and utilize a lesson plan. Embrace the teachable moments and learning opportunities together.
• Give yourself and your students time to adjust. Whether it’s adjusting to a new way of teaching, learning, or simply figuring out how to use new technologies, give yourself the time to do so. You don’t want to overwhelm anyone by immediately diving into something new.

Teachers, need more tips? Read Laura’s Teachers, here’s why you need Webex article for more tips.

Resources and information for Webex for Education, remote learning webinar

Want more tips and tricks on managing your classroom or using technology to make teaching a bit easier? We’ve got you covered in our back to school guide. We’re also hosting a Webex Community event on August 4, centered on Webex for Education: Collaboration in and out of the classroom. Join our esteemed panel of educators to hear how they use Webex collaboration to extend access, emphasize equity, and raise the quality of education for all of their students. Learn from their experiences, and listen to their plans for the upcoming school year.

Join the Webex Community event- Webex for Education: Collaboration in and out of the classroom, Tuesday, August 4, 2020 

Learn More

The Future of Education

Webex Integration Partners join Cisco in offers for education

Experience the new Webex for Dedication – Simple and secure out-of-the-box

Blackboard Learn and Webex join forces to expand the reach of education

Education Resources

What is distance learning?

Welcome to virtual learning

Cisco Webex Education Connector

Cisco Education Home Page

Webex tips to keep your audience engaged

We’ve all been in that Webex. The one where the presenter drones on and on with way too many slides. They might want you engaged in the topic, but what they do is kill you with PowerPoint. After 20 years in the collaboration space, I’ve seen it a lot (and, sadly, hosted bad sessions of my own). My wife works in corporate learning and development, so we have a vested interest in improving the web meeting experience!

Learn about the best video conferencing & online meeting software

3 ways to engage and interact

Over the years, I’ve learned a few tips and tools to make the Webex experience more engaging and interactive, and I’d like to pass them on to you. This blog covers how connecting face-to-face, varying the content, and building audience interaction can help make Webex even more engaging and interactive. I am going to share how to do all of the above with tools included right in Webex, as well as using 3^rd party tools. On a tight budget? It’s worth noting that almost all of the 3^rd party tools mentioned are offered in a freemium model, where you can use the service for free, with paired down features.

1) Connect face-to-face

High-quality bi-directional video (where both the attendee and the presenter have their camera on) is an absolute requirement for every Webex. It’s how you understand the presenter’s emotion and how presenters know that their participants are engaged.  Webex has a video-centric experience, but all too often, people don’t fully utilize it.

Simple video tricks

Here’s a simple trick every presenter can do: find breaks in your session to stop sharing content. Why? Because once the ‘share’ is off the screen, Webex will maximize screens to video to engage with your audience. While the video is full screen, why not change the layout and encourage others to do so? Each participant maintains control over their layout and view, so you may need to show them how to enable the “Brady Bunch Mode” we call grid view. Webex supports multiple ways to layout your video, including up to 25 simultaneous streams in the grid view.

Newscaster experience

Want to go one step further and have that newscaster-like experience with full-screen video and content overlays? Prezi Video is a powerful tool that can stream content over video live during a Webex (currently supported on Windows desktop or OSX using a web browser).

2) Vary the content

The human attention span isn’t very long, no matter how interesting the topic. There is no reason to have 60 PowerPoint slides in a 60-minute meeting. The brain just can’t absorb it all. Rather than cram all of that info into one session, use varying types of content to reinforce a smaller selection of the most important topics.

Animation

One way to mix up your content is to add animation. To make sure your animations in PowerPoint always work in Webex, I recommend always using the share application feature (vs. share file) for any PowerPoint that contains animation. In the last section, I mentioned Prezi Video, but Prezi has another tool Prezi Present. With it, you can create some spectacular moving and zooming presentations that really grab attention.

Videos

Playing a video during a meeting is a great change-up from slides – it gives the audience a different voice to listen to and the presenter a chance to catch their breath. Webex supports multiple methods for adding video playback. The easiest is to share the video application and use the “optimizing for motion and video” function[1].

Do it live

How about a product demonstration or a whiteboard? Webex has a built-in whiteboard[2] that allows you to collaborate with other meeting participants. Work from a blank whiteboard or open and annotate documents, images, and other files. If you want participants to see your whiteboard and not contribute, you can use the “Share My Meeting Window” option after starting the whiteboard.

Learn more about whiteboards in the Creating Digital Teams in Webex Teams series or live streaming with Webex Meetings for your vitual events.

You could also use a 3^rd party whiteboarding tool that might be easier for collaboration in larger groups or systems that don’t work with the built-in whiteboard. Miro, Stormboard, and IPEVO Annotator are just a few great whiteboard options. Miro even has Cisco’s Network Topology Icons that can easily be added to a board, so instead of showing a network (or flow) diagram, draw it live!

Design thinking

At Cisco, we use Design thinking as a problem-solving framework. I’ve found Miro boards to be a great way to emulate design thinking activities virtually during a Webex meeting (and they work in the multi-media viewer, which I’ll talk about in the next section). Check out this Miro board my colleague used during one of his sessions.

Miro even has a helpful article on their site all about using it in live meetings.

Be sure to check out Justin’s blog article, where he mentions another whiteboard tool, Kaptivo (among other education integrations to Webex), a camera system that turns any regular whiteboard into a smart, digital collaboration tool.

3) Build audience interaction

Whiteboards are just one way to vary your content while building interaction – Webex includes several others! Ask the audience questions and display their responses or even turn it into a game with tools that integrate seamlessly into Webex meetings.

Raise your hand

Replicate the “everyone raises your hand if you…” classroom experience with the “raise hand” button.  The raise hand button can be found next to your name in the participant window of Webex meetings. The functionality is the same in Webex Training and Webex Events, though the layout is slightly different.

Polling for large audiences

If you want to capture more data or have more complex questions and your audience is too large to ask one at a time, you will want to use Polling. Webex has a built-in polling tool that can be added to your meeting window. It’s easiest to set up your poll ahead of time by opening a Webex meeting (your personal meeting room will work) and creating a poll to save and load when you need it. Once inside a Webex meeting, go to the View menu, then select Panels > Manage Panels.

From there, you can add Polling to your meeting and start making questions. This help article has lots of info on creating your poll inside Webex[3].

Take polling to the next level

Take Polling to the next level with third-party applications that offer a wide variety of features – and work directly inside Webex’s multimedia viewer if you choose. The multimedia viewer can be used in Webex Meetings and Webex Events to open web-based content right inside Webex. Still, you can also use these tools without the viewer – whatever works best for your audience.

Participants – except those on video endpoints and mobile devices – can see your video or other types of content and the content in the multimedia viewer. If the multimedia viewer isn’t a good fit for your meeting, most of the tools below offer a URL, QR Code, or SMS, allowing participants to interact with your meeting easily.

PollEverywhere, Mentimeter, PigeonholeLive, and Sli.do are just a few great interaction tools that work well inside Webex’s multimedia viewer. Here is Mentimeter as an example.

The multimedia viewer on the right lets the participant enter their responses while still seeing the live video at the top. The live word cloud on the left changes immediately after they enter a reply! Mentimeter even provides a feedback and Q&A tool, all within the Webex application. And for any participant that can’t see the multimedia window, the direct access URL and code are at the top of the central meeting window.

PollEverywhere also allows SMS interactions, and Sli.do & Pigeonhole Live use QR codes, making it easy to use your mobile device.

A word cloud is just one example of the variety of unique interactions these third-party apps offer. I’ve used PollEverywhere the most because it provides so many interaction options.

Gaming

Looking for more of a game-like experience? Kahoot and TheTrainingArcade also work nicely with Webex. Kahoot is laser-focused on emulating a quiz show, and TheTrainingArcade lets you build your own games.

Here’s a Kahoot game using the multimedia viewer.

And here’s a Jeopardy-like game from TheTrainingArcade as you would see it in the multimedia viewer.

Your turn

Whether you’re using the tools included in Webex, a free third-party app, or investing in a broader audience solution, there’s no reason to keep having less than stellar Webex meetings. Use your video, create polls and whiteboards, change up the content, or integrate an app using the multimedia viewer – these are great ways to keep your participants engaged if you want them to hear and retain what you have to say!

Want to learn more about Webex and all its features and the value it can provide your business? Reach out for more information or get started with our free offer today.

Learn More

How to launch a community with Webex Teams

A broadcasters How to Guide to live stream Webex

Live streaming with Webex Meetings for your virtual events: What’s new and how to use it

Still Need Help?

What would you like to do?

Join a Webex online meeting.

Learn more about web meetings and video conferencing.

Sign up for Webex.

Visit our home page or contact us directly for assistance.

Collaboration in 2020: Top Tips for Meeting Room Technology

Footnotes

[1] Only currently available in Webex Meetings, other methods available in Events and Training.

[2] Participants who join Webex from video systems or video conferencing applications cannot currently see or annotate shared whiteboard content.

[3] Polling does not work on video endpoints.

Video conferencing security for small business

Now that the professional world finds itself almost entirely online, it’s as good a time to reemphasize how critical cybersecurity is for small and medium-sized businesses. The rush to digitize workflows and procedures may have led some decision-makers to choose the most straightforward consumer-grade tools for preserving business continuity.

Why are there security and privacy issues?

Yet there may be underlying security and privacy issues with solutions that haven’t been vetted thoroughly. Considering the lightning-quick pace with which businesses had to adapt to stay-at-home orders, it’s possible not every solution was put under the microscope.

Learn about the best video conferencing & online meeting software

Video conferencing software

Video conferencing software may fall under this category. Thousands have turned to free tools to fill the collaboration and communication gap. But at the same time, businesses may be putting their operations, data, and employees at risk if they depend on video conferencing software with security vulnerabilities.

See how video conferencing is simple, seamless, and secure. With the Webex mobile app security is built right in

Top 4 tips for SMBs on securing your privacy on video conferencing platforms

Here are some tips for running secure video chats and picking the right solution to drive productivity in remote workforces — and, more importantly, to ensure security and protect privacy.

1) Control who is invited

Trolls are everywhere, and they may be targeting your business. Persons not affiliated with your company may look to do a little online gate-crashing and disrupt your meeting if they somehow get the URL or meeting invite link. They’ll be an annoying nuisance; at worst, they may spam your call with hateful messages and disruptive, insulting behaviors.

Yet you have the controls to keep the trolls at bay. Ensure that anyone you invite to a meeting is a known employee, client, or verified third party. Advise all these participants not to share the meeting link. Also, make sure to lock your video chat once it begins so that only approved invitees can join.

Locking down video conferences is an issue for internal meetings, but more so for external engagement efforts. If you’re hosting a public webinar and didn’t take these precautions, your proceedings may be derailed. That could lead to several consequences, not the least of which is damage to your business’s reputation.

Need help in Webex? Find our Cisco Webex security and privacy resources in our Help Center.

2) Leverage administrative security options

The example above is a cautionary tale, and it underscores how crucial it is for you to have robust administrative security controls. Yet, such capabilities will be sorely lacking in most consumer-grade tech; and if a tool does have such features, it is likely going to be basic and limited.

Maintaining control of security and privacy measures is essential. Most free-to-use tools are not sophisticated enough to match the needs of your business. Your wish list for security controls should include ways for you to:

• Permit users to store their email addresses and names securely so they can quickly join in the future.
• Require authentication for all hosts and attendees wanting to access the site.
• Enforce various lock controls and meeting participant ejection protocols.
• Enable hosts to customize meeting access security within predefined parameters.
• Allow for meetings to be unlisted from public calendars.
• Control screen sharing and recording functions.
• Automatically end meetings after a certain time or if only one attended remains.
• Mandate that attendees have an approved account to join.

Without at least these controls, your business may be woefully underprepared to enforce security and privacy in video conferences, putting your operations and employees at risk.

Learn more about administration security 

3) Review the privacy policy

This tip comes from the Federal Trade Commission, which has published a list of best practices for SMBs* that now rely on video conferencing. Checking the privacy policy is a must, and you really shouldn’t move on using a solution without doing so.

However, arranging contingency plans was a frenzy for many businesses, and reviewing the privacy policies of video conferencing tools may have slipped under the radar. This may cause severe issues if you assume a tool stores your data one way, but it does not meet expectations or security requirements in actuality. As the FTC advises, always check the type of data the conferencing software collects, its policy on using your data, and whether it shares information with any third parties. Read about Cisco’s promise to our customers on security in an open collaboration world.

4) Focus on encryption

Choosing a video conferencing solution with end-to-end encryption is the only real way to ensure security for your business calls and meetings. Not only is encryption an advantage for some businesses, but it’s also mandated for others in specific regulated industries like law, finance, and health care.

Most consumer-grade solutions are lacking in this department, and what encryption they do offer is far from the robust end-to-end protection your business needs.
A tool that offers features like password encryption, SHA-2 hashing, and Network-Based Recordings is your best bet for secure meetings.

In closing

Looking for a video conferencing solution that checks all the security and privacy boxes to ensure your meetings are private and productive? Cisco Webex is a leading choice among SMBs of all sectors. We place security and privacy at the top of our priorities, and with Webex, you don’t need to worry about sacrificing ease of use or user experience for security controls.

Want to learn more about Webex and all its features and the value it can provide your business? Reach out for more information or get started with our free offer today.

Learn More

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Resources

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Webex Control Hub

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What’s it like to achieve seamless collaboration with someone with no matter where the two of you are?

In many depictions from science fiction, such interactions often involved HD video as well as mobile communications. “Star Trek” had video conferencing and handheld communicators, while “Star Wars” featured high-quality audio links between ships, even in the depths of space. No matter where characters went in those universes, they could reliably stay in touch. Check out the Best Video Conferencing & Online Meeting Software

In the real world, available collaboration technologies have caught up with, and in some ways, even surpassed those once far-out fantasies. Employees can now join a video or VoIP call from their mobile devices, but take advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) to establish context around each meeting, fill in key details through chat, and improve customer experiences.

Check out a first-hand experience of the all-new Webex Meetings with faster join times and anytime-anywhere access:

While it’s always been theoretically possible to collaborate over long distances via email and phone, modern tech makes everything more accessible and real-time. Let’s look at two typical workflows, one with and the other without the most up-to-date collaboration technologies.

A day in the life: One meeting, many locations

Let’s imagine someone starting their workday at home, which has become pretty standard these days. After all, telecommuting has surged since the mid-2000s; one estimate put the number of remote workers in the U.S. at nearly 5 million as of 2018. And in 2020, many more workplaces are allowing their employees to work from home, or split their time between home and office.

Check out our Work From Home Best Practices

This hypothetical worker wakes up and then joins a web conference from their desktop PC for a little while. Built-in AI provides full context on who’s who in the meeting so that there’s no guesswork in understanding the purpose of the proceedings and the participants’ background.

Then it’s time for them to take their kid to school. Using collaboration technology they can transition the call onto their phone with just a swipe and keep listening while in their car, using wireless earbuds or the vehicle’s Bluetooth and a built-in mic.

After finishing the commute, they finally arrive at the office. They sit down at their desk and transition the same call that started back at home to yet another device, this time to their company laptop connected to a docking station and external monitor.

Once the call is over, they can follow up with a few of the participants via chat. The group chat space comes with read receipts and automatic saving of all messages and files so that it’s simple to find any item and understand how it fits into the workflow. The conversation, thanks to technology, happens in real-time, just like a video or VoIP call.

Help Center: Take a look around the Cisco Webex Teams App UI and get used to your app’s interface 

Takeaways

A few takeaways about this experience:

• The conference call worked reliably across a variety of screen sizes and device capabilities.
• Cognitive collaboration features made it easier for participants to follow who was speaking and what was going on.
• The worker didn’t have to use any proprietary cables, dongles, or infrastructure – the team meeting worked entirely over just wireless connections and various apps.
• No emails had to be exchanged and read at any point during the workflow.
• Participants got a much richer experience than a standard phone call would allow, thanks to seamless device switching and added context through messaging.

From start to finish, this workflow kept the entire team connected and on the same page even as at least one participant moved between devices and sites. It’s a stark contrast from traditional approaches to collaboration, which are much more limited by location and hardware.

How collaboration used to work, and why it’s time to move on

The scenario above is an exciting look at how collaboration can play out when everything works. For many employees, though, this workflow is still out of reach due to ongoing reliance on older, less efficient collaboration.

Imagine the same worker, except this time, they begin the workday checking emails in an office. The inbox is overflowing since they’d been out on PTO for a few days. Some of the email threads aren’t even relevant anymore but reading through them first to find that out.

Responding to the handful of items that do require action takes up even more time. To top it all off, the inbox has to be kept open in its browser tab or mail client and checked obsessively throughout the day to see if important messages receive responses.

These types of productivity-draining workflows are all too common. A McKinsey analysis estimated that the typical worker spent 28% of their week on email alone. That’s too much time for too little benefit, as email isn’t real-time and is often challenging to stay on top of – all the more reason to move on to something better. Read how you can use technology to create work-life balance.

Watch how the new Cisco Webex is Built into Your Everyday Workflow

Charting a course toward anytime/anywhere collaboration

There’s a night-and-day difference between traditional and modern collaboration technologies. By investing in newer solutions for cognitive collaboration, video, voice, and chat, organizations can make life easier for their workers while also increasing company-wide productivity. Check out this article on getting the the most out of work-life balance.

Enabling seamless cross-platform collaboration is essential in the context of growing remote work and multi-device setups. Webex can help your team keep up with these trends and stay in touch.

Learn more about Cisco Webex video conferencing solutions and how technology can work together no matter where you are: Get started with a free plan today.

Learn More

Working smarter anywhere – Working remotely 

3 tips for working with remote team members

Tips for WFH when everyone else is home

See what’s new with RoomOS

The beauty of RoomOS is that it is evergreen. Each month, we release new features so that your collaboration experience is always evolving and improving. It’s that time of month again, and I am super excited to bring you some more collaboration magic.

Personal Mode – Whiteboard Improvements

Previously, when you were in personal mode you could not save a whiteboard you worked on when you were not in a call. This made it difficult to whiteboard ad-hoc. We think you deserve a great whiteboarding experience regardless of your device, so now the whiteboard feature works just like the Cisco Webex Board does – meaning you can start, save and retrieve a whiteboard regardless of whether you are in a call or not. If you want to learn more, check out the help article.

Personal Meeting Room (PMR) Easy Join Improvements

Previously, the Webex button has allowed users to join a Webex Meeting or a Personal Meeting Room (PMR) by entering a URI or an 11-digit code. We’ve improved this process, so you can now search for a PMR using the “Join Webex” button, typing in the person’s name. That way you will get results both from your history, and from the cloud search! What’s even more exciting, is that this feature represents the first cloud feature coming to our on-prem customers by using Webex Edge for Devices!

Remote mute in Webex Meetings

This one has been highly requested, and we couldn’t be more excited to bring it to you! Now, we offer the opportunity to remotely mute participants in a Webex meeting on a cloud registered device. This is particularly useful for bigger, all-hands style meetings. Due to security reasons, no one can remotely unmute anyone – all participants need to manually unmute themselves if they wish to speak.

Lock Meetings

At Cisco we talk a lot about security and privacy, and we really practice what we preach. In the Webex app, you can lock your meetings and your PMR, so no one can dial in and crash your meeting. We are now making it possible to do this directly from a video device, so that you do not need to open the app to lock/unlock the meeting. Whenever you are the host of a meeting a lock button will appear on screen, and the meeting will remain locked until you manually choose to unlock it. This way, you can be assured that no one external will “bomb” your meeting.

Webex Board and Desk Pro Touch-Redirect in call

We’ve had touch redirect for a while now, and this was a feature that was highly appreciated by our education customers. Now, you can also use the touch-redirect while in a call!

If you want to learn more, check out the help article.

That’s it for June, and I hope you all have a wonderful summer. Until next time!

Learn More

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Download

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Research on the differences between Webex Meetings and Zoom

Summer is here! And with it comes the June update of Webex Teams and lots of fun new features. Let’s talk about what you can look forward to this month… 

MESSAGING & APP EXPERIENCE

Use Webex Teams in a Windows or Linux Virtual (VDI) Environment (Windows)

We’ve now added support for Webex Teams in a Windows or Linux virtual (VDI) environment. You can use all the built-in messaging, meetings, and calling functionality that you’re used to. Extra calling features are also available if your administrator has enabled them for you.

Mobile gets a makeover (iPhone, iPad and Android)

We’ve made some improvements to the design of the mobile app. Your profile picture, search area and device connection now remain at the top of the app as you move through each tab. There is also a new floating button for quicker access to tasks such as creating a space or sending a direct message.

Reactions that move! (Windows, Mac, iPhone iPad and Android)

We’ve made some exciting changes to our reactions – you’ll now see that they move! When you or somebody else reacts to a message you’ll see an animated reaction.

See when people are busy through Outlook (Windows and Mac)

If you use the Outlook presence integration with Webex Teams, you’ll now see a new presence state – a Busy state in Outlook. When people are In a meeting, On a call, or Presenting in Webex Teams, they will show as Busy in Outlook.

Resize your app to be as small as you like (Windows and Mac)

Minimum size has been reduced and you can now resize the Webex Teams app to be as small as you like, making multitasking that much easier. Note that some elements may look unusual when the app is reduced past a certain size, and this is expected.

Add up to 30 people at once (Windows and Mac)

We’ve made it easier for you to bulk add people to a space or a team. You’ll be able to copy a list of up to 30 people and their emails from either Outlook or from Excel and paste them into any Add People input area in Webex Teams, including Create a Space, Create a Team and the People tab within an existing space. When you paste the email list, the 30 users are staged (you’ll see their profile pictures) for you to review and confirm before clicking ‘Add’.

Add links to your messages (Mac)

Today, you can add a link to text in Webex Teams through mark-down. We’ve improved that experience for you and made it a lot easier to insert a link into a message. You can now select an option to insert a link from the Format Text menu, this will pop up a new dialog box where you can add a link and edit the text of the link that you want to display in your message.

New faces & illustrations! (iPhone, iPad and Android)

You’ll be able to enjoy some of our new friendly characters and illustrations on the Space list, Open Search, Search results, Calls, and Filters.

Have a peek into a space on iOS (iPhone and iPad)

When you have an unread space and you’re not sure if you want to open it or not, you can now ‘peek’ inside the space to see the most recent message there. To use, simply long press on a space and the preview will appear.

MEETINGS

See more people at the same time (Mac)

It’s here! The long-awaited grid view for Webex Teams meetings will be landing into your Mac app this June. You’ll now be able to see up to nine people at once during a meeting, making it that much easier to collaborate. The option will be available on the top right of your meeting window.

CALLING

The calling service your administrator has set up for you determines which calling features you can use. If ­­­­you’re not sure what calling service you have, see Webex Teams | Find Out What Calling Service You Have.

Webex Calling

Add Contacts, Search Your Contacts, and Make a Call (Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android)

Add your co-workers into your Contacts list and group them however you like, making people easier to find when you need to chat or call. And on your mobile app, you can call someone from your Contact list and the calls remains in Webex Teams (your device’s calling app isn’t used).

You can even look up your Outlook contacts (Windows), local address book (Mac), and local phone contacts (iPhone, iPad, and Android) from Webex Teams, so you can easily find your contacts and make a call.

Call Control for Webex Teams Calls (Windows and Mac)

If you’re using a Cisco 700 series headset, you can use its USB adapter or Bluetooth to answer and end your calls, put calls on hold and resume them, as well as mute and unmute calls. 

Voicemail (Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android)

No more missing calls in Webex Teams. You get a dedicated Voicemail tab to manage all your voicemail. There’s a red badge counter that lets you know how many voice messages you have. You can check out the details of a message, play it, mark it as read, delete it or call back the sender. After you’ve listened to your messages, either with Webex Teams or your desk phone, the red badge counter disappears.

We already support this feature for Unified CM on desktop. See Webex Teams | Voicemail.

Desk Phone Control Features (Windows and Mac)

When you dial a number from the app on your desktop and the call goes through your desk phone, you can put the call on hold or resume the call from your desktop app.

Missed Calls (Windows and Mac)

See how many calls you’ve missed with a red badge counter in the Calls tab. The Calls tab shows a list of incoming and outgoing calls and you can call someone back from your Call History. Your scheduled meetings are listed in the Meetings tab, making it easier for you to distinguish between the two types of communication.

Call Forward (iPhone and Android)

If you’re going to be away from your desk but don’t want to miss an important phone call, you can forward your calls to another phone number. Or, if you don’t want to be interrupted, you can send all your calls to voicemail instead.

We already support Call Forwarding in Calling in Webex Teams (Webex Calling) on your desktop. See Webex Teams | Forward Phone Calls.

Single Number Reach (iPhone and Android)

With Single Number Reach, all incoming calls to your users’ work phones ring other numbers at the same time. You can add any numbers you want in your call settings.

We already support this feature in Webex Teams (Unified CM) on desktop. See Webex Teams | Get Phone Calls at Any Number.

Unified CM

Add Contacts, Search Your Contacts, and Make a Call (Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android)

Add your co-workers into your Contacts list and group them however you like, making people easier to find when you need to chat or call. And on your mobile app, you can call someone from your Contact list and the calls remains in Webex Teams (your device’s calling app isn’t used).

You can even look up your Outlook contacts (Windows), local address book (Mac), and local phone contacts (iPhone, iPad, and Android) from Webex Teams, so you can easily find your contacts and make a call.

Call Control for Webex Teams Calls (Windows and Mac)

If you’re using a Cisco 700 series headset, you can use its USB adapter or Bluetooth to answer and end your calls, put calls on hold and resume them, as well as mute and unmute calls.

Call Pickup (Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android)

If you’re in a customer support role and your co-worker isn’t able to answer an incoming call to their phone, you get a notification in Webex Teams if you’re both in the same pickup group. You can answer their call from the notification you get in the app. You can also pick up the calls in other pickup groups.

Share a Specific Application (Windows and Mac)

When you make a video call, you can choose a specific application to share, rather than having to share your whole screen.

Hunt Groups (Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android)

If your administrator sets you up with the Hunt Group calling feature, you can sign in or out of a Hunt Group from your Call Settings. When you’re signed in and a call comes into a group that you belong to, you’ll see the Hunt Group number on your incoming call notification.

Share Your Screen (Windows and Mac)

You can call someone from the app and have them answer your call on their desk phone and you can still share your screen with them. They can see your shared screen from their phone if the phone supports video, otherwise they’ll see the shared screen from the app.

You can share your screen regardless of whether the person you called is using a cloud-registered device or an on-premises device. Your screen share is still sent with a high frame rate (30 FPS), high resolution (1080p), and includes audio.

Lock Symbol for Secure Phone Calls (iPhone and Android)

When you’re on a secure phone call, you’ll now see a lock symbol letting you know that it’s secure. We’ve already made this available in Calling in Webex Teams (Unified CM) on your desktop.

For more information on this and upcoming updates to Webex Teams, check out our help page here.

Learn More

See all of the Webex Teams Releases here

Creating digital teams in Webex Teams series — Chapter 3: Whiteboards, no line on the horizon

Webex Teams — say hello to the new in-space design

Artificial intelligence (AI) has many possible use cases. It is an important part of everything from voice-activated assistants such as Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant, to specialized applications that can screen pharmaceutical candidates en masse.

It’s no surprise, then, that AI can also be incorporated into online meeting software. Numerous manual and time-consuming activities during a normal web conference can be streamlined through integrated AI. In Cisco Webex, AI can play an important role in creating a more engaging experience for all attendees.

Why AI is needed in online meetings

Think of an audio or video conference you’ve joined in the past. Was the joining experience seamless? Who’s been in a meeting where the first 5 min are a wash because one member is working through the trouble of joining…

Maybe you can recall a meeting that didn’t exactly go according to script or had a few hiccups along the way. The possibilities here are endless, but some of the common sticking points include:

• Needing to enter a long dial-in number and PIN to get into the meeting.
• Having to endure choppy audio and video quality.
• Struggling with meeting controls for muting, sharing the screen, etc.
• Capturing key action items via physical notes or and generating transcripts.

Together, such issues make too many meetings aimless and difficult to participate in. The costs of these unproductive meetings are high.

Not only do they eat up time that could have gone toward other activities (like all meetings do), but they also don’t even achieve their stated purpose. That leads to additional meetings needing to be scheduled, resulting in more time being consumed. It’s a snowball effect. This is where AI can help.

How AI supports more productive and less annoying meetings

The AI features in Webex are designed to save time and help during multi-tasking such as teaching kids while home, and driving for no-touch and other automating numerous tasks that previously required a lot of manual intervention. Let’s look at how some of these features work in practice.

Voice controls

Imagine a world where your voice can:

• Join or leave the meeting.
• Start or end the meeting.
• Make or end a phone call.
• Increase or decrease the volume.
• Mute or unmute a participant.
• Enter or leave a host’s personal meeting room.
• Manage connected devices.

It’s all as simple as saying the relevant keyword (activation phrase) and then telling the virtual assistant what you want to do. Read more

Transcription

Taking notes during a meeting can be hectic. Sometimes, you literally cannot type fast enough to keep up with what’s being said. Notes can also be too fragmentary to be useful after the fact, as they might lack sufficient context.

• Transcribe your entire meeting
• Included out of the box
• No 3^rd party software needed
• Safe and secure
• Auto-generated closed caption
• Automatic note taking

With AI in place, all of these problems become moot. All of these assets can be downloaded after the meeting is over, along with a complete recording of the session. Advanced keyword search allows you to quickly find what you’re looking for, even across multiple saved recordings if need be.

Other post-meeting actions

Sharing a recording or transcript is often a good step after a meeting ends, if only to make sure that everyone has it for their records. AI assistants can help you take other follow-up actions that extract even more valuable information and insights from a meeting.

• highlighting and capturing designated action items during the meeting based on highlighted keywords.
• AI may also do some of this information gathering automatically. These summary highlights, action items, recordings, and transcripts can be shared via email with all or selected meeting attendees for a clear overview of what was discussed and what might require subsequent action.

Security and compliance, assured

Recording and transcribing a meeting, even via AI assistant, can create some potential legal complications. Many jurisdictions require consent from all parties involved before a meeting can be recorded. There’s also the issue of where the data is being sent and stored by the AI algorithms in question.

All of the infrastructure behind a successful AI assistant – data centers, networks, clouds, etc. – must be secure against possible data leakage and cyberattacks that could expose the sensitive matters discussed. In Webex, all of the technical processing is done entirely within the Cisco ecosystem for maximum safety.

Implementing AI in your meetings

One of the biggest benefits of AI is that it’s always improving, as its algorithms are refined, and it has more exposure to relevant data. It can improve your web conferences right away and also give you access to continual enhancements.

Get started with a free Cisco Webex plan today!

Learn More

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The 5 ways AI will transform team collaboration

Webex Meetings April 2020 update: Better usability and more intelligence for smarter meetings

Skip the trip with Webex Meetings

During a time when many organizations have shifted to a nearly 100% remote workforce, Cisco Webex is introducing a new addition for enterprise content management on Webex Teams. It’s time to let go of your stacks of paper and say hello to Box for Webex!

Instant team collaboration, even when working remote

Remote teams need more than email chains, phone calls and static documents to most-effectively work together. Teams who are enabled to collaborate together on unified platforms, such as Webex, are able to co-create and share ideas as though they’re face-to-face, co-edit and make decisions much faster than through traditional means. The addition of Box to the enterprise content management feature set enables users to select Box as their document repository. Users can work together in real-time in Webex Teams, by sharing and viewing box content directly within the unified app.

Share and view files from Box

Share your Box files with everyone in a space and view the full file in a pop out window.

See file previews

See a preview thumbnail of shared files to quickly identify what the document is.

Update file sharing security setting

Ensure only the right users have access to shared files.

Box content is accessible and shareable from within Webex Teams and does not index the shared content in Webex Teams. The only metadata that is stored by Webex Teams is the file name and file type, so you know your data is secure.

Set up in minutes

If you already collaborate on Webex Teams, you can enable the Box integration through Control Hub, and access the content management settings to configure Box for users, or on a global level.

Services –>Message Setting–>Content Management–>Edit Settings

Now more than ever, as workplaces transform, it is critical to have a seamless workstream of technology and tools that help you get work done. Cisco Webex and Box are here to help. We are working on ways we can deepen and expand how Webex can interoperate with the Box platform to ensure seamless, secure collaboration for users and admins, that will deliver best-in-class experiences.

For the full deployment guide on ECM configuration visit help.webex.com and start collaborating with your team using Box with Webex Teams.

Learn More

Embracing the rise of remote working

Administrators’ 3-step guide to managing devices remotely

Working smarter anywhere— Working remotely

Here at Webex, we understand that innovation can come from anywhere, whether it’s from our engineering team, our partners, or passionate users like yourself. We want your feedback on new features or suggestions on how we can make our product even better for you. The User Community Feedback Portal is now open in the Webex Community, so submitting your ideas has never been easier. 

The User Community Feedback Portal 

What exactly is the User Community Feedback Portal? It’s the place to go in the Webex Community to offer new product ideas, make suggestions for current feature improvements, and even vote on other community members’ ideas. We always appreciate feedback and want you to have a voice in making Webex the best collaboration platform it can be. Here’s how it works: 

• Go to the Webex Community and click on the Share a Product Idea tab 

• Explore Recent, Trending, or Popular submissions, filter based on the category, and even vote on ideas you like.

• If you want to post your own idea, simply click the Add a new idea button and fill out the form before submitting. It’s that easy.

Every category in the User Community Feedback Portal is assigned to a Webex product manager (PM) who can update requests with product timelines and status updates, so you know exactly what’s going on with your (or any other) suggestion.

How to vote

Even if you post your own ideas in the portal, you can still vote on other suggestions or innovations that you like. Once you find an idea worthy of your vote, click on the VOTE icon to the left of the idea. You’ll also see the number of votes the idea already has here, too. Once you click the VOTE icon, the box will turn green.

Vote on something by mistake? Simply click the icon again to take it back. Here are some other things to consider:

• Vote on any idea you really want to see come to fruition.
• You can retract your vote on any idea if you changed your mind or if you don’t see if getting a lot of votes.
• You’ll get an email notification if someone comments on the idea in the portal or the status changes.

There are so many ideas already posted in the Webex Community, so go check them out. We’re excited to see what brilliant ideas you have and can’t wait to start putting some of these suggestions into action. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at cocallah@cisco.com.

Submit your idea today!

About Cole – Cole manages the Webex Communities, including the IT Admin, Adoption Champions, and User Communities. He’s a kayak fanatic, and proud father to his incredible Foxhound, Daisy. He’s passionate about connecting customers, users, and admins with Webex.

Cole is a recent Ball State graduate and award-winning documentarian (seriously!) who has previously launched online communities for other organizations. As the Community Manager here at Cisco, Cole launched our community spaces, engages with members, encourages conversations, and is your go-to guy for everything relating to Webex Communities. Feel free to connect with him on LinkedIn.

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Hosting the virtual interview

Interviews are perhaps the most critical part of the hiring process. They allow your company to get to know applicants and assess both their role-specific knowledge and soft skills, as well as their interpersonal abilities and overall fit. Similarly, they help potential hires better understand the role they are applying for and overall company culture in a way that goes beyond a job posting or “About Us” section of your organization’s website.

Luckily, digital tools for video conferencing and connecting with others have made it easier for businesses to find the right applicant. Let’s look at the value of virtual interviews and three best practices for hosting them.

Interviewing in a virtual world

Since the beginning of the year, 86% of organizations have shifted to virtual interviews.* Though, Lauren Smith, vice president in the Gartner HR practice, said that “many recruiting functions were already conducting virtual interviews, including using video interviewing technology for remotely located candidates; however, this now is the norm for all candidates given the current environment.” It’s showing organizations what can be done—in expanding reach, saving time and money.*

The right video conferencing solution puts people face-to-face, authentically simulating the in-person interview experience without requiring the interviewers and interviewees to be in the same place, at the same time.

Virtual interviews enable businesses to search far and wide for the most qualified new hires, regardless of where they’re located. Applicants, meanwhile, don’t have to try to coordinate complicated travel plans if they don’t live near your company’s offices or drastically re-arrange their schedules if they do.

Best practices drive productive virtual interviews

A dependable video conferencing platform is the foundation of consistently positive remote interviews. The following best practices can help your organization make the most of these opportunities.

1. The right tools, time, and preparation

As the organization hosting the interview, your team should be prepared and extend the same courtesy to interviewees. That means making the date, time, and expected duration clear as soon as possible, so candidates and internal stakeholders alike can block off time on their calendars.

Having the right video conferencing platform is also crucial. A dependable and accessible platform will:

• Be widely accessible with standard web browsers and operating systems.
• Offer compatibility with basic video conferencing tools, like built-in cameras.
• Allow your company to record parts or all of the call, if necessary. In these cases, your business needs to provide the relevant disclosures and consent forms, as Monster explained.
• Not require the applicant to pay for software or setup.

Sharing a link to the meeting and specifying the software to be used allows candidates to ensure everything is in good working order before the interview starts. That ultimately saves everyone time.

While not a requirement, your company can offer to set up a short test call ahead of time to ensure everyone can connect as planned. You can also leave it up to candidates to ask for a test call before the interview, as an increasing number of professionals are familiar with video conferencing systems.

2. Creating a professional environment

Thoughtful, professional candidates take care to make a good first impression. Your company should do the same thing.

A professional environment isn’t just for the office. A professional environment can be created anywhere you are. Set up your computer and run a test call with a teammate to make sure the area is clean, uncluttered, and has appropriate lighting. You should also check on technical specifications like the resolution of your webcam, your position relative to it – adjust your chair height or move the webcam to reach the desired result – and the output volume of your microphone. Remote employment service, FlexJobs, also recommended making it clear that you’re conducting an interview:

• Close the door and put up a sign or other reminder that an interview is in progress.
• Schedule the time on your calendar in advance.
• Silence your phone.
• Close other programs on your computer to avoid slowdowns and notifications from popping up during the interview.

3. Consistency in interviewing

Some best practices that apply to in-person interviews are just as relevant for virtual ones. Preparing interview questions ahead of time, and using a standardized format for all interviewees, is especially important.

This approach helps to create a level playing field for everyone involved. While the responses of candidates can and should lead to more individualized follow-up questions and comments, having potential hires answer the same foundational questions provides a consistent basis for comparison. It can also assist in removing unconscious biases from the interview and hiring processes.

Video conferencing helps your company find the best candidates

Drawing from a local talent pool is often valuable, but casting a wider net potentially means bringing in more qualified applicants. This can help fill positions faster without sacrificing quality and keep your company operating at peak levels.

Virtual interviews simulate the entire in-person interview process, allowing for subtle indicators like body language and tone of voice to be just as clear as they are in person. Leveraging this valuable tool is simple with a little planning and preparation.

Give your company the tools it needs to successfully host virtual interviews — get started with a free Cisco Webex plan today

Reference

86% of companies are conducting job interviews via video conference

Learn More

Working smarter: An interview experience from a (super fun!) virtual team

6 winning strategies for a video conference interview

Interview with an Online Training Expert

Intelligent room capacity with people counting technology

I was discussing meeting room design and how to help companies make safe use of them once we go back to the office. One of the things you might want to control is the maximum number of people in a meeting room at any one time, so you need some form of people counting technology. Cisco has you covered!

All Webex Room, Board and Desk series devices come with intelligent people counting sensors directly embedded without any additional cost. These were first designed to help crop the image for video conferencing use cases like “Speaker Tracker” and “Best Overview”. But why stop there? Cisco has exposed these as APIs which can also be used to  track heads within spaces all of which is anonymous and opt in.

Webex Rooms built-in macro editor

At first I thought I would need to run extra systems to get this working and spend  unknown time and effort, then it hit me – Webex Rooms devices have a macro editor directly on the device which can solve many use cases. Every now and again you think to yourself “surely it can’t be this simple?” Well, in this case, it was. I already use the macro editor to control the lighting in my office at home and to make a light door change color whenever I’m on a call. Could it be so simple as to hook in the people counting API and perform some actions depending on the value?

I reached out to Dirk-Jan on Webex Teams, one of my colleagues who is known for his unpronounceable last name and amazing knowledge of Cisco API programming and asked “Is there a way to run a macro when the number of people changes”? Fifteen minutes pass and my screen fills with 20 lines of code “Try this.” Half an hour of testing of which the hardest part was to round up family members in our home to trigger the alert and it was done!

Webex Rooms devices: Bringing new dimensions to the workspace

It was almost too simple to be true – the Webex Room device can activate a macro every time the number of detected people in room changes, compare this to the maximum room capacity which can be set directly at the top of the Javascript file, and take an action accordingly. In the past, the device would only count people that were looking directly at the camera, but recent optimisations mean it will now also detect people regardless of which way they are facing. This truly unlocks a new dimension of how to use the device to add value within the workspace.

In less than an hour, I built an AI-powered application in a system that is already present in meeting rooms without requiring any additional equipment or licenses.

I reached out to the the Webex Rooms R&D team and we decided this was just too good to keep underwraps. So we have decided to release this code today on Code Exchange for free to use and modify. Allowing all administrators to easily provision and adopt to their needs without the need to go and find a developer.

Download the macro.

This is just one of many ways Webex Room devices can do way more than video calls. Check out device programming  and the great sample library on DevNet.

Learn More

See all the Webex RoomOS releases

Webex Device Management— The power of search!

Working smarter anywhere – Working remotely 

How to launch a community with Webex Teams

Effective internal communication tools

Establishing and then running a small- or medium-sized business (SMB) isn’t easy. Statistics show that most SMBs eventually fail, and sooner than you might think. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicates that within a given 10-year period, 70% of all businesses founded in the first year will fail. The failure rate increases steadily by year*, meaning that even if the business survives year one, each year after is just as important. Webex offers a solution that allows your entire team to harness the power of video, voice, messaging, and more from a platform that’s easy to use on any device.

There’s no obvious solution for avoiding failure, or else everyone would already be doing it. Instead, companies have to do the hard work of sustaining growth and profitability even in the face of multiple headwinds, such as hiring staff, buying insurance, and expanding into new markets. Keeping the growth engine going requires diligent action on multiple fronts. In this post, we’ll focus on one of them: improving internal communications. Let’s look at some common challenges there, and how to solve them.

1. Creating and following a clear communication plan

According to the Gatehouse State of the Sector 2018 report, 31% of internal communicators in North America did not conduct any formal planning. That means their communications are often reactive instead of proactive. Whether it’s communication during a crisis or just a routine event like managing a hiring process, inadequate planning for internal communications may leave employees confused.

A better way forward is to create and share guidelines for internal communications. It’s important to take a collaborative approach to such planning, by gathering input from all stakeholders and setting up a common shared resource that everyone can go back to. Look for a solution that can simplify this task by making it easy to share, find, and organize files in dedicated spaces accessible by entire teams.

2. Eliminating operational silos between departments

Silos – i.e., de facto separated units, cut off from the organization at-large – aren’t just issues for large enterprises; emerging businesses can struggle with this issue as well. For example:

• An SMB’s finance department might be disconnected from its other teams, creating significant consequences for the entire company.
• This may lead to accountants and planners making decisions without knowing the full picture of what’s going on elsewhere in the firm.
• As a result of inaccurate budgeting and forecasting, an SMB with already-thin margins may feel even more squeezed.

Silo elimination requires better collaboration. Entire collaborative movements, like DevOps in software development, have emerged to address the silo issue in particular. But suitable tools are needed, too.

Integrated solutions for messaging, calling, white-boarding, and more help address silos by putting all important information and context in one place. Collaborators can enjoy a single “version of the truth”, instead of working on redundant and possibly disjointed workflows.

3. Consistently distributing feedback to employees

SMBs live and die by the engagement of their employees. Since their teams are relatively small, it’s especially important for each member to be as engaged as possible. Unfortunately, this is often easier said than done, due to issues such as inconsistent delivery of feedback.

A Zenger Folkman assessment found that employees working under managers who provided clear, actionable feedback were three times more engaged** than leaders who weren’t. In fact, those leaders who weren’t great at providing actionable feedback had employees who were three times more likely to quit.

Consistently providing feedback can seem challenging for busy managers, more so if they have to oversee employees who routinely work outside the office. Weaving in tools such as video conferencing and instant messaging can make feedback delivery more streamlined than simply relying on emails (too easily overlooked in many cases) or in-person meetings (often hard to schedule and coordinate).

4. Creating infrastructure to support remote and mobile workers

For some time now, non-traditional remote and mobile working arrangements have been gathering momentum. Giving employees the flexibility to work from virtually anywhere has distinct benefits for them and for the SMBs that employ them. It can reduce costs for travel and office space, improve morale and productivity, broaden hiring searches, and enable more practical expansion.

If there’s a catch, it’s that employees can often feel lonely and disengaged outside the office. Buffer discovered as much in its 2019 State of Remote Work report, in which loneliness and communications and collaboration were cited as the top challenges when working remotely. These challenges of disconnection can dampen the prospects of a business.

The good news is that boosting engagement is realistic with modern collaboration software. Setting up a video conference can make a group of participants feel like they’re in the same room even when they’re far apart. Likewise, using unified collaborative spaces for file sharing and instant messaging can lessen a remote employee’s feeling that they’re somehow missing out on important information and context.

How to upgrade your internal communications

Realizing and addressing these challenges will set your business up for more sustainable success.

Learn more by getting started with a free plan today!

Learn More

Build bridges between business contacts and human relationships in your video conference meetings

Fueling real-time collaboration with a video conference meeting

Improving patient diagnoses with video conferencing

*Failure rate of businesses in the first year

Learn more about the broadcasting world, with step by step guides to stream Grid View, Overlays and to simultaneously stream to YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook with Webex.

Webex stream to YouTube.

Do you listen to podcasts? Watch YouTube or even Twitch? Then let me take you behind the scenes into the world of the tools used in live streaming. In this article, you will learn how to use the video meetings application, Webex, and set up virtual backgrounds, live stream in grid view, add overlays, and even stream to multiple platforms simultaneously. There are more things to learn when it comes to streaming, but this article is meant to get you comfortable with live streaming as a broadcaster. If you want to learn the simple way to live stream, check out this blog.

Below is a diagram of the various streaming workflows and applications you can use to achieve the broadcast of your choice. This guide is broken down into three sections: Live Speaker Overview & Setup, Broadcast Software Setup, and Streaming Platform Setup. Each section will go over the installation and configuration process to set up your live broadcast.

MESSAGING

Introducing app update controls in Webex Teams

This May, Webex Teams admins will have access to product controls which will allow you to choose how often the app gets updated for your users. Options include updating the app monthly or quarterly. This means, if desired, you can reduce the number of updates presented to users. With this, you’ll also be able to defer the deployment of updates by up to four weeks for the monthly update option or two weeks for the quarterly update option. This gives customers a chance to complete any required validation of the new software update. For more details, check out this blog.

Isn’t there a space for that? (Windows and Mac)

We are all guilty of accidently making a new space where we could have re-used another. This feature will help you with that. You’ll get a chance to re-use old spaces as you’re trying to create a new one. If there is an active space with the group of people that you have staged, you’ll see a list of spaces you’re already in with those people. Similarly, when you start typing a space name, you’ll be shown a list of spaces with similar names that you are already in. This helps reduce the creation of unnecessary, duplicate spaces.

A new reaction! (Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Android)

You can now express yourself even more using reactions. If someone made you laugh with their message, simply react with our new (Haha) emoji! In addition to that, our existing Happy emoji becomes Smile and the Surprised emoji becomes the Wow emoji.

‘Seen by’ for read receipts (Windows and Mac)
You might now notice the words ‘seen by’ appearing next to your read receipts in a space. This is to make it quick and easy for first time users to understand what the avatar read receipts are.

MEETINGS

See more people at the same time (Windows)

It’s here! The long-awaited grid view for Webex Teams meetings will be landing into your Windows app this May. You’ll now be able to see up to nine people at once during a meeting, making it that much easier to collaborate. The option will be available on the top right of your meeting window.

A new look for an in-space ‘meet’ (Windows and Mac)

Before, the green icon on the top left of a group space for starting an ad hoc meeting was a combined video camera and phone icon. This has changed to be more descriptive and understandable to users, it is now simply ‘meet’. You will see the same icon when you start a search and hover over a space to start an ad hoc meeting.

CALLING

Webex Calling

Fewer clicks to make a call (Windows and Mac)

You don’t have to click meet icon first and then choose whether to make the call with audio only or share your video. You can make that choice right away.

Single number reach (Windows and Mac)

With Single Number Reach, all incoming calls to your users’ work phones ring other numbers at the same time. You can add any numbers you want in your call settings.

We already support this feature in Webex Teams (Unified CM) on desktop. Check out this help page for more information.

Pull a call from one device to another (Windows and Mac)

You can easily move an active call from one device to another. Take a call on your mobile app, and when you get to the office, simply pull the active call to your desktop. The active call moves to the new device and ends on the old device.

High Definition (HD) video (Windows and Mac)

You can enable or disable HD video. Just click your profile picture, go to Settings (Windows) or Preferences (Mac), select Video, and then enable or disable the setting. You may want to disable HD video if your computer CPU is running high or you want to save network bandwidth during a call or meeting.

Direct callback from your call history (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

Just one tap and you can call someone back…simply tap the Call icon beside someone’s name or number in your Call History and you automatically call the person back at the number they called you. You no longer need to choose what number you want to reach them at.

We’re also making this available in Webex Teams calls.

Voicemail in Webex Teams (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

No more missing calls in Webex Teams. If you’re using Calling in Webex Teams (Webex Calling) on your iPhone, iPad, or Android, you’ll see a red badge counter (Message Waiting Indicator) next to the Calls tab letting you know you have a voice message. If you want to listen to your messages, go to the Calls tab and click on Call Voicemail to dial into the voicemail system. From your voicemail system, you also can record a personal greeting, delete a message, and so on. After you listen to your messages (from the app or your desk phone), the red badge counter disappears.

We already support this feature on desktop. See this help page for more details.

Merge two calls (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

When you’re on a phone call and you receive an incoming phone call in Webex Teams, you can merge the two phone calls into one and have everyone in the same phone call.

We already support this feature on desktop. For more information, take a look at this help page.

Start a conference call (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

We’re making collaboration even easier. Need another opinion while you’re on a call? You can add up to 6 people while you’re in a 1–to–1 call.

We already support this feature on desktop. See this help page for more details.

Call statistics (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

When you’re in a call or meeting, you can tap More button (three dots button) to check call statistics, such as packet loss, latency, and resolution rate.

View full screen share (iPhone and iPad)

When you’re in a call and the person you’re chatting with shares their screen, you can see what they’re sharing more clearly. Rather than their screen and video taking up equal real estate, their screen takes up your full view while their video just takes up a small space in the corner.

Switch to and from a bluetooth device during a call (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

During a call, you can switch from your headset or speaker to a Bluetooth device with the tap of a button.

Unified CM

Use desk phone control for Webex Teams calls (Windows and Mac)

When you’re connected to your desk phone from Webex Teams, you can make and answer Webex Teams calls. The audio and video goes through your desk phone but you can still share your screen from the app.

Use Health Checker for phone services status (Windows and Mac)

If you’re unsure whether you’re Phone Service is working properly, you can check out the status of your phone connection from the app. On Windows, click your profile picture and then go to Help > Health Checker. On Mac, go to Help > Health Checker. Health Checker tests your connection and lets you know if there’s a problem.

Fewer clicks to make a call (Windows and Mac)

You don’t have to click meet icon first and then choose whether to make the call with audio only or share your video. You can make that choice right away.

High Definition (HD) video (Windows and Mac)

You can enable or disable HD video. Just click your profile picture, go to Settings (Windows) or Preferences (Mac), select Video, and then enable or disable the setting. You may want to disable HD video if your computer CPU is running high or you want to save network bandwidth during a call or meeting.

Direct callback from your call history (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

Just one tap and you can call someone back…simply tap the Call icon beside someone’s name or number in your Call History and you automatically call the person back at the number they called you. You no longer need to choose what number you want to reach them at.

We’re also making this available in Webex Teams calls.

Call statistics (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

When you’re in a call or meeting, you can tap More button (three dots button) to check call statistics, such as packet loss, latency, and resolution rate.

View full screen share (iPhone and iPad)

When you’re in a call and the person you’re chatting with shares their screen, you can see what they’re sharing more clearly. Rather than their screen and video taking up equal real estate, their screen takes up your full view while their video just takes up a small space in the corner.

Switch to and from a bluetooth device during a call (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

During a call, you can switch from your headset or speaker to a Bluetooth device with the tap of a button.

INTEGRATIONS

Jira Server Bot
The latest updates to the Jira Server bot for Webex Teams support 2-way functionality, making it easier for your entire team to build, monitor, and release software in a timely manner. Now you can create issues like bugs, tasks, and stories from any space as well as setup real-time notifications for issues in your Jira project. Quickly see what’s been updated recently, assigned to you, or even list issues you’re watching from within a Webex Teams space. Learn more on the Webex App Hub.

Learn more on this and upcoming updates to Webex Teams

Learn More

See all of the Webex Teams Releases here

Webex Teams product update controls

Love your meeting!

We are already at the end of May! I hope everyone is staying safe and sound. The RoomOS team have been working hard to release a mix of features for you, to enhance your personal mode experience, up your co-creation, and make life a little bit easier for administrators.

Activity indicator

Ever been in an interactive whiteboarding session and wondered who is annotating or drawing? We thought so. With Activity Indicator, the initials or the avatar of the people who are adding to the whiteboard will pop up next to their input. This is especially useful when you zoom into an area and want to be aware of the bigger picture. Click here to learn more.

No auto wake-up for personal mode devices

Room devices in personal mode can often be found in open office areas or home offices. These devices often turn on automatically when they detect movement – something that is useful at the office, but can be distracting at home. Imagine your device turning on every time your child runs past it, or your cat jumps on top of your desk? Pretty annoying. To fix this, we’re turning off by default the auto wake-up feature for personal mode devices.

Participant list improvements

We also made some improvements to the participant list display when in a meeting. Now, you can see the domain of external participants on the roster list, and see who is paired to a shared Cisco Webex device!

Webex Edge for Devices – Read only configurations

We want to make sure that all our customers get to experience cloud benefits, no matter their deployment type. Webex Edge for Devices allows customers to view their configuration settings directly in Control Hub. This allows for greater flexibility, as customers with an on-premises registered device can see the configuration in Control Hub, which is a cloud feature. This brings more value into the single pane of glass for all administrators, regardless of deployment type.

Webex Edge for Devices – Proxy support

We also added proxy support for Webex Edge for devices, the same as for devices registered to the cloud.

That’s it for this month – but stay tuned, as we have loads more in the pipeline.

Learn more about Webex Edge for Devices

Learn More

See all the Webex RoomOS releases

Webex Meetings and Microsoft Teams: Working better together

Skip the trip with Webex Meetings

Working smarter anywhere – Working remotely 

Webinar with best-selling author, Nir Eyal

Tomorrow.. Tomorrow.. I’ll love ya.. Oh wait. I don’t know you (or maybe I do). But that’s not the point.

Tomorrow is an exciting day! Webex is hosting a webinar with best-selling author, Nir Eyal. And trust me, you won’t want to miss it.

For years, Eyal has immersed himself in the psychology of distraction and even wrote a book about it called: Indistractable. Tomorrow, he is going to let us in on his research.

Key takeways

We’ll learn:

• Reasons why we get distracted
• Why we don’t do the things we know we should do (think: eating healthy, exercising, getting good sleep, etc).
• How to master the internal triggers that make us uncomfortable
• Cool tricks/ways to make a pact with yourself to do the work you say you’re going to do
• How to cultivate self-compassion
• AND SO MUCH MORE!

Register here today: https://use.webex.com/webinar-indistractable-with-nir-eyal

Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Time: 12 PM ET

Learn More

Cisco Webex Meetings 39.9: Discovering some video conferencing hacks
3 business communication barriers you can break down with video conferencing
Video conferencing and the generational divide

Leveraging technology for better work/life balance

There’s no doubt about it: Work-life balance is essential for today’s employees. People have a widespread desire to address both personal and professional responsibilities. And everyone needs a little time to relax and unwind.

A survey from project and resource management company MavenLink also found a majority of employees of all ages – 62% – believe work-life balance is the most important part of a successful work culture. (1) Happy, healthy, and well-rested employees tend to be more productive, after all.

How can your company use technology to create and improve its employees’ sense of work-life balance?

Give them tools to automate repetitive tasks

Some of your staff’s most important responsibilities involve repetitive work, from creating budgets to organizing projects and allocating resources. However, the many computations and calculations involved are often best left to an application or program. Human error is inescapable, and can easily be introduced into these efforts despite the best efforts of staff and supervisors.

Tools as simple as spreadsheets and budgeting software can help employees complete this kind of repetitive but important work more quickly and with fewer opportunities for error. This modest investment can cut down on the time your workers spent on such tasks, helping them avoid late nights and early mornings. It also removes a potential source of worry that can follow them home and disrupt their work-life balance. Learn how to work smarter and get more done with Webex in 2020.

Use tech to improve mindfulness and health

Technology doesn’t need to specifically address a professional responsibility or task to help improve work-life balance. Locating and vetting resources, then sharing them with staff as part of an employee wellness program, can provide benefits inside and outside of work time.

There are a number of potential apps that employees can use to address self-care needs and improve quality of life. Those interested in diet and exercise can use a variety of free meal and activity trackers, for example. Providing information and encouraging use without requiring it can help create a supportive and accepting environment. This shows staff that their employer cares about them and recognizes they lead lives where work is important, but not the only thing they want or need to address in their lives.

Another option to consider when it comes to these resources is apps that support mindfulness and a sense of presence. Forbes contributor Jaspar Weir, the founder of TaskUs, an outsourcing company, highlighted how his company uses the Headspace app to promote meditation. (2) Creating a sense of peace and presence in the current moment can help employees take a short break as well as better plan and complete their tasks for the day. Take instruction to Webex: stream live pilates lessons.

Empower them to use their calendars

Digital calendars are incredibly valuable tools for modern workplaces. A meeting organizer can easily check stakeholders’ calendars when inviting them to an internal meeting or discussion with a client. That’s not the only benefit digital calendars provide.

Encouraging staff to block off time for lunch and breaks in line with company policies can help them stay refreshed and organized throughout the day. It also provides a window to set up an appointment or check in with family and friends. With digital calendars already so prevalent, embracing this type of policy doesn’t require a major shift in organizational strategy. Employees just need to be encouraged to take advantage of this benefit early on.

Allow them to work from home

Technology has advanced to the point where professionals in many different careers can not only function but thrive when working remotely. Recent events have accelerated companies’ plans to expand work-from-home.

Solutions like video conferencing platforms connect staff to their colleagues, whether in the office or also working from home, in a much richer environment than is possible with conference calls or emails alone. The right video conferencing tool can even enhance collaboration and support recall through automated recordings and document sharing. Here’s more tips for WFH when everyone else is home.

Working from home has some obvious benefits when it comes to supporting work-life balance:

• Staff can effectively work from wherever they are currently located. They may be at home, traveling as part of their jobs or even bringing their children to a travel sports tournament. As long as they have a computer and internet connection, they can perform capably in their roles.
• Commuting is no longer a drain on time and energy. While staff still have to prepare themselves for the work day, they don’t need to spend the time and money required to drive to the office or make sure they get on public transit in time.
• Employees can be present at their homes without having to take time off. A mild illness or appointment with a tradesperson doesn’t mean an employee can’t work. Caring for a sick child or training a new puppy requires some attention, but not enough to require many full days of time off. At the same time, these concerns often require a staff member to be absent from a physical office. With a supportive environment and the right technological tools in place, employees can make a seamless transition to working from home.

Technology offers crucial support for employers that want to improve work-life balance, from directly supporting staff as they complete complex tasks to allowing them to effectively perform in their roles no matter where they’re located. See more ways on embracing the rise of remote working.

Learn more about Cisco Webex video conferencing solutions and their role in enabling a better work-life balance: get started with a free plan today

References

(1) Work/life balance leads to successful work culture

(2) How TaskUs uses Headspace app to promote meditation

Learn More

Manage rapid growth with these internal communication techniques

Using a video conferencing tool to manage outside vendor communications

3 business communication barriers you can break down with video conferencing

GDPR versus flexible working & mobility

Advanced search feature in Webex Control Hub

There has always been a debate about hierarchical folders vs. indexed based searching. When we developed device management features in Webex Control Hub we really wanted administrators to have easy access to any information they might need. Because of this, we decided to implement an advanced search feature to allow for multiple ways to manipulate and view your devices list view. This allows admins to quickly find the devices they are looking for.

Enhance and simplify the admin journey

Let us take a quick look into how we can use the devices search functionality to really enhance the administrators journey on an average day.

When you load up the devices page you can click on the search bar to expose a list of potential filters. The first one is a brand new one that we recently released, called “Type.” This allows you to quickly filter on “Webex Rooms” , “Headsets” or “IP Phones”. This acts as a quick way for administrators to filter the view to look at the devices selected.

The Product tab is lets you specify this even further by the exact type of device grouping you are looking for. For example, you can select Webex Boards. You can also combine these filters, so let’s say we want to file all the Webex Boards which are “Online with Issues” – this can be done by combining both of these functionalities together!

Real-time issue searching

However, it is not just about finding devices that are online or offline or in a specific grouping. One of the features that makes the devices search so powerful is real time issue searching based on the issue diagnostic. This means we can easily see which devices have the same issues. This can be really useful if there is an issue at a certain location and we can easily narrow down which devices in that location have the same problem.

Search by location

One of the questions I get all the time is: “How do I find the devices that are in the New York vs. London offices?” This can be easily achieved using a feature we call tags, where you can place one or multiple tags on any device. This feature allows you to have multiple ways to search and slice and dice the view to get what you want. Maybe you place one tag for location and another tag on the device to explain that it is in building A on campus? The possibilities are endless. Tags can also be searched via our developer APIs check them out at here! (Link to https://developer.webex.com/docs/api/v1/devices )

This is just some of the ways you can use device search to enhance your admin workday, quickly finding the right device to configure, monitor or troubleshoot! Stay tuned for more new features coming to Webex Control Hub for device management in the near future. These are just some of the tools available for Webex Rooms customers in Control Hub and we are adding more updates monthly to What’s New in Cisco Webex Control Hub

Get Control Hub today

Learn More

Click for all of the Webex Control Hub updates

Fast track your adoption with Cisco Webex Control Hub

Improvements over RoomOS releases from Control Hub

Administrators’ 3-step guide to managing devices remotely

Mother’s Day- a time to remember and celebrate

I am a mother. I have two beautiful daughters who are all grown up. Well, mostly. They are in college, but are now sheltering-in-place with me. What a blessing to have them back home! I still remember when I was pregnant with them – and especially my first. I wanted so much to meet her, but at the same time wasn’t sure I was ready for motherhood. Obviously, it turned out OK and I am grateful every day that I get to be their mom.   

The Ellen Show welcomes first-time expectant mothers!

Which is why I was so excited to watch the Mother’s Day Show on The Ellen Show last week – the producers brought 25 first-time expectant mothers together using Cisco Webex as the platform.  

These soon-to-be new moms joined from the comfort of their homes, laughing along with jokes about pregnancy and cravings (banana splits and pickles!).

Making mom feel special

And because social distancing has put a halt to most baby showers, The Ellen DeGeneres Show threw one for all the guests, complete with gifts – all perfectly selected for first-time moms!  

I love that our own technology can play a part in celebrating Mother’s Day and making it special for these women.  

So, on behalf of Cisco Webex, and this mom, I wish you all a very Happy Mother’s Day! 💐 

See how Cisco supports The Ellen DeGeneres Show 

Learn More

Irene and Troy — A Webex wedding!

How Live From Home is bringing artists into the Cisco community

In a world without sports, we can still live our best #LifeOnWebex

Cisco Webex Research Blog Series

The Design Group at Cisco is a global team of Red Dot Award winning creatives who explore peoples’ needs through research and empathy to make the world a better place to work. This series explores their research and some best practices to make everyday interactions more effective. 

Read all the blogs in the series

Tips for better student engagement

One of the growing concerns for instructors delivering online lessons is how to understand if their students are engaged and how to increase engagement in class. At Cisco Webex Research, we spoke with 34 students and instructors to understand what helps students to be engaged during an online class. One of the things that stood out is how the class behavior is different based on the class size.   

Here are some tips to help your classes, based on the number of students in them. 

• Small- sized classes (Less than 10 students): Small sized classes open up the possibility of a discussion-based class which is great to increase engagement. A discussion-based class will provide the opportunity for each student to talk about their perspective. Encouraging students to have their video and microphone on ensures they take the class from a quiet space that enhances their focus. Another method of encouraging participation is having students share content during class, and having them lead the discussion.

• Mid-size classes (10-30 students): Typically, in mid-size classes, instructors tend to have a discussion-based class along with group work where students work in break-out groups. In these classes, sharing content with students as well as the video of the instructor will help increase engagement. Additionally, having students turn on their video while they ask questions will help other students know who is asking the question. Another method of improving class participation is by engaging with students via chat – answering their questions or sending out a poll will drive students to ask more questions via chat if they are hesitant to turn their video on.

• Large classes (Greater than 30 students): A pattern seen in large classes is that all students tend to have their videos and microphones off. In such a class environment, it helps to ensure the instructor has their video turned on. Most of the students prefer to ask their questions via chat, and to keep the class engaged; it is necessary for the instructor to monitor the chat and interact with students on this channel. An additional way to improve engagement in class would be to work with a group of students and have them present some portion of the lecture. 

We would love to hear from you. If you are an instructor or student who would like to share about your online learning experience, please email us at webexresearch@cisco.com

Connect with all of our blogs in the series here 

Learn More

Webex Integration Partners join Cisco in offers for education

Higher education, meet Webex

Blackboard Learn and Webex join forces to expand the reach of education

(Contributors: Varshine Chandrakanthan, Kathryn Parkes and Mani Pande) 

 About the Cisco Webex Research Team

Kathryn Parkes, Senior UX Researcher
Kathryn is an experienced user researcher based in Dublin, Ireland reporting into San Jose. As a member of the UX Research team, she leads research projects across the Webex Suite working with various Cisco Collab teams in Ireland, US and across Europe. The team use a broad variety of research methods, including user interviews, usability testing and benchmarking studies, to get a deep understanding of Webex user needs.

Varshine Chandrakanthan, Designer User Experience
Varshine loves observing people and their actions – hence she decided to become a User Researcher. She is passionate about creating an impact to people’s lives and loves to volunteer for education and human rights programs. Her interests include designing tattoos, illustrating for books, eating cake and meditating.

Mani Pande, User Experience Manager
Mani leads the user research team in San Jose. Her team is responsible for understanding the needs of Webex users to inform product strategy and direction, and ensure that the software we ship is not only simple and easy to use, but also delightful. You can find her and her team members huddling with Webex users understanding how they use our software and mapping opportunities of improvement. In another life, Mani worked as a reporter for the Times of India, India’s largest selling newspaper, covering media and crime. Outside of work, Mani loves to travel, cycle, run and cook. She posts photos of food that she cooks and places she visits on Instagram.

Virtual music change

Usually at this time of the year my friends and I begin the banter and planning associated with our annual pilgrimage to the Isle Of Wight Festival. Although we weren’t able to participate this year, I am always seeking ways to keep music an active part of my life.

Live music especially is an important part of my life. The energy and anticipation in a room just before a band comes on is electric. The difference between a great gig and an “Epic Gig” is marginal but in my opinion, the venue, sound system, and people form an essential combination to reach “Epic Proportions”.

I was a bit cynical about the virtual gig concept. How can it possibly be the same?

No people, a tinny sound, and I’m in my front room!

Support with playlists

Then Chris Martin partnered with Global Citizen. Seeing the performance in a stripped back and relatively unproduced manner reminded me just how good Coldplay is. It even made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

So much for no energy! Those tunes touched me, and the atmosphere came from the situation we all find ourselves in.

A few days later I decided to create a playlist ‘Isolation Station’ for my team- just a few songs and a little irony to put a smile on their faces.

Finally, one last virtual music event that really reset my perception that I needed to be in the venue, surrounded by like-minded souls was the Hacienda House Party, a live dance music event based around some of the original superstar DJ’s of the Hacienda in Manchester, England. This event provided my family with a backing music soundtrack for a lovely sunny Saturday. It was brilliantly produced and when pumped through the home sound system, it sounded awesome! Boom, we were raving at home.

Together at home

And whilst I’m waxing lyrical about virtual music events, check out the links below that caught my eye- irony and comedy in musical form.

Oh My God (Stay Home Edition) | Kaiser Chiefs

Reworking of a great anthem following a tweet by a fan to a UK radio station

The Rolling Stones perform “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” | | One World: Together

Check out Charlie Watts drum kit! I’d love to know the story behind this. Taken from the Global Citizen gig at the weekend which Cisco sponsored.

As the Chilli Peppers once sang “Music the great communicator.”

Live From Home weekly livestream

At the other end of the spectrum Cisco has done a good job of using Webex to showcase performing artists of all practices during the weekly series, Live From Home. Presented by AppDynamics and Cisco, Live From Home is using Cisco technology to directly benefit the performers and to provide top-notch entertainment for the public. They are also fundraising for art charities in need. My favourite was ‘Indie Night’. It certainly inspired me to pick up my guitar and start dusting off the old campfire favourites!

We all get so much from the arts which we can often take for granted. Streaming lets us listen to what we want, where we want, whenever we want, and whilst that is a good thing, it’s live music that now really keeps artists afloat. It’s not just for the mega bands touring the world on private jets, but more importantly it’s for the bands and musicians playing at bars and small venues, who are completely shut down for now.

In the clear

So, when all this is over and we can actually go to a venue with a sticky floor and a musty smell, let’s go show our support and help the next Coldplay or Billie Eilish breakthrough.

You can do that on May 5^th during the Live from Home event on Cisco’s Virtual Experience Hub for the public.

To conclude, my perceptions were proven wrong….virtual music can move me and bring entertainment to the masses. Music plays such a huge part in all our lives, whether you play it, write it or just hum along because you don’t know the words, it’ll put a smile on your face or a tear in your eye. Right now, the power music has is remarkable and can help us all get through this together.

Stay Safe and tune into the next Live From Home event on 05/05

Learn More

How Live from Home is bringing artists into the Cisco community 

The ultimate Webex Events guide: From start to stream in under 2 minutes

Live streaming with Webex Meetings for your virtual events: What’s new and how to use it

Common security challenges with users and devices

Today there are too many security challenges to the applications used by organizations, and many different vectors need to be secure:

• User identities
• Content
• Devices
• Transport

The way that we protect the applications is crucial. We need to protect the application access, but also the identity of the user.

It is the job of the IT manager to prevent rogue agents from hijacking user identity and have access to all the different resources that the user is entitled to.

Identity theft has been identified in the Verizon 2019 report as the most common data breach, and if we add phishing attacks and stolen password, we get more than 50% of them. (1)

Protecting user identity

IT departments already understand that passwords are no longer an efficient way of protecting user identity.

It is difficult to manage application access based on passwords, as there are too many challenges:

• Strong password complexity makes them hard to remember
• Passwords should be unique to each app, which make them hard to remember
• Passwords should rotate often which makes them difficult to manage and remember
• Password manager web utilities can also bring security breaches

When deploying Webex, Cisco always recommends that our customers deploy it with a stronger authentication solution; at the same time, we recommend that the devices where Webex applications run are secure.

Strong authentication solution

Many customers want to enable all their applications with stronger authentication. Organizations realize that identity theft is the biggest security concern, and the traditional mechanisms for authentication are no longer effective.

Our customers talk about multifactor authentication (MFA), which means that their users need to provide two different types of authentication. There are three types of authentication mechanisms:

Many vendors deliver these kinds of solutions; normally, we see them associated with Identity Provider (IdP) solutions. Those authentication policy servers, enforce the right authentication policy based on the different factor (location, application type, device type, etc.)

Today there is another trend in the identity market, where authentication mechanisms are people-centric and follow the Zero Trust mode. This allows secure connections to all applications (whether on-premises or in the cloud) based on the trustworthiness of users and devices. The Zero Trust mode enables the customer’s IT to set and enforce risk-based, adaptive access policies, and get enhanced visibility into users’ devices and activities. This concept is also known as Adaptive Authentication.

Cisco Webex has the right architecture to support the Zero Trust mode and allow secure connections based on the trustworthiness of users and devices.

Device validation and health

Device assessment is a must in today’s organizations, identifying risky devices, enforcing contextual access policies, and reporting on device health.

Today organizations are mandated to follow many compliance goals, and they can achieve most of those using device access policies.

Verifying device health before granting access, to preventing exposing your applications to potential security risks is one of the best practices in modern application deployment models.

There are multiple types of devices that an organization’s users utilize every day when they use collaboration tools. Some of the devices are managed by the IT department, which already delivers some security insurance – but it isn’t enough. Some are unmanaged and owned by the employees, which brings interesting challenges from a security perspective.

Corporate managed devices/applications

Normally there is a mix of solutions that can be used for corporate or managed devices, depending on the device type.

Some organizations use MDM/MAM for mobile devices, which allows them to create policies for the corporate application, for example:

• Forcing PIN-lock
• Preventing copy and paste
• Disable screen capture
• Remote wipe
• Preventing tampering with devices
• Requiring a minimum version of OS
• Support for ECM
• Requiring a minimum version of the corporate application

But since IT departments don’t manage only mobile devices, we also need to find a solution for desktops, and there we need to make sure that the corporate – managed applications are also aware of the security policies, and those apps could be aware of features like:

• Versions of Browsers
• OS versions and type
• Disk encryption
• Status on OS, Browsers, and Plugins
• Firewalls
• Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware

The protection of the application can be done by using the validations when the user logs in to the applications or during the application usage. The right mechanism, method, and deployment model needs to be chosen by IT administrations when they are in the deployment stage of those applications. The application vendors need to support any policy defined by the IT departments of those customers.

Cisco with Webex Collaboration doesn’t mandate any security strategy to protect the application, but we can integrate with any policy defined by our customer.

It is important that any application that deals with all the IP (Intellectual Property) produced by a company can follow all the policies that exist for devices and applications.

Non-managed devices

Devices that are owned by the users should not be excluded from the usage of a collaboration application. Examples of that are home computers, personal tablets, and mobile devices. Those devices are especially relevant in scenarios of working from home.

That is why corporate applications need to do extra check to make sure that they follow the minimum-security requirements imposed by the company security policies, for example:

• The device has the firewall turned on
• The device has an endpoint security tool, to protect against malware and viruses
• The device doesn’t have a tampered OS

Normally these kinds of policies, for devices that are unmanaged, need to be enforced at login time.

Device/application visibility

One of the fundamental principles of good security is to understand your environment. But as environments get more complex with increasing reliance on cloud applications, bring-your-own-device (BYOD) allowances, and mobile and remote work, it’s progressively more difficult to gain that understanding.

For IT administrators, it is important that they have visibility on what devices each application is running; they also need to have visibility on the major characteristics of those devices.

Endpoint visibility also helps you understand and track important user behaviors such as how quickly end-users update their operating systems, browsers, or plugins. It also builds an understanding of when and how frequently end users log into work applications from their personal devices. Tracking these behaviors not only helps you set informed access policies but also helps tailor a more empathetic approach to different groups of users.

When it comes to security, trust Webex

Whether it’s the security of the Webex application itself or securing the devices that connect to it, Cisco Webex has security and privacy built into its DNA. Cisco has invested heavily in building a culture of security with the right checks and balances in place. Webex chooses secure default settings out of the box, thereby enabling users to start collaborating freely without having to worry about configurations. At the same time, Webex delivers a great user experience – one that doesn’t compromise security. That’s collaboration without compromise. That’s the Cisco security difference.

To learn more about Security and Compliance settings, go to the Cisco Webex Control Hub web page.

Resources

(1) Verizon 2019 report

Learn More

Administrators’ 3-step guide to managing devices remotely

Collaboration Without Compromise: A Security-First Approach to Remote Working

The World Has Changed — Security Should Transform to Stay Ahead

Another month and another exciting update of Webex Teams! Let’s talk about this April’s new features…

MESSAGING

Webex Teams Supports XMPP Messaging (Windows and Mac)

Are your colleagues using Jabber, Pidgin or another XMPP app? Now that Webex Teams supports XMPP, you’ll have the ability to send a plain text message to someone using an XMPP app. Your administrator can enable the XMPP communication and ensure that you can only communicate with people on XMPP apps from specific domains or organizations.

Make the Most of Your Message Area (Windows and Mac)

In group spaces (especially larger ones), when lots of people leave or are added around the same time, your message area can get clogged up with notifications that – maybe – aren’t all that important to you. Sometimes, this can cause you to lose context of messages sent before or after these in-space notifications. From now on, you’ll see these notifications grouped and collapsed, with the option to expand if you want to see more detail. This allows users to focus on the important stuff.

Actions on Any Message (Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android)

Sometimes you need to add a comment or context to a meeting that has been scheduled. Now you can! With this update, you’ll be able to perform all your messaging actions on a calendar invite in a space. This includes starting a thread, quoting or flagging the calendar invite when it appears in a space. On desktop, you’ll also be able to forward the calendar invite information to another space.

Edit Message on Mobile (iPhone, iPad and Android)

How often do we send a message on mobile before we see we’ve misspelled something or forgotten a word? Too often!

We introduced Edit Message on desktop a while back, and now we’re excited to announce the arrival of this feature on mobile. No matter the mistake, you can now go back and edit your message as soon as it’s sent. No more embarrassing blunders! After you confirm the update, a note next to the message indicates that it’s been edited.

CALLING ­

Webex Calling

Audio Quality Enhancements

Opus codec for calls is now supported between Multiplatform Phones, Webex Teams, and room devices. You’ll experience better sound quality and lower bandwidth usage.

Desk Phone Control (Windows and Mac)

Dial a number from the app on your desktop and your call goes through your desk phone. Pick up your handset, use your headset, or talk over your speakerphone on your phone.

We’re making this available in Calling in Webex Teams (Webex Calling). We already support desk phone control in Webex Teams (Unified CM) on your desktop. See this article for more information.

Transfer a Call (iPhone, iPad and Android)

Sometimes if you’re on a phone call, you need to transfer that call to someone else. Now you can. You’ll also have the chance to let the person know why you’re transferring the call to them.

Add a Pause to a Dial String (Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Android)

You can add a pause to an entered phone number, which you might need if you’re joining a conference call and need to enter numbers in response to the automated system. You can add a comma (,) to the number, which gives a 1-second delay in the dialing. You can add several commas in a row to extend the delay. You could enter something like: 95556543123,,,,56789.

We already support this feature in Webex Teams (Unified CM) on your desktop. See this help page for more details.

Emergency Calling (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

If you make an emergency call in Webex Teams, the call is made using your device’s phone app, making it easier for Emergency Services to pinpoint your location through your network carrier.

Pull a Call from One Device to Another (iPad, iPhone and Android)

You can easily move an active call from one device to another. Take a call on your mobile app, and when you get to the office the office, simply pull the active call to your desktop. The active call moves to the new device and ends on the old device.

Direct Callback from Your Call History (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

Just one tap to call someone back! Simply tap the Call icon beside someone’s name or number in your Call History and you automatically call that person back at the number they called you on. You no longer need to choose what number you want to reach them at.

Unified CM

Auto-Discovery of Service Domain (Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Android)

Your admin can make your life a lot easier by getting your service domain added automatically to your Phone Services settings in Webex Teams. That way, you don’t need to manually enter a domain and can sign in right away to use the advanced calling features available to you.

Adjust Your Device Volume and Preferences (Windows and Mac)

Get a wide range of audio options during your meetings or calls. When you’re in a call, you can adjust the speaker or microphone directly from the call or meeting window by clicking the three dots menu button and selecting Audio Options. You can also choose your preferred speaker and microphone, so that any new plugged in devices don’t get automatically selected. If you wish to go with your operating system’s devices, you can choose Use system setting and Webex Teams will follow suit. You can also access these options in Audio Preferences.

Make it Easier to Handle Calls from Anywhere (iPad, iPhone and Android)

Don’t worry about missing that important phone call because you’re away from your desk. You can have your work calls ring any phone number so when you get a call, Webex Teams rings plus any other numbers you set up. Unless you’re setting up phone numbers, you no longer have to go to settings.webex.com to turn on this feature. You can turn it on straight from the app.

We already support Single Number Reach in Calling in Webex Teams (Unified CM) on your desktop. Check out this article for further information.

Direct Callback from your Call History (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

Just one tap to call someone back! Simply tap the Call icon beside someone’s name or number in your Call History and you automatically call that person back at the number they called you on. You no longer need to choose what number you want to reach them at.

Check your Voicemail (iPad, iPhone and Android)

No more missing calls in Webex Teams. If you’re using Calling in Webex Teams on your mobile, there will be an option in your Calls tab to manage your voicemails. There’s a red badge counter that lets you know how many voice messages you have. You can check out the details of a message, play it, mark it as read, delete it or call back the sender. After you’ve listened to your messages, either with Webex Teams or your deskphone, the red badge counter disappears.

Answer Calls without Sharing Video (iPhone, iPad and Android)

Bad hair day? On-the-go? You can choose to answer every Webex Teams call without sharing your video.

We already support this feature in Calling in Webex Teams (Unified CM) on your desktop. See this help doc for more details.

Emergency Calling (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

If you make an emergency call in Webex Teams, the call is made using your device’s Phone app, making it easier for Emergency Services to pinpoint your location through your network carrier.

Forward your Phone Calls to Another Number (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

If you’re going to be away from your desk but don’t want to miss an important phone call, you can forward your calls to another phone number. Or, if you don’t want to be interrupted, you can send all your calls to voicemail instead.

We already support Call Forwarding in Calling in Webex Teams (Unified CM) on your desktop. Take a look at this help doc to find out more.

SECURITY

HITRUST certification for Webex Teams

“Developed by healthcare and IT professionals, the HITRUST Common Security Framework (CSF) helps organizations by providing an efficient and prescriptive framework for managing the security requirements inherent in HIPAA.” (Source: HITRUST)

We know how important security is to our users. We are proud to announce that in Webex Teams, we are now HITRUST certified. This certification supports customers who must meet HIPAA compliance, such as in the healthcare industry. This work validates HIPAA compliance on Webex Teams, Control Hub & Webex API as certified platforms for storage of Personal Health Information (PHI). This expediates contracts & security reviews in addition to ISO27001 certification and SOC2 Type II reports.

For more information on this and upcoming updates to Webex Teams, check out our help page 

Learn More

See all of the Webex Teams Releases here

Creating digital teams in Webex Teams series: Chapter 3: Whiteboards, no line on the horizon

How to launch a community with Webex Teams

Webex Meetings is evolving every day to meet the needs of our customers especially with the rise in remote working. New features being released this month span from enabling more live streaming capabilities to support virtual events, to control hub enhancements for more secure meetings, to short cut integrations with Slack for improved usability, to enabling a better mobile meeting experience with more intelligence. In addition, we’ve expanded language support to now include Czech, Polish, Romanian and Hungarian – starting first on the mobile app and will soon to the desktop app.

Live stream your virtual events

One of the most significant features of this update is the ability to live stream Webex Meetings and Webex Events to more streaming platforms. In addition to existing support for Facebook Live, IBM Video Streaming and Vbrick, we are now also support streaming to YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Workplace for Facebook, and any other platform that supports the Real-time Messaging Protocol. With the number of virtual events on the rise, Webex Meetings and Webex Events are providing many more options to help you reach the widest possible audience. You can read more details in my recent blog on planning large virtual events.

Control Hub enhancements: Have you ever experienced an issue during a meeting and then have it disappear when IT comes to help? I think we all have, so we created a solution for this. As a new feature in Control Hub, IT admins can now join an “in progress” meeting from the troubleshooting page and experience the problem for themselves. Since more and more business-critical meetings are taking place via video conferencing, there has been an increased need for IT to be able to monitor those meetings and jump in to assist if things are not going well. This gives the IT admin more insight into the problem that the meeting participants are experiencing, ultimately allowing for a quicker resolution process.

Refining Webex integrations for better usability

Slack just recently introduced new shortcuts that provide simple, visual ways to interact with apps from anywhere in Slack. Users can quickly access shortcuts using a new lightning bolt icon next to the message input field, which gives you a pop-up menu with the following Webex actions:

• List recordings
• Schedule meeting
• Show upcoming meetings
• Start Webex meeting
• Version information

When you select the action you would like to take, for example Start Webex Meeting, you will choose which channel or 1:1 conversation in which you would like to start the meeting, and then the Start Meeting/Join Meeting buttons will be displayed in the selected conversation. These shortcuts make it easier than ever to access Webex Meetings within the Slack channel – and it means no more slash commands.

We’ve also done more refinement with the Microsoft Teams integration, including the ability for hosts to share recordings directly within a Microsoft Teams channel. All meeting participants who are also in the MS Teams channel will be able to play the recording once it has been shared. This convenience means attendees will have recordings at their fingertips rather than having to go searching through email for recordings. In addition, meeting start/end notifications for meetings taking place in a Webex Personal Room will appear in the channel conversation stream.

Smart mobile enhancements

This month, we’re bringing a number of features to make your mobile Webex meeting even more intuitive with low battery detection, People Insights on mobile, deeper Ford Sync 3 integration and video pin capabilities:

• Webex Meetings will detect when your phone battery is low, proactively offering to turn off video and switch to audio only mode. This is available for iOS and Android devices. This feature is created to minimize disturbances during a meeting
• Mobile Webex Meetings users will now be able to view People Insight profiles in the mobile app instead of being redirected to a browser. You now have everything you need to be prepared for a meeting in the mobile app. Meeting with a new co-worker or customer? Join the meeting prepared with some background information that will help break the ice.

• You can already start or join a Webex meetings from any Ford vehicle with Ford SYNC® 3 AppLink® enabled. While listening to a meeting, users will now be able to view who is actively speaking from their Ford SYNC 3 touchscreen without touching or looking at their phones.

This feature will help you be more in tuned with whoever is speaking while you’re participating from the road.

• Video pin support: When hosting a meeting, it can be important for everyone to view the same speaker or content. Now on mobile, hosts can now pin a specific video for all the attendees to view. Keep everyone on the same page and help your meeting participants follow along.

For more details about Webex Meetings, please visit the Webex Help Portal

Learn More

See all the Webex Meetings updates here

Using a video conferencing tool to manage outside vendor communications

Secure, First-Party Recording Transcripts in Webex Meetings

Hold engaging video calls with a meeting agenda ahead of time

Meetings can be a waste of time if not run properly. In fact, a 2019 study revealed the cost of poorly organized meetings would be $399 billion dollars, in the United States alone (1).

An important way to ensure meetings run smoothly and efficiently is to set an agenda prior to the call. Setting an agenda is important, so all attendees can come prepared. Often participants join a meeting, not knowing how to prepare, or what the meeting will be about. And as a result, a follow-up meeting is needed, making the first meeting more of a time-suck than a productive call.

Prioritize your time and energy

Before setting an agenda, consider these three things:

    1. Understand that you don’t have to solve every problem in one meeting

Think about what can be accomplished.

Meetings have different goals and priorities. While some are brainstorm meetings, others are status updates, or presentations on collected information or metrics data. The list goes on, but a single meeting shouldn’t try to fit everything into one. Before you set an agenda, understand what type of meeting you want to have. This will aid in how attendees prepare beforehand and in knowing how long to set the duration of the call.

      2. Consider making meetings shorter

Participants may be more engaged and less likely to multitask in a shorter meeting, knowing they can get back to their work.

Video conferencing calls don’t have to be a designated 30 minutes or 1 hour long. Yes, it’s true that sometimes that amount time is needed, but consider other approaches. For example, let’s take a brainstorm call. Try setting the meeting for 20 minutes and have participants come prepared with ideas they can share for the first 10 minutes. Then, in the second half of the call, have people try and think of additional ideas as a group. After the call, you can narrow down the ideas and send them out, and let people vote. Or set up a second, 10-minute call to walk through the top three and do a final vote.

For a read-out call, sometimes people fill space with information that is too in-the-weeds if there is not clear direction given. Consider setting a shorter call and instruct the presenter to give the top three bullet points and top three lessons learned. Or top three things that can be improved upon. This will shorten calls and keep people focused. If people are interested in more information, they can follow up outside the call.

3. Don’t be afraid of trial and error

Meetings can look and feel different. Try various methods to see what works best for your company.

People work in different ways. What may work for someone, may not work for others. After a meeting, ask for feedback. You may be surprised in what people have to say.

How to plan for and contribute to meetings

What should your agenda look like?

Based on the meeting type, consider:

• What is the objective of the meeting?
• How long the meeting should last?
• How many people need to be on the call?
• Who will need to talk/present?
• Should everyone on the invite actually be on the call? (this is important because you don’t want people to feel like their time is being wasted)
• How long each of those people need to convey information?

An example agenda:

Objective of call:

At the bottom of the agenda (or within it), you can request what each person needs to do to prepare, or what they need to bring to the meetings. For example, do they need to send slides over beforehand? Should they come with one question to ask, etc.?

Additionally, it’s important to let presenters/participants know how much time they have, beforehand. In fact, to keep a meeting on track, you can give a 2-5-minute warning before the transition to the next topic and presenter. Because everyone will have seen the agenda and time allocated, the switch will be smoother and it won’t feel like someone is being cut off.

One last note

Remember, meeting templates can look very different based on the type of meeting. So, create yours to fit your business needs and detail it with as much or little information as it needs. You can experiment to see what works better with your employees.

Preparing for every meeting with a clear objective and thoughtful agenda will ensure a more productive and efficient use of time for everyone involved. Taking the time up front, will go a long way to ensuring you get the most out of each and every meeting.

And if you don’t already have Webex, you can sign up for the free offer, with an unlimited meeting time!

Reference

(1) 2019 study on poorly organized meetings

Learn More

3 tips for managing a virtual get together

Personalize your team meetings with these top four screen sharing features

On-boarding made easier through communication skills and collaboration tools

A virtual wedding on Webex

Irene Ingham and Troy Mitchell entered 2020 as a newly engaged couple with all the excitement and anticipation of being wed in the company of loved ones. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, a monumental pivot would be required if the wedding were to take place and so the couple decided to get married on Webex.

“This simply worked for us because we were able to share this special day with my entire family from the comfort of their own homes.” said Irene, “A lot of them are on the East Coast and my dad is older, so we knew that travel would not be easy. This was the best way to get everyone together and we were able to include more people than would have otherwise been possible. Plus, it gave us all something to look forward to! Most importantly, I was still able to get married and we were able to do it in a truly memorable and unique way thanks to the support of a company I love working for, Cisco.”

How one connection changed everything

Irene, a communications manager at Cisco, met Troy two years ago on Bumble, the social networking app where women make the first move and must initiate the conversation. Needless to say, that first conversation took place and the couple began their dating journey as they bonded over similar interests including their Christian faith and love of family, fitness, food and fun. Irene shared that she’s never laughed as much as she has with Troy and that this light-hearted, joyful approach to life is what made the shift to a virtual wedding so easy.

“At Bumble, we’re believers that one connection can change the course of your life, and we love that Irene and Troy are a great example of this,” said Chelsea Cain Maclin, Bumble’s Vice President of Marketing. “During this time, we see that our community of 90 million worldwide is practicing physical distancing at home. That said, we don’t want our users to distance socially just because they’re physically apart. It’s incredible to see how our community is being creative during these times, whether it’s by going on a virtual date with someone you matched with on Bumble or an entire virtual wedding experience.”

Focusing on an authentic experience for the couple and their guests

The wedding took place on Friday, April 24^th in the scenic backyard of Irene and Troy’s El Dorado Hills home. Physically present with the couple were two of their daughters, Alexis and Sage. Everyone else, including family, friends, and colleagues, joined online. Everyone was dressed in their own wedding attire, brought their own drinks to toast, and watched the nuptials via a private Webex video sharing session. In preparation for the big day, Cisco went the extra mile to ensure an intimate experience for all the guests of this online wedding experience. The Cisco collaboration team provided the couple with a Cisco TelePresence SX10 Quick Set, a video system that sits atop a flat-panel display, and uses a VPN router for remote control of the camera during the wedding. With the display positioned in front of the couple, it was as if each excited attendee was actually there, celebrating this moment with the couple in their own backyard.

Blessing for the union goes beyond measure

Weddings are one of life’s most joyous occasions and this wedding was no different. While friends and family joined from all over the country via Webex, everyone brought their love and joy to share with the couple. Joining from South Carolina, Irene’s father was unable to physically walk his daughter down the aisle and instead provided a recording to be shared with all expressing, in his wonderful Greek accent, the depth of his love and happiness for Irene. “I said Dad, just say what you’d say if you were standing at the altar giving me away,” said Irene.

Guests get transported to the ‘I do’

The ceremony incorporated as much of their family as possible. Irene’s brother, David Kornaros, ordained minister and Cisco employee officiated the wedding over Webex from South Carolina. Irene’s other brother Steven joined from Mariposa, California, and with his two daughters serenaded the couple with a wedding song. Special video messages expressing their joy for the couple were sent by Irene’s parents from South Carolina, Troy’s parents from Nevada, and their two other daughters who were in Washington and Texas. With over 200 people attending the virtual wedding from their homes across America, this was truly a country-wide gathering with social distancing of one to 2,400 miles.

“We both love hi-tech and have always worked for innovative companies so it’s perfect that we have the opportunity to get married in such a unique way.” said Irene, “One of the things I love most in our relationship is that we’re always trying to find the positive in situations. Video conferencing is part of our daily work life, so we’re very comfortable bringing our wedding into a virtual setting where we can share our joy and make it fun for everybody, including ourselves.”

A Webex reception to remember

To round off this incredible occasion, Cisco and Bumble joined forces to bring the happy couple and their virtual guests one final surprise. Joining live from Nashville via a Cisco Webex Desk Pro was Billboard’s Top New Country Artist and ACM New Male Artist of the Year nominee, Jordan Davis. Irene and Troy enjoyed their first dance as husband and wife to the hit, Slow Dance in a Parking Lot which was then followed by 2 group dances (Singles You Up & So Do I).

With so many events having been cancelled or postponed, this wedding is a great example of how technology and creativity can come together to deliver a uniquely beautiful and memorable moment that brought joy to the couple and all who attended.

“We are so grateful that Bumble brought us together to fall in love and that Webex was there to help us tie the knot.”

See how others are staying connected with their #LifeonWebex

Learn More

How to have fun, virtually

Take Instruction to Webex: Connecting one pilates enthusiast to another

Webex bridal shower: Bring remote teams together when it counts

Here at Cisco we are all about collaboration – especially real-time, face-to-face collaboration. The adoption of video collaboration technologies also has important implications on a company’s triple bottom line: people, planet and profit. So, in the light of Earth Day 2020 we thought we would reiterate some of the benefits video conferencing technologies bring to businesses, the people that work for them, and for the planet we live on.

People

Video conferencing empowers people to own their schedule, better integrate their work and personal lives, and offers them the freedom to get stuff done wherever they are. Employees are not only employees, they are parents, siblings, friends, errand-running multi-taskers that need the flexibility of structuring their own workdays. In a study by Forrester on the economic impact of deploying Cisco Webex Meetings + Webex Rooms, companies  found that employees described that the “simplicity afforded by being able to start meetings and share content from a mobile device or to connect to a Webex video device makes movement between the home office and work office effortless.”

Cisco Webex Meetings + Devices also removes some of the barriers that comes with siloed organizational structures. Video provides a human-centric way of collaborating, and allows employees to make deeper connections within the company by reading into body language and non-verbal cues. The importance that connecting with and trusting your colleagues holds for wellbeing in the workplace cannot be underestimated. When physical lunchbreaks and watercooler conversations are out of the question, employees can still meet face-to-face with videoconferencing technologies. See how to create a virtual watercooler with your team (internal and/or external members).

Planet

One of the most crucial benefits that videoconferencing can have on the planet, is reduced CO2 emissions from business travel. With Webex Meetings + Webex Rooms, you can interact with colleagues, partners and customers from remote corners of the world with the touch of a button. International, executive, c-suite meetings shouldn’t be equivalent with airline miles: with dedicated room systems such as the Cisco Webex Room Panorama, you can meet eye-to-eye and feel like you are in the same room from across the globe.

According to the 2017 data from Global Workplace Analytics, remote workers have the same effect on air quality as planting a forest. They also estimate that remote workers who work outside of the office 2-3 days a week have the potential of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 54 million tons every year. By deploying and adopting Cisco Webex video collaboration software and hardware you are empowering your employees, helping reduce travel-related greenhouse gas emissions, all whilst experiencing true meeting magic.

Profit

Then there’s profit. Not always the most exiting topic, but it is something that is essential for maintaining a healthy business. Forrester found that businesses that implemented Cisco Webex Meetings + Devices reported productivity increases from reduced time starting meetings, saving over $21.3 million dollars in productivity costs.

Further, less miles travelled means bigger travel cost savings: “After organizations got a taste for how real the video and holistic collaboration experience was, they started exploring ways to reduce travel costs. Interviewees reported IT teams choosing to hold annual meetings virtually instead of in-person, saving over $100,000 in their first year.”

Read the full Forrester TEI report here

Learn More

What Earth Day, Day, and Carbon Footprints Have in Common

How Cisco Moved its Entire Workforce to Remote In 10 Days  

Enhancing Sustainability and Social Responsibility Through Collaboration with Cisco Webex

Creating digital teams in Webex Teams series

The “Creating Digital Teams in Webex Teams” series will spotlight techniques in managing and inspiring remote and #WFH teams.  Learn how the Webex Platform and Webex Teams can help transform your remote team into an engaged, creative and productive team no matter if people are across the hall, town or globe.

Managing a digital team using Webex Teams

As a people manager at Cisco, I manage a team spread across multiple time zones and countries.  There are many #WFH resources out there these days but for this series of blogs I thought I would focus on how to build and manage a digital team using the Webex Teams Platform.

For this blog we will be covering helping unlock your team’s creativity and engagement with infinite whiteboards in Webex Teams.

No boundaries

If you haven’t guessed already, at Cisco Webex, we work remote…. ALOT.  We can empathize with what it takes to work remotely better than most companies on the planet.  So, when we set out to build tools for our customers, we strive to make the virtual experience just as immersive, engaging and maybe even better than being there in person.  One way we do this is by bringing humanity and creativity into the collaboration workflow using what we call, Infinite Whiteboards.

In talking to our customers and looking at ourselves, we know that people collaborate in a lot of different ways.  Inside Cisco, we use whiteboards everywhere, it’s just part of our culture.  Many would agree that it’s easier to just draw out what you mean to communicate a new idea or a way to think about something different or just have fun.  In many of our physical locations, whiteboards are prevalent everywhere, even most of the walls are whiteboards.  So, we thought to ourselves, how do we reimagine that very human experience of collaboration and digitize it?  Answer, infinite whiteboards.

Get started with whiteboards

Click on the space in Teams that you want to meet/chat in and you will see in the space categories (messages, people, content and schedule), click on Content (green arrow) and then Whiteboards where the maroon arrow is located to get to the whiteboards.  From there you can select a new whiteboard from whatever device you happen to be using (laptop, tablet, phone etc) and just start drawing.  If you happen to be in a meeting, everyone in the same meeting (virtually or in the same room) will also see and be able to engage with the whiteboard using whatever device they have in their hand or in the room.

It’s alive!

Once you have opened up your whiteboard and started working on it with your team, all of the changes you make are automatically saved.  Anything you draw, add/remove stickies, etc all are saved magically.  Anyone that is invited into the space can pick up where you left off in the whiteboard and continue.  This makes working with teams really dynamic and fun.  Why is this important? As a manager, you can be much more inclusive with your team members when the tools can help facilitate everyone’s input when and how they want to contribute.

Share It

On the bottom right corner of each whiteboard there is a share button.  When you select that button, you will be able to Post a Snapshot of that whiteboard into the Teams Space you are in or you can send it out via a text message, email or post to another site as a PDF.

Examples of where to use whiteboards

With my team we often use whiteboards in many of the planning and strategy sessions we do both internally and externally (yes, you can do this too with people outside of your company). However, some other examples of using whiteboards:

• Daily / Weekly stand ups or reviews with the teams
• Project kick offs
• Customer discovery sessions
• Network topologies
• Marketing Events
• Storyboard design
• Executive Workshops
• eLearning / Concept development

Hopefully whiteboards was something that you are able to incorporate into your next remote team building session.  Stay tuned for Chapter 4: Webex Teams and Microsoft, the sweetest thing.

Experience the future of work with Webex

Learn more

Connect with all blogs in the Creating Digital Teams in Webex Teams

See all of the Webex Teams Releases here

How to launch a community with Webex Teams

Webex Teams — say hello to the new in-space design

Stay on track from home with Webex

So, you’re working remotely– how’s it going? If you’re like most people, it’s an entirely new experience. If you’re like me, you’re dealing with parenting, homeschooling, limited personal space, and cabin fever, all while keeping up with work. 

I’ve been a remote worker for six years now, thanks to tools I use every day like Cisco AnyConnect VPN, Cisco Webex Meetings, and Webex Teams. The transition to working remotely was easy for me back when I was all alone in my home office, my husband was away working in his office, and my kids were in school. Now that everyone in my household is working and schooling from home, I’ve had to make some adjustments. 

I’ve gathered a few real-world tips here for any of you who, like myself, are not only remote working, but also at-home parenting, teaching, self-caring, and everything else we’re doing in our homes now. 

1) Wake up, take a shower, and get dressed

• Keeping some semblance of a normal routine has been crucial for me. I’ve gotten some time back in the mornings since I’m not getting my kids up, making them breakfast, and getting them off to school early in the morning any longer. Now, I get to enjoy a shower, drink my coffee, take care of my appearance, and revel in a little quiet time before all my new “coworkers” are awake and my workday begins.
   
• When getting dressed, I go for a “business on top, yoga on the bottom” look. I’m on video meetings all day long, so maintaining a professional experience is necessary (usually, I can only be seen from the waist up). However, there are times I have to stand up and walk around, so being appropriately dressed on the bottom is important! No one wants to be that Webex legend who was on a meeting with no pants. Yikes!
   
• I recommend dressing all your new “coworkers,” too—kids, spouses, partners, or anyone else who’s at home with you. Unexpected cameos in video meetings are common, and we’re guessing your family doesn’t want to be Webex legends either. Here’s my husband crushing the look. 

2) Make it clear to family or roommates when you’ll be available and when you will be in meetings

• I have a 14–year–old, a 9–year–old, and a 47–year–old. They all need me or want to speak with me throughout the day. I have learned to set clear expectations for when I’ll be available and when my office is off-limits. I typically accomplish this by yelling at everyone about five minutes before my meeting starts: “I am about to start a meeting! I’ll be done at 3 pm!” or “I am in a customer/public meeting until noon–do not come in my office, and NO FIGHTING!”
   
• This won’t always be successful. My sons and husband have wandered into my office at times. If this happens to you, don’t sweat it. Life happens. Everyone is settling in to this new way of working, so forgive yourself and others if this happens to them, too. If your kids are feeling lonely, share your space with them. My younger son likes to bring his laptop into my office and sit next to me doing his quiet work while I’m on my video meetings–he knows how to stay out of camera view, and it’s fun for me to have him there beside me, both of us working side–by–side.
   
• Be aware that others are in the same boat, juggling kids and priorities while doing their best to show up professionally as well. Grace and patience are something we all need to keep in mind for ourselves, as well as the people we’re working with.
  

3) Make the most out of your remote work environment

• If you’re going to be on video meetings, make sure you have soft, natural lighting and that your surroundings are “video ready.” Working from your bedroom? Make your bed and scoot that pile of dirty laundry out of view. Working from a shared space? Buy a screen to place behind you–it will block out any of your surroundings so the focus can be on you. Many online retailers sell a variety of beautiful folding screens that can be used while you’re working and folded and put away when you are done. 

• A personal video endpoint device like the Cisco Webex DX80 is a gamechanger, but video works great with laptops and mobile devices, too! For the best video experience with any device, ensure your video camera is at an ideal level. You’ll want your camera at or above eye level to avoid the unfortunate “camera up the nose” look or the dreaded double chin.
  
  If you don’t have a fancy laptop stand, use a stack of books, puzzles, or an empty box to ensure your laptop and camera are at an appropriate viewing angle. You want to make sure you show up nicely in your video view. Before joining a Webex Meeting, you will see a preview of your video, which is the perfect time to adjust your hair or your camera angle.   

• Anywhere can be a remote office. Use what you have!
  

• Use a headset. I love, love, love my headset. It has excellent noise–canceling capabilities, so when my kids decide to reenact WWE or my dog goes crazy barking at squirrels, that background noise doesn’t make it into my meetings. As a best practice, I keep my line muted when I’m not speaking or presenting. When I do speak, it’s great to know those noises won’t become a distraction for the other folks in my meeting. The headset also helps me tune out the distractions that may be happening in my house.
  

4) Block out time on your calendar for lunch and breaks

• Seriously. Do this. Especially if you have kids who aren’t old enough to make their own lunches, launch their virtual classroom tools, or just need some hugs during this crazy time. Blocking out time on your calendar helps ensure you are taking care of yourself and those who depend on you. It also lets coworkers know when you’re unavailable. Take a break. Eat lunch with your partner or kids, walk outside (six feet away from others, of course), put that stack of laundry in the washing machine.

I hope these tips will help you adjust to working remotely. Please reach out to me with any questions on how my family and I are making this new life work for us. We’re not perfect, but we’re making it work, and I’m happy to share our experiences. 

Learn more with guidance on working remotely

Learn More

Embracing the rise of remote working 

How video improves communication during any conference call

Getting more done in less time with Webex

About the Author, Caroline Wright

Caroline leads the Enablement efforts for Cloud Collaboration Customer Success at Cisco. She is passionate about creating a welcoming culture where ongoing development and education deliver a world-class Customer Success team for Cisco’s Collaboration suite.

Before Cisco, Caroline had over 10 years of SaaS industry experience in sales, customer service, and training. She lives in Holly Springs, North Carolina, outside the state capital of Raleigh with her husband, two sons, and their dog. She loves going to the beach, traveling, reading, 90’s hip hop, and honing her mad trivia skills. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

Connecting fans with sports with #LifeOnWebex

So often, sport provides a respite from a chaotic world. It brings people together around a shared passion and offers a welcome distraction from our stressful lives. But what happens when that too goes away?

Today, the importance of technology in bringing people together has become more apparent than ever, which is why we have been working hard over the past few weeks to leverage our partnerships across the sports and entertainment industries in meaningful and relevant ways. By working together with our partners at the United States Golf Association, City Football Group, Jimmy Kimmel Live and more, we’re trying to bring some of that connection to fans around the world and showcase what #LifeOnWebex is all about.

Here’s a look at what we’ve been up to:

Connecting players with fans

Together with New York City Football Club, we launched a program entitled “The Friendly Match” connecting players from the club with local fans via Webex to help lift their spirits. I highly recommend checking out this heartwarming kickoff to the series and stay tuned for episodes all week long on both NYCFC and Cisco’s social channels. Plus, check out NYCFC social channels as host Ian Paul Joy interviews players multiple times per week via Webex.

Best of golf

We partnered with golf influencer Erik Anders Lang to host the largest pro golfer podcast ever via Webex, featuring seven of our #TeamCisco ambassadors. The group discussed everything from how they’re keeping busy, to swing thoughts, dream destinations and more. #Squadgoals, indeed. We’re also supporting GOLF.com’s new project “That’s Debatable,” where GOLF editors are using Webex to face off in a March Madness-style bracket debating hot topics in the game.

Keeping Hollywood connected

We’re also keeping Hollywood connected by helping shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live broadcast remotely. We’ve been working with Jimmy Kimmel Live for six years now, and like many of our customers, they use a mix of Cisco Webex devices and collaboration software. Check out the clip below of Jimmy interviewing Ellen DeGeneres via Webex in a recent episode.

Supporting what matters

Finally, we were honored to be a part of in Global Citizen’s One World: Together at Home special event that supported the World Health Organization’s global fight against the pandemic. The event featured incredible performances by artists like Lady Gaga, Chris Martin, John Legend, and more, and raised more than $125M towards the fight against COVID-19. If you missed it, you can watch the performances from the event here.

Be sure to stay tuned to the @Webex channel over the coming weeks and months to see how our partners and athletes are living their best #LifeonWebex.

Learn More

How to have fun, virtually

Take Instruction to Webex: Connecting one pilates enthusiast to another

Webex bridal shower: Bring remote teams together when it counts

Learn best practices and the tools needed to use Teams like a boss

Webex is known for the Meetings platform, but the newest addition to Webex is a complete collaboration platform called Webex Teams. Teams is a messaging app with video conferencing capabilities built-in. It is an extremely secure solution with bots, integrations, desktop sharing functionality and more. This article will go over what Webex Teams is and how to use it when starting a virtual community as a resource space for a FAQ, office hours, or even an office watercooler. Don’t know what Webex Teams is? Here is a quick overview.

Why Webex Teams over Facebook Groups or other chat apps

• Facebook is a great tool and I use it for my family and friends, but it can be too distracting to get work done as you can get constantly wooed away by shiny distractions in the news feed and sidebar.
• Extremely secure. Our model has a core layer and a security layer that are kept separate from one another. See Security Whitepaper.
• We don’t sell and collect data
• Video, whiteboarding and desktop sharing is native within the app
• No multiple account logins or workspaces. You can have different people from different companies join your Webex Team space without switching between different organizations to messages users. Email doesn’t function like that. Neither does Webex Teams.
• Teams can also display the presence status of end-users if they’ve been away, are in Do-Not-Disturb state, on a video (orange camera icon), sharing their desktop (red rectangular icon) or on a phone call. The bottom image provides the avatars of end-users that have read your messages, such as green as available or red crescent moon for Away/DND.

Prescense Notifications.

Read receipt avatars.

• Webex Teams is FREE
• No messaging search limits or restrictions
• Search everything.  Searched keyword, user, date, or another parameter. Attach files, like PDFs and Word docs, and search within those files too.

A virtual community use case – Webex Ambassadors

We will use the Webex Ambassador Community as a case study for this article. Webex Ambassadors started as Spark Ambassadors back in 2016 as an internal Webex community of developer evangelists and it has evolved and grown over the years. This community now has over 2,600 members globally. It also includes various Special Interest Group spaces for various topics. I will break the article down into five categories to start your community.

1. Promoting Your Community
2. Setting up Webex Teams
3. Managing Your Community
4. Bots & Integrations
5. Tips & Tricks

Promoting your community

Landing page

The first thing you want to do is have a site that gives users an overview of what they are joining. You can check out ambassador.webex.com. Here is our “Join Now” call to action button to join the community.

Code of conduct & community guidelines

These are policies or best practices for your community. You want to make sure you cover rules of engagement, ethics and legal issues, spam, and how users can post. Here is an example of the Ambassador Code of Conduct & Guidelines. Every user must agree to the code of conduct before they can join the space. This is listed in our web form.

Inviting users & automation with a sign-up form

Here are some cool tricks you can do with Webex Teams workflow integrations. Having an auto-sign up using Typeform or Google Forms is rather easy. Applications like Zapier or Built.io makes it a lot easier to integrate these applications. For example, you can have a workflow that once a person signs up on Formidable Forms, they are added into a mailer, like Mailigen, then added to Smartsheets and then finally added into Webex Teams.

We have other ways end users can join your community spaces such as using the bots and integrations. We will dive more about this in the Bots & Integrations section.

Install the desktop & mobile Teams app

First, download the Webex Teams app. You can use Teams on multiple devices, from the browser on your computer’s desktop to a mobile phone. It’s best to use the native desktop app instead of the browser as it will have more features.

Setting up Webex Teams

• Create a team, a space and add moderators. The video below will show how to create a team and a space. If you need an overview of what a Team and Space, it is explained here. Webex Jargon: In the Webex world, we call “channels”, “spaces” because we associate them to physical spaces, but just virtualized. If you ever have to use the Webex app with a Webex Rooms video device, you’ll see it associate to a space (not using Bluetooth) using ultrasonic frequency pairing for desktop sharing and video conferencing purposes. That office space also has a physical video device tied to that virtual space in Teams. Check out a demo here.

Note: Cisco Intelligent Proximity pairing uses high-frequency sound in the 20kHz to 22kHz audio frequency range to establish a connection. Here, Webex Teams is my app to control my work from home device, the Cisco Webex Desktop Pro.

Here is a quick video on how to first create a Team and then a Space in Webex.

• Create a space. Click on the “+” icon to create a space and give it a name. Here we will call it “Webex Community.”

• Add members. Next, go to “Members” and add a team member. You can add them by entering the user’s email address.

• Add moderators. Once you add them, you can “right-click” on the name and “Assign Moderator of the Team.”

• Manage & customize your space. Here we will add space icon images and disable the function of @all as it can be annoying if there are thousands of people in a space being notified. We will also recommend converting the “General” space into an “Announcement Mode” space. If you need to share important information with your team, without the distraction from other conversations happening in the space, you can use announcement mode in any moderated space just for announcements. On teams, the only space that’s moderated is the General space so that’s the only space where you can use announcements. Only the space moderators can post in Announcement Mode spaces.

1. To enable, go to the General space -> Moderator settings -> “Disable @mentions to all” and “Turn on Announcement Mode.” Once enabled, users will see this notification.

• Add a space name and image. You can change any space name except the General space for your team. Furthermore, any member can change these details unless the space is moderated, then it must be done by a moderator. You can also change a space picture, by uploading a picture for the space. The file has to be under 10 MB and ideally a square image between 200×200 pixels and 1000×1000 pixels.

1. To change the Space image, go to Edit space settings -> Click on the camera icon and “Add Image.”
2. To change the Space name, double click the space field to enter a name.

• Public or private spaces. Creating a moderated space means that only moderators can add users to the Team. By default, all spaces are a Private space or an invite-only space. Public spaces can be created if you add the EURL bot, which we will discuss later. Overall, this is how you can control who joins your community.
• Enable restrictions for guests in Team spaces through Webex Control Hub. Webex Control Hub is the administrator portal page to configure Webex. As a moderator, you don’t need access to this, but if you want to set various global permissions, you need to ask your administrator to grant you access to set this up. One example is to control how people are added as guests to team spaces, they aren’t members of that team. You can prevent these guests from adding and removing participants, changing the space name, and editing space settings.

1. Go to admin.webex.com -> Services -> Scroll to “Team Guest Restrictions”
2. Toggle Enable restrictions for team guests to on.

Managing your community

• Multiple moderators. As your community grows, it is ideal to have multiple moderators to help monitor if chats are in compliance, to delete inappropriate messages, add or remove bots, and to perform backup moderator tasks. Bonus Tip: Try to have moderators from different parts of the globe to cover various time zones for additional support.

• Post rules on a monthly or quarterly basis. It’s always good to remind your community the do’s and don’ts when posting in a space. Here’s an example of what we send in our Ambassador space. Note that this is a template using Markdown formats and then how it would look like rendered in the space.

Hello 👋🏻 Ambassadors, we want to share a few **Ambassador house rules!**

**Rules** 📜

1. 💬 Before asking questions in a space, please check Google or specifically the [Help Portal.](help.webex.com)
2. ❓If you can’t find your answer, post your question in the appropriate community space. For example, technical questions should be posted in the Engineering space.  Learn about these Community Spaces [here.](https://ambassador.webex.com/webex-teams-communities/)
3. 👊🏻 To help us keep it fun, helpful, safe, and friendly, we ask that you comply with our [Community Code of Conduct.](https://ambassador.webex.com/code-of-conduct/)
4. 🙊 Do not use the **@all command, create a new Space, add bots or add users to the Spaces without [signing up as a Candidate.](https://ambassador.webex.com/ambassadors/)**
5. 🤔 If you have support questions, including certificates, please direct your message @ModeratorName.

Let me know in a DM if you have any other suggestions or have questions.

**Have a great weekend.**

• Notifications. A space can get noisy especially with thousands of users messaging. You can customize how you want to be notified in a space.

1. Go to the Space -> Settings Icon -> Notifications. As a moderator, I only respond to @Mentions only.

• Place a spotlight on power members of your community. Whether you’re highlighting customer stories, testimonials, or users who represent success, take an opportunity to frequently recognize stars in your own community.

Bots & integrations

Below are some essential bots to help you start and grow your virtual community.

• Email2Teams bot. The email2teams bot will take all the participants in an email thread and migrate the conversation to Webex Teams. This is a great way to invite new users to Webex Teams as anyone not already signed up for Teams receives an email invitation. Once registered, they’re automatically added to the space. Here’s how to use the bot.

1. Open your email. In the ‘To’ line, add the emails of the users you want to invite in the space. In the BCC line, add “bot@email2teams.com” (the ‘To’ & ‘CC’ fields won’t work).
2. The bot receives your email, creates a Teams space with the ‘Subject’ as the title, then leaves.

• EURL. The EURL bot is short for “External URL.” The intention of this bot is to create a public space and provide a URL where users can click the link, enter their email and join the space. Let’s add the bot, “eurl@sparkbot.io” to the space.

1. Once you add the bot to the space, it will provide you various commands. Here we will open up this space externally to users outside our organization email domain, which is capitalfactory.com.
2. To add external users outside capitalfactory.com, type “Eurl internal off”
3. The URL that was generated is: https://eurl.io/#vHLeL9CMF Feel free to join the space to test the bot out.

• Once you click on the EURL link, an end-user can join this space by clicking on the URL that was generated. You can learn more about the bot here on the Webex App Hub.

• Power Pack. This is a very handy tool that is used to invite new users to a new space or into an existing space. It is a free service that bulk add users by uploading a CSV file. You can also send broadcast messages to multiple spaces at once. Learn more about the bot here.

• Translate bot. There are a lot of translator bots on the Apphub like Chinese, German, Filipino, French, and more. You can add these bots into a space. Here is an example of an English to Spanish bot for our LATAM Ambassador community. You just @mention the bot and enter the text you need to be translated. You can learn more about the bot here.

• Inquire bot. This bot isn’t meant to be deployed in large spaces, but it has been proven useful in areas where there needs a way to track FAQ or in this case bugs. In this example, this is an internal space to post bugs for Webex Teams. You can see users posting images and answers and then engineers and product managers posting an answer in the space and it automatically ties into Jira to create a case. The Inquire bot is a knowledge base bot and has three main functions.

1) Ask Questions – Capture questions that were asked inside a Teams space. Here the end-user is asking to file a bug and is @mentioning the Inquire bot.

2) Get Answers – Provide a way to answer those questions and ensure the original questioner receives the information they need. You can @mention the bot and answer in the space, or you can click on the “here” link and answer on the web as well.

3) Gather Knowledge – Assemble a knowledge base of all the information that is gathered amongst Teams spaces. You can also export the FAQ to a CSV file.

You can learn more about the Inquire bot here or check out the demo video below.

• Webex Ambassador welcome bot. This is just an example bot to welcome new Ambassadors to our Webex community and outlines a set of rules to adhere to. The bot will 1:1 the new user that is added to the space and send them this message. The bot monitors new memberships and must be in the same space the end-users are joining. The code is on Github if you would like to implement it for your own community.

Tips & tricks

• Space titles with EURL. Having a title is important. If you want an external space and not having people to @mention the bot to know what the space URL is, it’s best to add it in your title. Here is an example title for the xAPI Developer space with the EURL link.

• Use reactions as a way to poll users or use Pollbot. Here is an example to use the “thumbs up” as a way to poll users. You can use reactions or if you want to get more detailed you can use various applications like PollBot or you can use free web polls like Polltab.

• Use threads. Make sure people are aware of the “Reply to Thread” option to keep communications easy to read. Just hover over the message and the “reply” arrow will appear.

Reply thread conversation.

• Support spaces. Within Webex Ambassadors, we created a specific space for support. On our website, we specifically told users to join this space for issues with their certificates or application. This helps cut down noise in the General or main community space. You also want to make sure your moderators will be seen by your end-users as support. Be prepared for this.

• Create a space directory. There are a lot of communities and spaces you can provide for your company by creating a directory website. These spaces, people can join by click on the”Join” created by the EURL bot. You visit this actual site, here.

Final thoughts

Overall, this is just a quick way to start a community in Webex Teams. If you have questions, leave a comment. If you find this article helpful, please follow me and share this blog! 👍🏼

Bot credits

Thank you for the following people making the Ambassador Community bots. Note that if the bot isn’t on AppHub, it isn’t Cisco TAC supported. Cisco owned Integrations include: Email2Teams. This bot was created by former Webex Innovation Team Member, Marcello Federico. The following bots were funded by the Webex Innovation Team and created for Ambassadors: EURL bot created by Cisco TME Randy Birdsall; Power-pack.io created by former Cisco SE, Brad McAllister; Inquire Bot, created by former Webex Innovation Team Member, Aman Chabra; Webex Ambassador Welcome Bot on GitHub, created by Cisco SE Marcel Neidinger.

Learn More

Connect with all blogs in the Creating Digital Teams in Webex Teams

See all of the Webex Teams Releases here

Webex Teams — say hello to the new in- space design

Cisco Webex Research Blog Series

The Design Group at Cisco is a global team of Red Dot Award winning creatives who explore peoples’ needs through research and empathy to make the world a better place to work. This series explores their research and some best practices to make everyday interactions more effective. 

Read all the blogs in the series

Implementing best practices in online learning

As more and more learning moves online, educators and students are scrambling to figure out how to make online education effective. The research team at Cisco Webex spent time with educators and students to understand their needs and challenges in the online learning environment. Based on the interviews with 39 educators and students in the US and Europe, we have compiled a list of best practices that could help educators and students to get the most out of online learning.

Educators:

• Test Class If this is your first virtual class, then do a test class with a colleague. This will help you get acquainted with the meeting tool. Test out scenarios that includes sharing screen, muting the microphone, turning off and on the video and muting students
• For the actual class itself, join the meeting 10 minutes early and ask your students to join early as well to iron out any audio or video issues before the beginning of class.
• Effective role-taking If taking attendance is required for your class – call out names and have students feel comfortable talking through their microphone. This is more effective in a small class scenario.
• Class engagement To ensure class engagement, structure your class into 15-20 min intervals spaced by activities that involve discussion with everyone. Additionally, ensure you content is a mix of one-way lecture as well as content sharing (using screen-share) which can bring variety to the class.
• Improve engagement Class engagement can also be improved by having students type their questions into chat. Have the chat panel open and try and keep an eye if questions are coming in.
• Having your video on during the lecture will help students feel comfortable about sharing theirs and help them be more engaged. See how video improves communication during any conference call
• Encourage your students to have their video on – this will help you understand how to the class is feeling and also help students be more focused. See how turning on your video is a better way to communicate.
• Record classes so students can go back to it when in need
• In case of ambient or background noise coming from one of the participants in the call – as a host you can mute that participant during class or even mute all if needed.
• Schedule office hours online with students to ensure they are doing okay with the transition to online classes. This also presents an opportunity for students to provide their feedback
• If possible, end class 5 minutes early so students have the time to switch to their next class in time.

Students:

• Thwart technical issues Check your audio and video settings to ensure that they are working properly. If possible, join the class a few minutes early to triage any technical issues.
• Chat Use the chat option to interact with your peers as well as your educator. Check out how to get started with Webex Online Classes
• Office hours Connect with your educators 1:1 during office hours for follow-up questions and clarifications.
• Video on Keep your video on so your instructor as well as peers can see you. However, if you experience bandwidth issues, turn off your video so you don’t miss out on the class.

Please be on the lookout in this space as we share more tips on how to improve online education experience based on our research and connect with all of our blogs here.

Learn More

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 About the Cisco Webex Research Team

Kathryn Parkes, Senior UX Researcher
Kathryn is an experienced user researcher based in Dublin, Ireland reporting into San Jose. As a member of the UX Research team, she leads research projects across the Webex Suite working with various Cisco Collab teams in Ireland, US and across Europe. The team use a broad variety of research methods, including user interviews, usability testing and benchmarking studies, to get a deep understanding of Webex user needs.

Varshine Chandrakanthan, Designer User Experience
Varshine loves observing people and their actions – hence she decided to become a User Researcher. She is passionate about creating an impact to people’s lives and loves to volunteer for education and human rights programs. Her interests include designing tattoos, illustrating for books, eating cake and meditating.

Mani Pande, User Experience Manager
Mani leads the user research team in San Jose. Her team is responsible for understanding the needs of Webex users to inform product strategy and direction, and ensure that the software we ship is not only simple and easy to use, but also delightful. You can find her and her team members huddling with Webex users understanding how they use our software and mapping opportunities of improvement. In another life, Mani worked as a reporter for the Times of India, India’s largest selling newspaper, covering media and crime. Outside of work, Mani loves to travel, cycle, run and cook. She posts photos of food that she cooks and places she visits on Instagram.

Easy to connect with live streaming

Events are becoming more and more virtual these days. Something to consider when hosting a virtual event is how big your audience is, and whether you are hosting an internal employee training or an external webinar. Live streaming is a great way to easily share your video and content and share it with thousands of people.  

You can already live stream your Webex meeting to Facebook Live, Vbrick and IBM Video Streaming. But beginning today, you can use Webex Meetings to host your virtual event and live stream it to YouTube, Twitter with Periscope, Workplace by Facebook, LinkedIn and many more – basically to any streaming platform that supports  the Real-time Messaging Protocol (RTMP/RTMPS) based media stream. Live streaming is available in Webex Meetings today, and it will also be supported on Webex Events in the very near future. Stay tuned! 

How to get started

It is easy, we promise! Follow the steps below to get your live stream started.  

1. Have your site admin enable Live Stream access.  
2. Schedule a Webex meeting, from your desktop app, like you would for a normal day-to-day meeting.  
3. Choose your live streaming platform and go to their site. Log into your account and set up the live stream. Your platform should provide RTMP/RTMPS stream URL and stream key where Webex can stream. You can follow the images below to set up the live stream or see the help documents here.  

YouTube

Twitter

Log into pscp.tv using your Twitter account and select Producer. Look here for the stream key and stream link.

Workplace by Facebook

Watch this short video on how to Stream Webex Meeting to Facebook Live.

4. Once you have your platform set up, click on the circle with the three dots and select “Start live streaming.”

5. You will be asked for the stream link and stream key. You would have acquired this in step 3.

6. After you click “start streaming,” your Webex meeting will appear on the platform’s stream. Visit the streaming platform to check your preview and then

click “Go Live.” Once live, Webex Meetings will indicate that you are successfully streaming.

Live streaming your meetings via social media or other streaming platform allows you to connect with a greater audience. With work being more digital now than ever, virtual events through streaming from a variety of platforms gives your company a great way to stay connected with teams, customers and partners. Streaming to these and the new RTMP-supported streaming platforms can be done from the Webex Meetings desktop app version 39.5 or later.

Details on how streaming Webex Meetings will work for each of the platforms may be different and instructions will be available on help.webex.com

Learn More

See all the Webex Meetings updates here

Using a video conferencing tool to manage outside vendor communications

Secure, First-Party Recording Transcripts in Webex Meetings

Satisfy Your Need for Speed with Cisco Webex Meetings

Front row seats at Live from Home

Cisco has always believed in using technology to improve lives around the world. What better way of doing that than combining music and technology to deliver a performance?

On April 7, 2020 Cisco Webex and AppDynamics worked together to put on an event that paid artists in need and gave 653 people the unique experience where you can support artists and nonprofits from the comfort of your home while getting a “front row seat” to weekly concerts.

The event, Live from Home, was streamed on Webex Events and gave four artists the chance to connect with a virtual audience through music. While watching the performances, the audience then had a chance to donate to the nonprofit of the week, Blue Bear School of Music!

“The caliber of talent for the first Live from Home series was amazing. It was inspiring to connect to other employees across Cisco through music performances. I’m happy to work at a company that cares about the community and gives me the resources to help out of work artists during this difficult time.” –  Trish Chan, Director of Web and Digital Marketing at AppDynamics.

The debut of the series was hosted by LA-based comedian, Catherine Adell, whom you might have seen in Jim Carrey’s Kidding on Showtime. Artists Ashley Campbell, Julian Velard, Ari Hest, and Barnaby Bright come from all over the United States; New York City, Massachusetts, and Arizona with one thing in common. No place to perform and a home with just the right setup.

“Just because we’re sheltering-in-place, doesn’t mean we have to stop enjoying life. I’m very proud that the Webex platform is able to connect these artists to a large audience and bring a little bit of fun into our lives.” – Aruna Ravichandran, VP, Global Marketing, Webex/Collaboration.

While most of us might say we use Webex to connect with colleagues, we think Live from Home encompasses what #LifeonWebex really means.

People and community.

The Cisco community is huge. We think through showcasing these artists live from home, we just made it bigger.

So be sure to mark your calendar for our upcoming virtual events!

Jazz Night

Event: Jazz Night

Day: April 14th

Time: 5-6PM PT / 8-9PM ET

Event Password: vma0414 (8620414 from phones)

Kids night

Event: Kids night

Day: April 21st

Time: 5-6PM PT / 8-9PM ET

Event Password: TBD

Event: Classical Night

Day: April 28th

Time: 5-6PM PT / 8-9PM ET

Event Password: TBD

Virtual platform on Virtual Experience Hub

And guess what? Live from Home will be the first program streamed through the Virtual Experience Hub for the public. The Virtual Experience Hub is an effort from Cisco’s Growth Marketing organization to offer users a robust virtual platform that bridges efforts across the physical and digital landscape by providing users an exceptional customer experience for events.

Stay tuned

These are the future dates and themes for the public events. More information to come, so stay tuned!

Event: Special 2H Program

Day: May 5 th

Time: 5-6PM PT / 8-9PM ET

Event Password: TBD

Event: Musical Theater Night

Day: May 12th

Time: 5-6PM PT / 8-9PM ET

Event Password: TBD

Event: Comedy Night

Day: May 19th

Time: 5-6PM PT / 8-9PM ET

Event Password: TBD

Event: Dance Night

Day: May 26th

Time: 5-6PM PT / 8-9PM ET

Event Password: TBD

What’s next?

Music is meant to be shared and experienced together. So be sure to check out the next Live from Home event on April 14 and invite your family and friends.

Support Live From Home Performance Series Fund

Learn More

How to have fun, virtually

Take Instruction to Webex: Connecting one pilates enthusiast to another

Webex bridal shower: Bring remote teams together when it counts

When people are working remotely or engaging in distance learning for the first time, they face a bit of a learning curve to become proficient and productive. The same goes for organizations, as they learn and truly understand what it takes to respond and support these new requirements.

As you may have seen in the blog from our SVP and GM for Cisco Collaboration, Sri Srinivasan outlines what we at Cisco Webex are doing to proactively expand our meeting capacity to respond to the incredible volume of new users looking to take their work and daily activities online. Cisco is committed to helping through this difficult time, and one way we are doing so is by expanding on capabilities for the free Webex offer, in all countries where it is available.

Announcing Webex Ecosystem integration offers

This free offer has inspired many of our Webex Ecosystem partners who build upon our unified platform, to create offers of their own, helping in this time of technological need. Our software partners have joined with us to provide unique and even free offers to protect and enable distance learning, while minimizing the disruption that comes with the change.

When addressing the needs of educators, the power and extensibility of the Webex platform delivers the best in class distance learning experience for the instructors, students and IT staff. Specific to education, our Webex Ecosystem is stepping up to provide integrations with these fantastic solutions:

• Vbrick
• Involvio
• Vyopta
• Thetalake
• Appspace
• Okta
• Prezi
• Kaptivo
• CirQLive

VBRICK

When a larger live stream event is needed to communicate to the student body, faculty and staff, Cisco’s partner Vbrick has a free limited time offer for schools looking to leverage live streaming events, to replace cancelled large-scale destination events.  This is a simple, effective and easy way to reach out and communicate to the education audience. Also, in Webex Meetings there is a new streaming option for Vbrick Rev from the native Webex Meetings client.

Learn more about Vbrick Free Large Event Streaming.

INVOLVIO

Higher education institutions around the world are moving teaching and learning to completely online methods. To help institutions deliver continuity, community, and support for students who are newly virtual, Involvio is introducing “Remote Campus.”

Remote Campus helps institutions rapidly deliver the core components of the campus experience to students on their phones anywhere they happen to be. Through integration with Cisco Webex and the Cisco Webex Education Connector, students can easily stay connected on video and seamlessly join live classes from anywhere. Remote Campus is free for all Involvio customers, regardless of license tier, and discounted for all Cisco Webex customers.

VYOPTA

Potential challenges in supporting remote learning and instruction have also become a great concern for IT administrators.  IT departments want to deliver best secure experiences as well as provide proactive support in this new era of online education.  Vyopta offers help in a few valuable ways such as providing student attendance compliance reporting, ensure high quality video performance, tracking student engagements with the meeting platform and more.  They’ve launched a free plan to help measure engagement of students in virtual classes, and monitoring call performance and quality with their special offer. Be sure to check out their upcoming webinar with Cisco’s own Dr. Lance Ford on distance learning.

Thetalake

Ensuring students, faculty and institutions are well protected, tools are needed to detect risks in audio, visual, document, spoken, shown, and shared content in audio and video content.  Thetalake provides a purpose-built compliance product suite for automatic policy detection of regulatory risks, compliance workflow, and archiving for video marketing, video conferencing, and audio recordings.  They are offering their Compliance and Supervision Suite for Webex Meetings/Teams at no cost for 3 months.

Appspace

For those students and faculty that have on campus commitments, it is important to keep information visible and available.  Many schools have enabled digital signage on campus devices with key messages and reminders. Appspace provides a Coronavirus playlist for signage on Webex Devices service for free up to 25 devices to Educate students and faculty with an informative channel about protecting against the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Okta

For IT staff’s deploying new services can be overwhelming. Okta provides efficient process to rapidly deploy Webex organization wide and simplify end-user adoption.  This offer has been made available at no cost to easily onboard users to new Webex service with seamless SSO and full provisioning and security.

Prezi

Moving from the physical class to a virtual is an adjustment. The need to make online learning engaging can be a real challenge. Prezi Video helps you create compelling and creative video content for students in online learning environments. Present or record with your content right alongside you on the screen, so you can maintain a human connection with your students without losing important context and visual aids. Make classroom/training presentations more fun and engaging using Prezi with Webex Video.  Get your free account and check out the blog on best practices in education.

Kaptivo

For instructors that relish teaching in a more traditional method by using whiteboards, Kaptivo will connect your analog whiteboard to Webex Meetings and post to Webex Teams to create a digital classroom. To assist teachers/staff who are new at providing  remote learning, Kaptivo is offering a free whiteboard for those working from home who purchase a Kaptivo camera.

CirQLive

If your school uses an LMS (Learning Management System) that is not covered with the Webex EDU Connector, or you have other requirements, CirQLive is offering free usage of their Webex LMS integration platform for 90 days. They are also offering consulting services that include best practices in online learning.

With the combination of Cisco’s powerful Webex platform and these unique partner integrations, students and teachers can quickly ease into the transition of remote learning and get back to what really matters. IT admins can also feel confident that these solutions have the right level of security and control to protect their education environments. Learn more about our partner solutions by visiting the linked partners.

For questions on the above Ecosystem offers, reach Cisco’s partnership team at webex-ecosystem@cisco.com

Learn More

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Blackboard Learn and Webex join forces to expand the reach of education

Teachers, here’s why you need Webex

Howe Public Schools uses video conferencing to create more opportunities for its students

Creating digital teams in Webex Teams series

The “Creating Digital Teams in Webex Teams” series will spotlight techniques in managing and inspiring remote and #WFH teams.  Learn how the Webex Platform and Webex Teams can help transform your remote team into an engaged, creative and productive team no matter if people are across the hall, town or globe.

Managing a digital team using Webex Teams

As a people manager at Cisco, I manage a team spread across multiple time zones and countries.  There are many #WFH resources out there these days but for this series of blogs I thought I would focus on how to build and manage a digital team using the Webex Platform with Webex Teams. 

For this blog we will help answer a question we get asked a lot:” …how do you create and organize a workshop when everyone is remote?” 

Build your team 

A common function of teamwork is to coordinate and collaborate across many different workstreams to achieve a common goal.  In some cases, this could be as simple as responding to a customer’s RFP/RFQ, preparing for a product launch, or planning customer workshop.  In all of these cases, building and bringing your team together was often the easy part, doing this over an extended period of time and performing this remotely can be very challenging.

For a workshop or classroom, one would often have reserved a main office room and then a series of breakout rooms nearby for different groups or teams that could go off, collaborate on their particular objective and then come back to the main group to share, discuss, etc.   

However, the problem with most video conferencing and messaging tools are that they were designed around a particular meeting or topic and not necessarily for the project or workshop which could last a day, a week or longer.  Also, many times a group would need to meet “offline”, not with the greater group, to work an idea or process and then come back to the larger group later.  Webex Teams is great to solve these types of use cases which, at Cisco, is often a primary means for how we get work done across multiple teams with our partners, contractors and customers in many cases. 

Create a purpose

First, think about the workshop you want to run.  The workshop may have a theme, a small team of moderators to facilitate the event and members or participants that would need to be involved in the event.  Get familiar with Roles within Webex Teams and how these roles impact the event. 

Next, the organization of the event, just like the in-person event, would have breakout rooms, workstreams or spaces where each group in the workshop would go and collaborate together.  For each Team you create, a General Room is automatically created in Webex Teams to use for topics, discussions, meetings that pertain to the group as a whole, like a general-purpose room.  Next, each space that is linked to that Team is now its own collaboration space with a unique virtual meeting link, whiteboards, messaging, content share, etc all in one place.

Here is an example of a Space Meeting Information (join URL, video address and dial in information for any type of user): 

Stay in sync 

The best part of this setup within Webex Teams is, especially with remote teams, everyone can get engaged and stay engaged. When you are in an office setting its really easy to walk down the hallway and see where everyone is meeting/connecting just by looking in the rooms.  However, when you are remote this can be very challenging as the physical room is not available.   

With Webex Teams, you are able to recreate that experience in the physical world.  Each room /space now is represented in the Webex Teams client.  So, you can see in real time who is in the room and who is meeting which helps keep your team engaged.

You are probably asking then, “…what happens when you eventually go back into the office, are you able to use Webex Teams then for that same type of experience?” Answer, yes.

When the Webex Rooms are in your physical location (say in all of your meeting rooms), the rooms now can autosense the people.  In the example to the right, I am in a meeting connected wirelessly to a Webex Board and now everyone that is invited to the Webex Team space can see me associated to the physical room as well as the virtual room.  This also holds true for all of the content and whiteboards you share in the virtual room now can be part of the physical room as well bringing a whole new meaning to business continuity.   

Get started

At Cisco, we use this Teams framework for all sorts of use cases, here are some examples that can help you get started:

• Company Wide Event Planning
• Customer/Partner Strategy Workshops
• Developer Hackathons 
• Virtual Training Delivery  
• Community Engagement / Outreach 
• Multi Topic FAQs and “Ask” Rooms 
• Marketing Outreach / Planning 

I hope that with some of these examples, provides some inspiration on how to build a virtual collaboration team that is both productive and engaging.  

Stay tuned for the next blog post: Chapter 3: Teams Whiteboards: No Line in the Horizon and make sure to stay connected with all the blogs in the series here.

Partner with Cisco and have a true global reach

Learn More

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Level up your remote collaboration

Enjoying a nice meal together, going out for happy hour, or even hosting a game night are all fun ways to get together with friends and family. But how do you have fun when everyone is in different locations or you just want a night in to yourself? As pioneers of remote collaboration, Cisco Webex is full of fun ways to connect. Here are some of our favorites! 

Work out with friends

Did you skip your morning workout? No worries! Find online workouts and keep yourself accountable by virtually meeting with your friends while you all work out. Into pilates? Take instruction to Webex: Connecting one pilates enthusiast to another.

Start a virtual book club

Who doesn’t love cuddling up in a cozy blanket and getting lost in a good book—it’s a great way to escape without leaving the couch. Now, you can make reading social by establishing a virtual book club. Create a space in Webex Teams to choose a book, then brew some coffee or tea, and dive into a new novel. Next, schedule a time with your friends for a review of your book over video. 

Go on a virtual tour

Want to examine fine works of art, explore historical sites, or see what NASA astronauts see in space? Most of us can’t jump on a plane and fly to the Louvre for the day, but you can still explore this famed museum and more with virtual tours. Many of these institutions are offering free online tours, and the best part is that you don’t even have to change out of your pajamas!  

Digital dinner dates

Too tired to go out or maybe you’re not feeling the best? Don’t miss family dinner or date night—make it virtual instead. Meet virtually with friends for your weekly Taco Tuesday or happy hour, grab virtual coffee with your mom, or even send recipes to your friends and compare how your creations turned out.

Break up the workday with memes

If you’re new to working from home, we suggest breaking up your work messaging and conversation with more social discussions. Don’t forget to include memes. Here at Cisco, we keep each other laughing and stay connected by sending GIFs and emojis on Webex Teams. Find out about how to be genuine and be yourself  

Virtual movie night

Swap the movie tickets for the remote and your couch. Use Webex Meetings to virtually attend the movie with friends and add in commentary. If you want to make it a virtual date night, include a meal before or after the movie using video to join your virtual date. Wine goes well with this, too! 

Find your inner child with crafts

When you want some quality you time, look no further than your kid’s craft room (or a hobby store). Pick up some markers and a coloring book or a paintbrush and canvas to create your next masterpiece. Or, if you prefer, pull out some of those old recipe cards and cook up something delicious! If your friends have kids, video is an excellent way for them to connect and do similar activities together to maintain social connections. Here are 6 tips for working from home with kids when your virtual weekend comes to an end.

Host a virtual party

Large get–togethers can be tough with friends and family all living in different cities, but with Webex Meetings, virtual parties are simple. Host special events like birthdays or a bridal shower with fun virtual games or play virtual charades or online games together over video. 

Pamper yourself

We can’t imagine anything more luxurious than a night of pampering after a long day of work. Light some candles, soak in a bubble bath, give yourself a manicure, or whatever self-care looks like to you. If you want some company, you can chat with friends virtually while giving yourself a manicure (that you can show off once you’re done!). 

Attend virtual concerts

Thanks to social media, more and more artists are hosting virtual concerts. Live stream a show by yourself or video chat with friends throughout the concert to enjoy it together.  

Learn something new

Curious about how coding works or how you can better understand data? There’s a class for that! With so many free resources for learning new skills, you can make time at home productive. 

There are hundreds of ways to stay connected, and we’d love to hear yours. Share your stories on social media using #lifeonwebex

And if you don’t already have Webex, you can sign up for the free offer, with an unlimited meeting time!

Learn More

3 tips for managing a virtual get together

Keeping our distance doesn’t mean we can’t stay close

Video conferencing calls can understandably make some people nervous. After all, enabling a video feed in a group collaboration session gives others direct insight into what you look like, as well as the background environment you’re operating in.  For shy participants, video conferencing can seem like a major hurdle to overcome, and can be far less preferable to alternatives like phone calls or email discussions. However, there are many benefits. Let’s explore the benefits of video conferencing, as well as tips to get more comfortable showing your video.

The benefits and challenges of video conferencing

Video conferencing has become a lot more popular over the years. Previous technical issues related to video quality and ease of access have mostly dissipated, as numerous devices have become more than capable of supporting a high-definition video feed. According to Wainhouse Research, 94% of organizations utilizing video conferencing say it increases productivity (1). Every minute spent in an unnecessary meeting is one that could have been spent on a more worthwhile task.

How does it help in this way? First, it reduces distractions by effectively requiring everyone in the video meeting to focus on the task at hand, instead of extensively multitasking as is possible when on a call or team chat. Video also lends itself well to demonstrations and the use of visual aids, for example, during a webinar or presentation. Finally, setting up a video link can provide useful context and clarity for remote workers who otherwise might not see other team members that often.

Still, being on camera (which is what dialing into a video conference entails) isn’t easy for everyone and can make video conferencing dreadful. So, let’s look at some tips for becoming more comfortable when on a video conference.

1.Use notes to keep your thoughts on track

Discomfort while participating on a video call often causes shier participants to lose their trains of thought. This makes sense, because they’re probably thinking primarily about the pressure and scrutiny of the meeting and only secondarily about what’s being discussed.

Overcoming this issue is easier with written or typed preparation. Sticky notes or comments and questions written down in a digital notes’ application and open in another window/app can help. They provide a reliable framework that the user can work within while on a video call.

Basically, preparing and using notes helps participants avoid awkward silences and the discomfort that comes from feeling like they can’t contribute to the conversation.

2. Set up the right environment before the call begins

Some of the pressure that comes with a video conference might stem from anxiety about what the participant’s environment looks like. In 2017, there was a famous incident involving an international relations professor participating in a video interview with the BBC, when one of his children entered into the frame and interrupted the conversation (2).

The disruption became a popular social media meme for a while, but it underscored a key risk that people sometimes contend with on a video call: Worrying about what’s going on in the background or how their workspace looks.

Fortunately, these fears can be somewhat alleviated through preparation. Pay attention to the lighting and to what’s behind you when your face appears on the video feed. Choosing a quiet room with a door may be beneficial, since it will minimize noise and give you more control. For instance, you can prevent others from walking behind you while you’re on camera or making noises that might distract participants. Here’s more on how you can work smarter anywhere when working remotely.

3. Make use of mute and pause controls

Like phone calls, video conferences always come with the possibility of unwanted background noise (e.g., dogs barking, kids playing, outside traffic, etc.) that can disrupt the session. Moreover, with video there’s the additional risk of on-screen distractions.

This is where the mute and pause controls within a video conferencing solution come in handy. Modern video conferencing lets callers mute their own audio and if you’re the host, of other participants, too. Muting minimizes noise and is especially useful for participants who aren’t currently speaking.

Pausing a video feed works in a similar way. During a video conferencing session, it’s possible to stop the video feed at any time and then resume it as necessary. That allows for greater privacy, which less-comfortable participants could use for a quick break to regroup.

4. Do a practice run with a friend or co-worker

Some of the discomfort that people might initially feel on video conferences can be traced to simple unfamiliarity with the format. A person who doesn’t join these meetings regularly might feel anxious about participating since the entire setup seems intimidating to them.

Practice is a good solution to these sorts of concerns:

• First, it lets participants get familiar with how the interface and underlying technology work, including the in-call controls for muting and pausing.
• Second, it lets them get used to how they look on a camera and what others can see in the background.
• Third, it lets them rehearse what they might say and become more comfortable with the idea of speaking on camera.

Webex makes the video conferencing experience as easy and intuitive as possible, from start to finish.

To learn more, get started with a free plan of Webex today.

Learn More

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Using a video conferencing tool to manage outside vendor communications

Resources

(1) Wainhouse Productivitiy Research

(2) BBC interruption video

Is remote working the new norm?

Even if you don’t consider yourself a remote worker per se, you’ve likely done work beyond the confines of a traditional office. Quickly checking email on your phone, brainstorming ideas for an upcoming pitch, or joining a conference call while on your commute – these are all tasks that can be done well, from anywhere, with no need for either a work PC or a dedicated desk.

A very brief history of telecommuting

The trend toward frequent and full-time remote work began decades ago in the U.S., but only reached escape velocity relatively recently. The 1970s oil crisis, the surge in traffic gridlock (a term that was, coincidentally, coined in the ‘70s, too), and the rise of stay-at-home parenting all contributed to the very early growth of telecommuting. Then, technology caught up.

Tools such as real-time workplace chat, video conferencing, web conference calls, and more are now readily available and make it much easier for employees to stay in the loop no matter where they are. These solutions enable richer, higher-quality interactions than were possible using just emails or phone calls.

Why remote work is worth supporting

Recently, some companies have had to make a sudden shift to remote work. But for others, this shift was already taking place:

• Global Workplace Analytics estimated that the number of businesses offering telework options to employees increased by 40% from 2014 to 2019 (and now even more in 2020). (1)
• Meanwhile, between 80% and 90% of the workforce would like to work remotely at least part of the time.

5 perks of remote work

What will the workplace of the future look like? How should your organization approach remote work arrangements? Remote work offers many benefits to everyone involved. Let’s look at five perks:

1. Lower costs

Think of the typical SMB’s budget and what it goes toward. After the mostly locked-in expenses of salaries and benefits, some of the larger line items will usually include travel and real estate.

Telecommuting helps curb these expenditures. Instead of needing a sprawling office, an organization might choose a smaller, denser space with the assumption that many of its employees will be working elsewhere much of the time.

Likewise, the company travel budget can be trimmed. Traditionally, meeting with a colleague or client basically required taking a road trip or booking a flight. Not anymore. With video and HD voice, it’s possible to have a virtual conference call meeting that feels like being in the same room, all at a much lower cost than actually traveling.

2. Improved morale, with less turnover

Why do people leave their jobs? It’s complicated, but long commutes are definitely a common reason why.

According to a University of West England survey, adding 20 minutes to a commute had the same negative effect on job satisfaction as a 19% pay cut for the study’s subjects. No one likes being stuck in traffic. (2)

Remote workers don’t have to confront this issue. As long as they’ve got a stable internet connection, they can work from home, a public place, or a nearby branch site instead of making the long trek into HQ. That’s good news for morale and for their chances of staying at the firm.

3. Increased productivity

Working remotely can boost productivity in several durable ways:

• Since commutes become less grueling or even non-existent, employees have more time to focus on their work.
• The distractions of some types of office spaces, like having to contend with constant noise from in an open floor plan layout, are eliminated entirely.
• Remote workers can use devices they know, plus utilize the full bandwidth of their internet connection since there aren’t sharing it with potentially many others.
• Individuals with health conditions that might be difficult to deal with in an office, or worsened by a commute, can more easily take care of themselves.

4. More opportunities for expansion

Allowing employees to telecommute can double as a company expansion strategy to new locales. If your business is growing and looking to target customers in different markets, then remote work lets you recruit workers with more flexibility and fewer limitations.

Of course, there are still some constraints, like needing to be incorporated in each state in which you conduct business operations. But having telework options available means that it’s more practical to create lob listings with broader appeal. Candidates can apply without needing to price in the cost and time associated with a commute.

5. Better time management

Not everyone is a morning person. But commute-driven jobs almost require you to be one.

Impact of flexible work schedule

With remote work, there’s more flexibility in how an employee sets and uses their hours. Telecommuters have more discretion over when they start work and take breaks, allowing them to be productive on their own schedules. And, as we noted earlier, they have more time to begin with due to not commuting or having to constantly tune-out various in-office distractions.

What you need to get the most from remote work

There are a few things that flexible working arrangements need to succeed. The first being the leadership support to create a culture that encourages this type of flexibility. Establishing trust and accountability from the top down, is critical to foster a remote working environment. You also need the right collaboration solutions. The ability to easily create and join a video conference call, plus add context through messaging, digital whiteboarding, and file sharing, is essential.

With the right approach and the right technology, you can create a culture that embraces the remote workforce—and positively impacts the business.

If you are new to remote we’re here to make the change easy. Check out more ways to keeping you connected to your team

Learn More

Cisco Webex: Supporting customers during this unprecedented time

Working smarter anywhere – Working remotely 

3 tips for working with remote team members

References

(1) telework options to employees increased by 40% from 2014 to 2019

(2) commute time and job satisfaction

Meet by virtual means

Working from home? Me too.

It sounds pretty fun (and definitely has MANY perks), but can also get a bit isolating.

As remote working trends continue to increase, the shift from the office to the home “office” can feel big if you’re used to frequent water cooler conversations, taking  lunch breaks with your colleagues, and planning happy hours after work. Even for a regular “work-from-homer,” I still find myself going a little stir crazy every so often.

If you’re missing your friends or colleagues (who may also fall into the friend category), here are 3 tips for hosting and/or attending a virtual get-together:

Plan a time

If you’re with your colleagues, look at their calendars and find a time that works. You can even use a team collaboration space to suggest times, using reaction emojis, like the thumbs up, to let others know if a specific time works for you. If you don’t have visibility into calendars or a space with all invitees, texts or survey’s work as well.

Assign a host

This person is in charge of figuring out the time, sending out the invite, remembering to show up. Like a host at a party, they can greet people who join the call and mediate if everyone starts talking over one another. Prior to the call, or at the start of the call, it’s important to lay out a set of “guidelines” as well as what they should expect.

For people who have never joined a video conferencing meeting before, you can let them know in advance that they may need to download the app (if joining from a phone or new device). And it’s fun to see everyone, so encourage them to use a device with a camera.

Because there can be background distractions and noises, ask attendees to keep themselves muted until they would like to talk. In addition, unlike normal happy hours or get-togethers, side conversations are near impossible. On a video conference, they tend to result more in people talking over one another. If this happens, suggest that people try the chat tool to either directly message one person, or the entire group.

If you’re the host and need to leave early, you can assign a new host.  That way the call won’t end for everyone.

Change the layout

Webex offers three views: active speaker view, active speaker and thumbnail view, and grid view. Instead of just seeing only the person talking, change to the grid-view where you can see up to 25 different screens. This view allows for you to see everyone’s reactions and makes it feel much more like you’re all together in person. It can also help in seeing if someone is trying to talk or when someone is finished talking, limiting interruptions.

Don’t forget your snacks and drinks! Host a virtual cheers at the beginning of the call, just like you would normally if you were in person. Don’t let the computer screen prevent you from ordinary get-together rituals.

As for planning your next get together, do it before you go! Use the polling tool to suggest times and have everyone vote in real-time.

Little things can go a long way in starting a get-together, especially for those new to the video conferencing arena. So, do you think you’re ready to virtually hang out with your friends? Start planning!

And if you don’t already have Webex, you can sign up for the free offer, with an unlimited meeting time!

We hope these tips help your next get-together run smoothly! See how @bshaughn of NYC consultancy makes virtual happy hour’s happen

Learn More

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Creating digital teams in Webex Teams series: Chapter 1: When you are with or without your office

How technology creates better interpersonal connections

Easy remote device management

Managing Webex Room devices is as simple as using them! Using Webex Control Hub, administrators are able to configure and troubleshoot devices remotely. Regardless if you have direct network access to the device, here are 3 tools to help configure and troubleshoot devices.

1) Advanced configurations

First tool I will mention is about configuring devices. While the out of the box experience for Webex Room devices will work for every standard workload and workflow, sometimes you need to modify a certain configuration for a specific workspace. A lot of administrators are used to using the on-device web interface, but with Control Hub you can change configurations in seconds directly in the portal. Click on any Webex Device and open up “Advanced Configurations”. You can apply hundreds of configurations directly here. Keep an eye out as we make it even easier to modify bulk configurations in the near future!

2) Manage logs

The next tool is a brand new one we just released! We heard from customers and partners that it was hard to troubleshoot devices that were not on the same network as the administrator. We got you covered – it is now possible to troubleshoot issues quickly and more efficiently. Manage Logs is now available in the Devices page to allow you to easily generate and download log files which can be used to self-troubleshoot or reference with TAC if you need to contact us to help!

3) Troubleshoot calls

The final tool is how administrators can troubleshoot calls directly in Control Hub for Webex Meetings. Call Diagnostics in the Troubleshooting section has got a recent improvement to let you search not just by User or Meeting ID but also by the Device Name. This will allow you to view live data updated in 60 second intervals. You can access information like packet loss, jitter or even resolution.

These are just some of the tools available for Webex Rooms customers in Control Hub and we are adding more updates monthly to What’s New in Cisco Webex Control Hub

Learn about how Webex Rooms can help face to face collaboration even between thousands of miles or kilometers (for those fellow metric people)

Learn More

Click for all of the Webex Control Hub updates

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Improvements over RoomOS releases from Control Hub

Apply branding to your conference devices

Bring productivity back to your meetings

The prospect of having to sit through a meeting doesn’t always excite everyone. Although meetings have the potential to be fun and collegial gatherings that also help move projects along, many of them don’t live up to that promise.

What can go wrong in a typical meeting?

Sometimes, meetings can consume a lot of time and make participants feel disconnected from what’s going on across the company at large:

• In fact, unnecessary meetings are the No. 1 time-waster in most offices, accounting for untold hours and billions in wasted productivity every month.
• As much as one-third of all meetings in a given month are deemed unproductive, and it’s not hard to see why: Between late starts, unfocused agendas, and outdated collaboration tech, many participants can’t stay engaged.
• Unproductive meetings exact steep costs in other ways, too. For example, a “1-hour meeting” is actually much longer, since it takes that amount of time away from everyone who joins it. So, if there are 10 attendees, the meeting is actually consuming 10 hours that could be channeled elsewhere.
• Along similar lines, traditional meetings require office space. A conference room that someone might be using to take an important call instead has to be devoted to a big gathering that could end up not being all that productive anyway.
• Remote workers can feel isolated when meetings aren’t engaging. Inadequate communication/collaboration as well as loneliness are among the most cited drawbacks to working remotely, and how meetings are run is a big reason why.

On the bright side, meetings don’t have to be unproductive. With the right tools in support of a coherent strategy, you can run meetings that cover everything you want while keeping everyone engaged. And now, with so many people working from home, it’s important to understand how to help employees feel connected. Here are four proven tips for taking your meetings to the next level.

Tip #1: Send a written agenda in advance and establish context

Why are so many meetings unfocused? Because no one, other than maybe the host, really knows what’s going to happen or who is participating.

That’s why it’s important to send out an agenda containing the main points you want to cover in the time allotted. In Webex, you can add an agenda directly to your meeting invite.

Having an agenda creates structure and helps you maximize the time you have. Once you write everything down and ensure it’s covered point by point, you might even find that you have time left over and can end the meeting early, which is good news for everyone’s productivity as they can get back to other tasks.

As for establishing context about who will be in the meeting, this is where cognitive collaboration solutions can make a real difference. These AI-driven platforms can pull information from multiple sources, such as public social media profiles and various directories, to create context and enable more seamless collaboration

Tip #2: Make it easy to join the meeting

How much meeting time is lost to simply trying to get the session started? Invitees may have to dig through their inboxes to find the dial-in or link, and even when they have it ready they might need to jump through a few hoops first.

Downloading applications and plugins, entering a PIN, finding a compatible device – these complications make meetings overly complex and less useful. To get things back on track, think about simplifying the join process.

A collaboration platform like Webex lets you invite anyone and everyone with a simple set of steps. Most of the time, it’s just a singular “step” – tap or click the button to join when it’s time. Whether someone is using a PC, Mac, phone, tablet, or standard-based video conferencing system, participation in straightforward.

Tip #3: Use video technology, if appropriate

Video conferencing provides benefits that no other meeting technology can:

• First, it’s the best way to feel like you’re in the same room as everyone else despite being physically far apart. HD video and audio allow for high-quality interpersonal connections in meetings.
• Second, it lets attendees see reactions and body language in real time. Those insights are missing from conversations that happen over email, chat, or traditional phone call, and they are valuable for bridging cultural divides.
• Third, it goes hand-in-hand with collaboration capabilities such as screen sharing and recording. A video meeting can benefit from the real-time sharing of an application, document, or entire screen, plus it can be easily shared later with anyone who couldn’t make it

Video meetings are good for many different use cases. You can set up one to touch base with internal staff, recruit and interview candidates for open positions, host a webinar, and much more.

Tip #4: Follow-up as needed

When a meeting ends, sometimes the host will send an email that summarizes what happened and provides a link to the recording. This is a good approach, since it reinforces what was covered and can be especially useful for people who weren’t able to join.

There are other ways to follow-up beyond just email, though. A recording of the meeting can be very informative, plus there’s the option to use a chat app to share additional collateral and thoughts in real time. With Cisco Webex, you can follow-up with ease and host the most productive meetings possible.

Learn more by getting started with a free plan today!

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Virtual instruction

“Whoever thinks 10 seconds goes by fast has never done Pilates.” Thankfully Ursula’s Pilates studio didn’t let too many seconds go by before figuring out how to keep her clients engaged when unprecedented times shut down fitness studios in Germany.

Ursula has run her own Pilates studio for the past 10 years, investing in new equipment and constantly building and increasing her client base. So, when she had to temporarily close her studio doors, she had to think hard about ways she could continue her Pilates training.

With her husband working for Cisco, it was a no brainer that he encouraged her to use Webex.

Streaming live Webex lessons to engage in real-time

Implementing Webex has allowed Ursula to continue instructing her Pilates lessons. Not only can she instruct her clients on the next move, but she can perform live demonstrations, checking that her clients are doing the moves correctly and safely, not hurting themselves. The 2-way conversations enabled by Webex allows for a far richer experience than a normal prerecorded video. With #LifeOnWebex, her clients can have real time conversations, build relationships and keep up with each other as they normally would within the walls of her classroom.

Her clients remain fully engaged during the virtual Pilates sessions, keeping spirits high, hearts strong and minds healthy during these unprecedented times.

Times like this require thinking out of the box. Taking lessons virtual with Cisco technology has opened new doors for Ursula and her clients. Noticing new members have joined her classes has made Ursula realize that not everyone can travel to the studio every day. Ursula plans to expand her business model by adding virtual training sessions along with her in-person lessons when the studio reopens.

Webex has helped Ursula continue her business, strengthen the health and immune system of her clients, and provide some peace of mind.

A free Webex Meetings Plan can help keep your business fully-engaged

Learn More

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Pilates Studio Ottobrunn

Creating digital teams in Webex Teams series

The “Creating Digital Teams in Webex Teams” series we will spotlight techniques in managing and inspiring remote and #WFH teams.  Learn how the Webex Platform and Webex Teams can help transform your team into an engaged, creative and productive no matter if people are across the hall, town or globe.

Managing a digital team using Webex Teams

As a people manager at Cisco, I manage a team spread across multiple time zones and countries.  There are many #WFH resources out there these days but for this series of blogs I thought I would focus on how to build and manage a digital team using the Webex Platform with Webex Teams. 

Connecting your team  

First, what is Webex Teams?  Webex Teams is what I consider my collaboration “nerve center” where all of the people I work with, the apps I use, and the meetings/tasks/workflows associated to getting work done are located.  Its where all of the activities before, during and after meetings can live, and, if done right, you can shorten your meetings and maybe not have as many meetings throughout your day but everyone can be on the same page regardless where they are located.  Here are just a few pointers to get you started. 

Get some space 

Go here and learn about and setup your Webex Teams account.  Next, you will need some Space.  Yes, everyone needs a little space.  A space in Webex Teams is like a virtual huddle room you can have with 1 to as many people as you want where you can message each other, share files, co edit files you have in OneDrive and Google, post pictures, GIFs, and capture all of the activities before, during and after a meeting on Webex.  At Cisco, we use Microsoft OneDrive, Sharepoint and Smartsheet a lot and within Webex Teams it brings everyone’s ability to co create content, materials and projects in a much more efficient manner.  (screen shot of ecm integration or video link) 

Create a space and a meeting in one step 

As a best practice I setup a space in Teams, in this case “Joshua Tree Project”( highlighted in a yellow box in the picture), that could be about a particular topic/idea/outcome with a group of people (which could include partners and suppliers – notice the external user in the invite) and schedule the initial meeting in just a one step process.   

If you have Calendar services enabled with Webex Teams you can create a Webex Teams space automatically from your meeting calendar invites from Outlook or Google:
1.  Create a meeting invite in Outlook / Google and invite the people you want to the meeting
2.  In the location field, type in @webex:space 
3.  Hit Send.   

Then, auto”magically” your Webex Teams space will have all of your participants and meeting title as the name of the space.  That’s it, chat, message, call, meet, share with your team. 

Create a virtual watercooler with your team (internal and/or external members) 

In this time of uncertainty, people are feeling isolated at times and that can cause stress and anxiety.  To help bring a sense of community and togetherness, at Cisco we have leveraged Webex Teams to create “Ask Rooms”.  An Ask Room is just like a virtual watercooler in your office.  People can post messages, questions and others can respond with reactions, answers etc.  At Cisco we have found the level of engagement in these rooms is pretty high and people love to keep in touch with each other.  And better yet, create an ASK space with your customers/partners too, you will be surprised how much a little TLC can go!  As a customer and partner obsessed organization, we on average have 30-40% of our spaces with external, outside of Cisco, participants.  This helps diversify our community and accelerates new ideas.   

Simply create a space with a topic that you feel would have a wide audience, invite people to it and invite the EURL bot (eurl@webex.bot) to help provide a URL link for users in your company to discover and join by sharing the link on an intranet page or email.   For smaller groups, you can create a Team within Webex Teams and add people as members, then as you add more Ask spaces, everyone will get invited and aware of the space.   

If you have a watercooler type room with your immediate team, keep things light.  On my team we often share pictures from our weekends, family event and we even have a goat farmer in the tribe that keeps us updated on best practices in raising goats (and yes, I mean real goats). 

Be genuine and be yourself 

In work, as in the rest of our lives, being recognized is just an important as the work itself and having each other’s back is important.  This idea is even more with working remote where giving the extra pat on the back or seeing someone in the hallway and letting them know you appreciate what they did doesn’t happen easily when everyone is virtual. 

Within Webex Teams we have the ability for people to add GIFs and reactions to messages within context along with notification of who left the reaction etc.  Keeping things light within the Team is important these days, don’t you agree?  (pic of reactions in teams, thumbs up, celebration emoji etc).

Stay active, have fun 

It can be really hard to balance communicating to others if you are available or not and where you could be located at any one time.  Many times, I am in a meeting or sharing my desktop or other times I need some quiet time to get some work.   The problem that occurs is then people start messaging/interrupting/calling it can be really difficult to get anything done.  This is where Webex Team’s presence really shines.

Webex Teams can automatically show if you are away from your app, if you are in a Webex meeting, sharing your desktop and even on a phone call.  Secondly as a user I can create custom statuses (screen shot below) to my community so they know either where I am located, if I need some quiet time or if there is an important message I want them to know.  For me personally this has brought much needed balance back into my workday as I can feel connected to the team and vice versa without having to sacrifice my mental well being. 

Well, that’s a few pointers for now.  The next blog post will be Chapter 2: Stay (Faraway, So Close) covering co creation tools built right into Webex Teams. 

Partner with Cisco and have a true global reach

Learn More

Connect with all blogs in the Creating Digital Teams in Webex Teams

Cisco Webex: Supporting customers during this unprecedented time

Working smarter: Managing a remote team

Welcome to my virtual office — Webex Teams and my workstreams

It’s here! This month’s update marks the arrival of the highly anticipated new in-space design! To get this exciting update with lots of other cool new features, download the latest version of Webex Teams from here.

MESSAGING

A brand new in-space design (Windows and Mac)

Get ready to become a lot more productive! We’ve redesigned how you work inside a space. Now, you will experience a sleek new layout with all your most important in-space features and actions just one click away. The aim of this new design is to improve discoverability and usability as well as to make the app truly scalable.

If you would like a detailed description of everything that’s changed with this design update, this blog walks through everything step by step.

For an at a glance visualisation of what’s changed, check out this dedicated help page.

On the go custom status (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

In February, we made it possible to add a custom status on your desktop. Now, you will be able to do the same on mobile. If you’re running late, stuck in traffic, or out for lunch, you can let everyone know right from your mobile. Access this feature on mobile by clicking your avatar. Any status you set will stay active for up to 7 days unless you clear it.

Turn off @all mentions (Windows and Mac)

We all know someone who is a little too fond of using @all mentions. In larger spaces, this can be really distracting and almost feel like spam in your inbox. Now, in moderated spaces, moderators will have the ability to disable @all mentions for everyone in the space. This toggle is available on desktop in Space Information under Moderator Settings. When turned off, a notification is sent into the space to let everyone know it’s no longer possible to @mention to all in this space.

Organize your spaces (Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android)
For anyone who hasn’t yet discovered this great way to organize your spaces list, Separate People and Spaces will be turned on by default. This can be easily turned off by clicking on your filters at the top of your space list and unticking ‘Separate People and Spaces’ or by going to your appearance settings. Users who have already toggled this feature will see no change.

CALLING

Webex Calling

Forward your calls (Windows and Mac)

If you’re going to be away from your desk but don’t want to miss an important phone call, you can forward your calls to another phone number. Or, if you don’t want to be interrupted, you can send all your calls to voicemail instead.

We already support Call Forwarding in Calling in Webex Teams (Unified CM) on your desktop. See this help doc for more information.

Let’s make it a conference call (Windows and Mac)

Collaboration just got easier. Need another opinion while you’re in the middle of a call? You can now add up to 6 people while you’re in a 1–to–1 call.

We already support conference calls in Webex Teams (Unified CM) on your desktop. See this help doc for more information.

I have a voicemail! (Windows and Mac)

No more missing calls in Webex Teams. If you’re using Calling in Webex Teams (Webex Calling) on your desktop, you’ll see a red badge counter (message waiting indicator) next to the Calls tab letting you know you have a voice message. If you want to listen to your messages, go to the Calls tab and click on Call Voicemail to dial into the voicemail system. From your voicemail system, you also can record a personal greeting, delete a message, and so on. After you listen to your messages (from the app or your desk phone), the red badge counter disappears. Get more information here.

Unified CM

Is that another voicemail? (Windows and Mac)

If you’re using Calling in Webex Teams (Unified CM) on your desktop, you’ll now get a dedicated Voicemail tab to manage all your voicemails. There’s a red badge counter that lets you know how many voice messages you have. You can check out the details of a message, play it, mark it as read, delete it or call back the sender. After you’ve listened to your messages, either with Webex Teams or your desk phone, the red badge counter disappears. Get more information here.

Let’s make it a conference call (iPad and Android)

We’re making collaboration even easier. Need another opinion while you’re on a call? You can add up to 6 people while you’re in a 1–to–1 call.

We already support conference calls in Webex Teams (Unified CM) on your desktop.

Merge two calls (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

When you’re on a phone call and you receive an incoming call in Webex Teams, you can merge the two phone calls into one and have everyone in the same call.

We already support merge if you’re using Calling in Webex Teams (Unified CM) on your desktop. Check out this help doc for info.

INTEGRATIONS

New ServiceNow Bot for Webex Teams! (Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android)

Integrate Servicenow with Webex Teams today using the new Servicenow Bot from the Webex App Hub. Easily create, update and resolve incidents directly from any group or 1:1 space. Talk to your Servicenow admin to get custom real-time notifications keeping your team in the know whenever there’s a new situation. Learn more here.

To see this great new feature in action, check out this video.

Connect Smartsheet with Webex Teams! (Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android)

Do you use Smartsheet for project planning and tracking? Now, you can connect Smartsheet with Webex Teams using the new Smartsheet bot. Easily setup real-time notifications for sheet changes, comments added, or even new sheets shared with you all from a Webex Teams space. Now you can quickly add comments, rows, and even share a sheet with a colleague using the latest bot. Get started with more details on the Webex App Hub here.

For more information on this and upcoming updates to Webex Teams, check out our help page here.

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See all of the Webex Teams Releases here

Webex Teams — say hello to the new in- space design

Working smarter anywhere — Working remotely

As more people than ever embrace remote work, our next challenge is mastering the art of working from home…with kids. Here are some tips and tricks to keep your little ones entertained and you productive while working remotely.

1) Answer the why first 

Depending on how old your kids are, they may or may not fully understand why they’re home from school or why you’re at home (but still working). Take the time to set some rules and expectations on what normal looks like now. Be clear on when it’s ok to make noise—or not—or when you’ll be available to sit and do activities with them, what situations mean it’s ok to knock on the door and when you need to be quiet in the house.

For example, telling them that you’re working from 9-12 and 1-5 lets them know that you are going to be busy throughout the day during those times, but they can expect to see you for lunch. For older children, setting simple rules like ‘a closed door means you need it to be quiet during calls’ could be all it takes to keep your sanity throughout the day. Many of our coworkers set a policy that the kids need to send a message online or open the door quietly to get your attention if the door is closed.

2) Set a schedule 

Keeping a routine is hard in this new normal, but a necessity for some kids. We’ve found that taking some time to plan out a schedule so they get used to waking up, doing planned activities, studying, and going on walks really helps keep things as normal as possible.

Another option is to let the kids set their schedules and timers using connected devices. For example, they can tell in-home smart devices to set a timer (or use the kitchen timer) throughout the day to keep them on track.

3) Work as a team 

With so many companies encouraging or mandating remote work, you may be lucky enough to be working at home with your partner or have friends or family able to help. If so, plan who will have some downtime to entertain the kids and when you can switch off.

If you have a big meeting that requires no distractions or unnecessary noise, consider arranging an activity for the kids to go outside to play (if available). Other activities like board games or specific school assignments can leave you some quiet time to focus. Big siblings (depending on their age) can also be enlisted to help with the younger kids throughout the day. Click to find other great ways that technology creates better interpersonal connections.

4) Talk with your manager about flexibility 

With so many of us working remotely, most leaders are anticipating and accepting the challenges of working remotely, including dealing with distractions. If your kids are up early and don’t nap until the afternoon, work with your manager to schedule essential calls around that time. Or ask for non-traditional working hours so you can maximize your time when your children are sleeping at night.

You can also explain that they’ll be running in and out of the room throughout the day and to not be surprised when one of them makes a cameo on a video call. You may be surprised with how many of your coworkers are in the same situation and open up conversations you would never have had in the office! At Webex, we welcome kids or pets as part of the work from home experience! Check out this article on getting the the most out of work-life balance.

5) Never stop learning 

Whether you regularly homeschool, your child’s teacher has sent home digital or physical schoolwork, or you just want your kids to keep learning while home, there are a few ways to engage your kids in learning. Set times throughout the day for reading, completing assignments, doing puzzles or other activities that challenge their mind, or any other learning-related activities they can do. If you have a tablet or computer, set aside time for your kids to play a fun educational game—they’ll be learning, but really, it’ll feel like fun (and keep them occupied).

6) Keep them busy 

Managing kids while working can be a challenge, so our design team made a quick set of coloring guides for kids of all ages (and adults, too). Download your set and print it out for a few minutes of peace today! Have any other tips to share about how you succeed working remotely? Let us know by tagging us on social media with the hashtag #lifeonwebex.

Download your free cs.co/kidspack today!

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Cisco Webex: Supporting customers during this unprecedented time

Working smarter anywhere – Working remotely 

3 tips for working with remote team members

Together, Remotely

Many of our colleagues in the US, EMEAR and around the world are currently facing the twin challenges of working from home to keep essential communications up and running, AND the difficult task of keeping their children entertained during school shutdown.

The design team at Cisco thought we’d help with two simple ways to keep them and their children entertained: first we made a colouring book with signage and characters from our Webex Teams app, to help connect children to their parents work. We also made a collaborative playlist that anyone can join, so we can all jam along together while we work!

Read the full article https://medium.com/cisco-collaboration-design/together-remotely-e25ee3c7425a

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Cisco Webex: Supporting customers during this unprecedented time

Working smarter anywhere – Working remotely 

3 tips for working with remote team members

This month, the software team have been cooking up some real treats for you guys.  In March, we are focusing on making the way you collaborate with your personal mode Webex Room devices more seamless and efficient, as many of us find ourselves working from home. If you do, check out some tips and tricks on how to work remotely.

The first two features are cloud benefits, whilst the latter two are available for both cloud and on-premises.

Guest code for wireless sharing

Most offices receive a constant flux of people. When these people come into your office for a meeting, it can be rather tedious to ask them to download an app in order to wirelessly share to a room device. Many times, they also require access from an admin to download new software on their work laptops, which is not the most practical thing in the world when you are a guest at a different office. This new feature allows guests to just go to a website and enter a code found on the device, and by doing this they can wirelessly share to a device, with the only requirement being a good internet connection. Whether they want to share an app, the entire screen or just a tab from their browser, it can be done with a simple step.

Easily join your personal room in personal mode

In January, we released wireless sharing for personal mode from the Teams App. We really want to make it easier for you to get stuff done from your personal Webex Room device, so this month we are releasing a Personal Meeting Room (PMR) shortcut in personal mode! Joining your Personal Room is now quick and straightforward – only a click away. You just click the Webex button, and you should see a green button next to your Personal Room address at the bottom of the page. Click it, and you are in your PMR. Easy, right?

Joining personal room from inside the Webex button

When you click the Webex button, you can now choose to write a Personal Room URI. Previously, it used to be only digits, but now you can use actual words, which is great news for those of us who struggle to remember long strings of random digits (aka most of us). Because of this, you can make a call from your previous dialing history, so if you have dialed a Personal Room before, it will be saved in the history of the Webex button and auto-populate as you type. This feature is available for both on-prem and cloud devices.

Meeting title privacy

There are many different reasons to why people wouldn’t want the titles of their meetings to be publicly displayed. Maybe you are discussing a sensitive topic such as a workforce reduction planning, or maybe one about employee appraisals and salary negotiations. Either way, you might not want everyone walking past the booked meeting room to know what the purpose of the meeting is. To solve this problem, we are providing admins with an API setting on the device, so that the meeting title will be hidden. This feature is available for both on-prem and cloud devices.

That’s all for this month. Stay safe and take care of each other.

Click to learn more about what Cisco Webex is doing to support our customers in these unprecedented times.

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See all the Webex RoomOS releases

Webex Meetings and Microsoft Teams: Working better together

Skip the trip with Webex Meetings

Working smarter anywhere – Working remotely 

Cisco Webex collaboration solutions for education

Imagine ivy-covered buildings, students playing frisbee in the quad, and hoodies emblazoned with school colors. What comes to mind? For many people, it’s a college or university campus. For me, however, higher ed is connected classrooms, mobile-friendly interactions with faculty, and taking my university with me—wherever I am.  

Students today expect a seamless and personalized digital experience from colleges and universities, from their initial application to their last day in the classroom. As a former digital communications professional at Ivy League and Big Ten universities, I relied on Cisco Webex collaboration solutions to make digital interactions more human. Whether you’re a faculty member looking for ways to connect your classroom or an administrator looking to build connections on campus and in the world, Webex can help you to innovate your institution.  

Student–centered enrollment  

Choosing a college or grad school is a stressful process, from applications and costly campus visits to understanding financial aid and selecting a school that is the right fit. Admissions offices can easily center the enrollment experience around student needs with Webex Meetings and Events. 

Connect with prospects around the world by using Webex Events. You can host online info sessions and potentially reach applicants who might not be able to visit in person or connect with your Admissions team at a local college fair.  

Planning a virtual admitted student day or decision day? You can drive meaningful interaction with admits by using Webex Events to host Q&A panels with current students, sit in on a faculty lecture, poll parents and partners on their thoughts about supporting their loved one in school, and much more. No need to worry about picking a date that doesn’t compete with other campus events or decision deadlines—everything is recorded so you can share the link whenever with whoever might need it. 

For moments that matter, Webex Meetings can be a powerful tool for creating personal connections and involving your campus community in recruitment. With Meetings, you can cut down on the carbon footprint of admission interviews, have face-to-face conversations during sensitive financial aid counseling sessions, host virtual campus tours with student guides, or attract your top applicants with one-on-one coffee chats with faculty or the Dean. The options are limitless. 

Connected classrooms and campuses 

Surveys have shown Gen-Z students prefer video-based learning more than previous generations—but is your institution prepared to adapt? If you’re transitioning to virtual learning, Webex Meetings and Teams are the perfect combination to keep your classroom connected, so learning doesn’t have to stop. Plus, Meetings and Teams work seamlessly with popular learning management systems (LMS) such as Canvas, Moodle, Sakai, or Blackboard with the Webex Education Connector.  

If your institution has multiple campuses, bringing your school communities together—culturally and logistically—can be a challenge. Webex Meetings and Devices can seamlessly bridge the distance across locations. Need some ideas to encourage cross-campus collaboration? Connect students through club meetups or student government summits, expand access to guest speakers and special events, or enable cross-disciplinary faculty connections to propel innovative research—all with Webex.  

Whatever your role in your higher ed community, there’s a way you can use Webex to innovate the student experience and improve collaboration across campuses. Webex is a proud educational partner for many institutions.  

I’m proud to now work for Webex, at the intersection of human and digital interaction. Now I want to hear from you: how will you use Webex to revolutionize the higher ed experience?   

Learn how you can keep your classrooms connected so learning doesn’t have to stop:  https://www.webex.com/webexremoteedu.html

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Blackboard Learn and Webex join forces to expand the reach of education

Teachers, here’s why you need Webex

Howe Public Schools uses video conferencing to create more opportunities for its students

Cross time zones with better meetings

Love setting your clocks back each fall to gain that extra hour of sleep? Hate setting them forward each spring and suddenly having less time to rest? Love it or hate it, the beginning of DST each year is a good opportunity to adopt best practices for scheduling video conferencing meetings.

While businesses like retailers widely like DST, it’s not universal – not even within the U.S. For example, states including Arizona and Hawaii do not observe DST at all, creating yet another ripple in the complications that can affect schedules each March and November, when most places in the Northern Hemisphere “spring forward” and “fall back,” respectively.

The stakes for adept scheduling have only gotten higher as more organizations have embraced remote work policies, leaving them more reliant than ever upon geographically distributed employees across multiple time zones.

Tips for better meetings

Let’s look at six tips for scheduling and conducting your meetings the right way in this context:

1) Check in with remote workers about what times work for them

A big part of working remotely is the ability to set your own schedule. Even if there are formal company rules for which hours you need to be available, there’s still a lot more flexibility than in a traditional office environment.

As a meeting scheduler, you have to navigate the many complications that can arise from workers operating during different blocks of time each day. One possible solution is to ask everyone for multiple times that would work for them and finding one that overlaps or is close enough.

2) If in doubt, fall back to some generally good meeting times

If your organization is based in the U.S., you have four contiguous time zones to account for along with ones unique to Hawaii and Alaska. Setting up a meeting when you have employees spread across these time zones can be challenging if the above technique – asking for availability times – doesn’t work out that well.

Fortunately, you can usually default to some times that almost always work for multiple time zones. For example, 2 p.m. Eastern is a popular meeting time slot, as it translates to 1 p.m. Central, 12 p.m. Mountain, and 11 a.m. Pacific – all prime working hours. If you have employees in Hawaii or Alaska, moving the meeting to 3 p.m. Eastern will likely work, too.

3) Use online world clock tools for international meetings

Things become even more complex when you have meetings that involve people in different countries, as the time zone gaps can be considerable. Maybe you’ve hopped on an 8 a.m. call in the U.S. for a meeting with someone in the European Union – that can be less than ideal for late-risers and people accustomed to starting work at 9 a.m. or 9:30 a.m, for instance. And DST, especially in the spring, can make these types of rise-and-shine meetings even tougher to get through.

This is where it’s useful to have access to a world clock tool. Many are available, both on the web and within various apps, and they’re handy for exploring how various meeting times would work worldwide. World Time Buddy is a prime example of a free world clock that lets you search for specific time zones and places and then compare them so that you can draw up an invite that, at least in theory, works for everyone.

4) Collect questions and input from anyone who can’t make it

Not everyone can make every meeting, regardless of how well it’s scheduled. But that doesn’t mean they have to be left out entirely. One way to include them is to solicit their feedback, questions, and other input beforehand so that all of it can be addressed and discussed during the meeting.

Afterward, the responses to their input can be included in an emailed summary of the meeting or, better yet, a full recording of the session.

5) Record the meeting for easy sharing later on

Sometimes, it’s just not possible to find that Goldilocks meeting time for all of your employees. But all is not lost. Recording a meeting and sharing it with anyone who wasn’t there or who simply wants to review what was said makes it easy to keep projects and conversations going.

So, make sure when you’re reviewing a video conferencing solution, be on the lookout for features like recording capabilities compatibility with multiple devices and OSes, as well as screen sharing.

6) Make it easy as possible for participants to join

Time zones are just one factor in meeting scheduling. For example, if you make it difficult to join by requiring a lot of complex steps – e.g., entering a PIN, requiring specific video systems, etc. – then it’s inevitably going to be more difficult to get all remote and mobile employees on the line.

Modern collaboration platforms make it simpler to schedule and run meetings, during DST and outside of it, too. Employees can join from their mobile devices, laptops, desktop, and video conferencing systems with just a tap or click.

To learn more about how to get the most from your meetings, get started with a free plan of Cisco Webex today.

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Webex Meetings and Microsoft Teams: Working better together

Skip the trip with Webex Meetings

Working smarter anywhere – Working remotely 

Classroom supplies and Webex

Every school year, teachers create a sacred list of school supplies they need for the year. Mine typically included tissues, hand sanitizer, sticky notes, whiteboard markers, and other standard supplies. As a former teacher—Mrs. Hamill—I always started my school year off telling parents to review “The List” and thanked them for their support. While I always appreciated any help I could get, I just recently realized what had been missing from my list: technology.

Webex collaboration tools

Ever seen Webex on a teacher’s wish list? I sure haven’t, but I wish someone would have shared the need to eliminate the endless bullets (or stars if you’re fancy) and replace them with one request: Cisco Webex Meetings and Teams. I wish I knew how much time, money, and valuable teaching time I could have saved by requesting Webex collaboration tools. I’ve saved you the time and written the list for you today—you’re welcome.

Fostering healthy, safe, and supportive learning

We’ve all seen a teacher’s wish list before: as a parent looking at a take-home folder, in the store shopping, or broadcast over TV and online advertisements. Educators prioritize keeping students healthy, safe, and cared for while teaching. The tissues, hand sanitizers, and markers are a good start, but they do run out, need resupplying (insert begging over many emails), and do not support significant classroom needs.

“How do I help the student who didn’t use the hand sanitizer and is out for the next week?”

“How can I revolutionize the use of sticky notes when we’re striving to be a green school?”

“How do I host an important study session when the state just closed down for a snow day?” 

Importance of technology in education

At all levels of education, technology is not only a wish but a necessity. Had I known this when I was teaching, I could have shortened my list and added Cisco Collaboration tools, Webex Meetings, and Teams to the top of my classroom and school’s priorities. Unfortunately (an understatement), I didn’t know the answer was Cisco Webex collaboration solutions. Before exiting education, I had the opportunity to adopt and deploy Webex in an education environment. This is where the list started to shrink. Sticky notes, whiteboards, and markers are built right into the product. Connecting with kids, parents, and colleagues remotely with just one button to push? Check! Where were these amazing tools when I was teaching only two years ago? It doesn’t matter, because what I didn’t know then, I do know now.

I wish I had Webex Meetings

Webex Meetings offers teachers a way to connect easily with students anywhere, anytime. Teachers never stop teaching. The bell may have rung, and the students have gone home, but there is still loads of work and planning that will go on into the night, bleeding right into the next day. Teaching remote is not an issue for an educator. I would have loved to host office hours or answer a student’s question in real-time from the comfort of my couch.

If the school called a snow day, I would have been able to keep the momentum going, not having to play catch up upon my return. Webex Meetings allows you to play video and enable audio, use chat, and share screens. It’s so simple and a great way to stay productive.

Parent or student can’t make it to a school conference to discuss academic progress? Say hello to Webex Meetings. It allows for more flexibility and personalized attention whenever needed.

Large scale? I know, first-hand, administrators, board office personnel, superintendents, content coaches, and more don’t have the bandwidth to attend every professional development session, curriculum gathering, or state-wide initiative meeting in person. With Webex, however, I can include all those parties. Everyone is where they need to be. You truly can be in two places at once.

And I’m just getting started.

Workflow, working in a group, and collaboration- peace of mind

Webex Teams is the epitome of collaboration. The integrations are endless, and there is no disruption or pause in the workflow when working on Teams.

One of education’s best practices is “group work,” as the facilitator roves the classroom to check in on table talk that nurtures productive discussion. Webex Teams allows leaders to use Team spaces as breakouts, which allows for even more focused, quiet conversations, and personal teacher attention. I would bop in and out of spaces to check in on my students and their shared efforts.

Gone are the days of leaving the classroom (a big no-no) and running down the hall (also a demerit) to quickly collaborate with a colleague. With Webex Teams, all of my peers are at-the-ready. I juggled being the basketball coach, literacy chair, social committee member, and bus duty scheduler, which meant I talked to a lot of people throughout the day. That’s a lot of emails and way too many forbidden hallway trips. Webex Teams was where my communication and collaboration should have (remember this is a wish list) lived.

Final thoughts

All in all, my wish list looks different these days, and that’s because I have been able to cross off the majority of the list items previously mentioned with one solution: Cisco Webex Teams and Meetings.

Today, I still teach and train others, but I do it remotely, from home. I connect with people across the world, and there is no time lost. I have only invested in one box of tissues in five months, and my germs are my own, so a travel-sized sanitizer fits the bill. I still utilize sticky notes, markers, and whiteboards as they’re available in-product.

Before, when I was confined to one room all day (except for those quick escapes), I never dreamed that teaching remote would be possible. Now, I know and believe anything is possible with Webex.

Consider adding Cisco Webex to your wish list, because the school year isn’t over yet! Who doesn’t love crossing off more than one list item at a time?

Click to take advantage of Webex Meetings and Teams for FREE in your classroom.

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Blackboard Learn and Webex join forces to expand the reach of education

Cisco Webex: Supporting customers during this unprecedented time

Working smarter anywhere- Working remotely

My virtual team experience

I graduated in May of 2019, and along with my peers I faced the daunting pressure of figuring out my next step.  Like many that were in my shoes nine months ago (or still are now), the end of the road in academia didn’t present a clearly defined transition into adulthood. Unless your major led to medical school or law school, graduation looked more like the edge of a cliff, and not the top of a podium.  

If the shoe fits…

I scrapped the ‘logical next step’ option and did the next best thing: I looked for a workplace that would have the best environment in which I could grow, learn, and challenge myself. And with luck, I would also love my coworkers, and have fun while achieving all of the above. Yeah – it sounded impossible to me too. 

Status update: currently self-appointed CFO (Chief Fun Officer) of new recruits. I’m growing, learning, challenging myself, loving my coworkers, having fun, AND writing this blog. How you ask? It all started with the interview. I knew from my first conversation with Cisco that it would meet what I was looking for.  

Ready, set, recruit

My experience was typical – a 5% response rate to job applications: an email here, a link to a video conference there, a phone call.  Aside from the occasional email chain, there was no channel for me to communicate with those involved in the recruitment process, let alone a channel to get to know potential team members. In such a time of uncertainty, the lack of visibility added to my stress. There was a clear separation between me and my potential prospective employers.  I would just need to wait until someone communicated at me. That’s until I started my interviews with Cisco. Only then did it dawn on me that when a company interviews you, you are interviewing them too; you can’t just want the shoe, it must fit on your foot. 

My virtual recruitment adventure 

My recruiter and potential team members asked me to create a free Webex Teams account on teams.webex.com. This was unusual, but I was open to this interview process. Immediately, the interviewer leading my interview process began a conversation with me one-on-one and added me to a ‘space’ titled ‘Welcoming Ana Vincenti’ (that’s me) with the other members of her team she would eventually want me to connect with. A space, just for me? I was already feeling special. 

Next thing you know, I was welcomed with confetti, gifs, emojis, and enthusiastic messages from the team that they were excited to meet with me. And for the first time in an interview process, I felt (dare I say it) good. Being added to the space made me feel like I was already a part of the team, even if just as a guest for the time being. It removed the walls that I had consistently felt in all other interview processes — it’s like I was invited into the same room where everyone else was, as an equal.  

The team continued to use the platform to schedule video meetings with me directly in the Webex Teams app (I was using the online version). Outside of our scheduled interview times, the team made a point to let me know they were available to answer any questions that came up. All I had to do was message them directly on Teams. And the cherry on top of it all? The entire process happened completely remotely. I was traveling for quite some time when this opportunity suddenly popped up. Worried about how it would affect my candidacy, the team said, ‘we’ll meet you wherever you are, whenever you’re available,’ and that’s exactly what they did. 

The virtual interview process!

My first interview was with who is now my manager and took place while I was squatting outside in front of a Prada (classy, I know) in Milan, on my phone. I had my video on, looking as one does with the beloved combination of 90-degree heat and humidity. I was candid and let her know it was the only place I could find reliable WIFI. I made it clear that I very much took this opportunity seriously, despite how my video looked. She laughed, inquired about my travels, and we continued with the interview. That right there, was the beginning of what sealed the deal for me. More video interviews, gif exchanges, and messages later, I became a part of the Cisco family.  

Day-to-day

Once things slowed down, I started thinking about what my day-to-day would look like. The only question I had about integrating into the team was…’so…how tall are all of these people in real life?’ I had not a doubt that I would fit in with them on day one. I already had ample opportunity to connect with them through video, messages, and gifs (usually a clear indicator of one’s personality). By the way, I still don’t know how tall all my coworkers are.  

Some of the people I work with weekly are in Europe and Asia. You heard me correctly; I get to work with people across the globe. Not bad for my first job! That was a goal of mine for way later in my career, but Webex Teams has made it possible from the get-go. This technology makes it so exciting to go into work each day. Or rather, not to go into work, because if I don’t want to leave the house, my team and I stay connected through Webex Teams. We trust one another to get our work done no matter where we are.  

Takeaways

I took so much away from this experience. Check out some of my takeaways below:

1) Life after college. Six months in, I love my first post-graduate job. Webex Teams made the transition between candidate Ana and employee Ana seamless. I communicate with my team even more closely than I did on day one.

2) Video is key in communication. Video is key in communication. From the first interview —  on the floor in 90-degree heat (I wouldn’t recommend this, but desperate times call for desperate measures), I was able to be candid with my future team. Seeing their smiles, make eye contact, and hearing their laughs was pivotal in making me feel comfortable with the team, role, and Cisco as a whole. Ultimately, it allowed me to perform better as a candidate, as I was able to present myself just as I would in a live situation, even though I was far away. It also gave me a much more holistic picture of my future employer and was key in winning me over as a candidate.

3) Be candid, open, and welcoming of new ways to operate (especially when they challenge status quo). This is not a ‘typical’ interview process, or a globally deployed way of working. However the technology is perfectly built to support it and makes for a wonderful experience. I was unsure what this new interview process would look like, nor how I would adapt to having a virtual team. But I embraced it with open arms, was honest about how it was new for me, and the team reciprocated. This a lot of trust between us immediately, which set the foundation for the incredible experience I’m having with the team today. 

Adopting collaboration technology is easy and fun

So, business owners (and future employees), if you are still on the fence about adopting collaboration technology, I hope I’ve made the value clear. This easy-to-use platform was key in engaging me from the get-go, and I can guarantee it will have an impact on other millennials and Gen Z entering the workforce. The flexibility, ease, and comfort it provides in communication is a differentiator that businesses must invest in if they plan to engage top talent. And quite simply, it makes people happy. I’ve been able to meet faraway coworkers’ families, stay home when I need to, worked in different locations, and met so many people from all over the globe, all without missing a beat. Technology keeps the work exciting…everywhere, all the time. Let’s make excitement in the workplace the norm.

We’ve created a page with more guidance for end users and people managers on working remotely at https://www.webex.com/webexremotework.html 

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Welcome to my virtual office— Webex Teams and my workstreams

Working smarter: Managing a remote team

Cisco Webex: Supporting customers during this unprecedented time

Working smarter anywhere- Working remotely

Managing a team is one of the most rewarding and challenging experiences you can have at work.  It’s widely known that employees often choose to stay with a company based on their experience with their direct manager.  The way you form a team, share goals and work together through challenges creates a culture that out-lives deadlines. But what happens when a team takes on a new challenge – the experience of working together remotely?  

Here’s our top tips on effectively managing a remote team: 

Lead by example 

If your team is new to remote work – they may have questions and nervously look to you to set the new cultural norms.  “Is it ok if my team sees my home in my background?  What if there’s unexpected interruptions like a dog barking?”  As a leader, you set the tone for the transition.  

1. Sharing video is the new face to face.   Seeing you on video regularly is reassuring and gives you the chance to use your full communication skills – your gestures, tone and message are better received when your team can see the full picture.  
2. When messaging, remember that your team can’t see your reactions. Give your team more context on the intent behind a message by choosing from thousands of Gifs in Webex Teams to express yourself.
3. Share moments that matter.  In the office, colleagues regularly spend time celebrating birthdays, family news and personal moments that matter.  When remote – your role as leader is critical to maintaining the connections – by creating time in existing meetings to connect on non-work news or scheduling entire sessions to celebrate team news, like this virtual baby/bridal shower! 

Get social 

In an office environment, you interact with your team in–between your weekly scheduled meetings and 1:1’s – for example, when you arrive in the morning, get coffee or go to lunch.  There’s no reason the water-cooler conversations need to stop when you’re working remotely.  

1. Let’s get social!  In Webex Teams, create a space under your team for social interaction, like sharing family news, team member adventures or whatever becomes the topic of the day.
2. During 1:1 team calls, make sure you and your team member both turn on video.  Whether it’s a project update, milestone or a more difficult coaching session – seeing you face to face makes all the difference. 

Remote control your project  

Your team may be concerned about moving away from an in-person experience, where they could talk on the fly, share an idea on a whiteboard and access you for help whenever needed.  However, In many ways, working virtually on a project provides many new ways of working for your team and much more accountability, and visibility in to work in progress for you.  

1. Kick off with a bang!  During your project kick off meeting, leave time for open ideation – just like you would in an office.  Leave space in the agenda for using a virtual whiteboard to brainstorm on ideas.   anyone can contribute from their device and best of all – you can feel confident your ideas won’t be erased as they are saved and can be reopened whenever you need them.
2. Create space to catch up.  Bringing together content, with messages, links and real time meetings in a Webex Teams space is a project gamechanger.  Even if you step away to deal with other priorities – you can check back into the project space at any time and catch up on the background conversations you missed – something that’s not even possible in a live office. 
3. Being available in one click is invaluable when working remotely.  Even when you’re in a meeting – your team can still reach out to message you 1:1 and you can view it and reply when you have a moment. If they need to escalate – share your personal meeting room (PMR).  For your team – Knowing you’re available on video on any device and can easily add others to the call will leave them confident they can rely on you, even when remote.  

Stay connected

Working remotely doesn’t mean that your team should feel remote.  Stay connected through celebrations, deadlines and watercooler conversations – on any device.   Your leadership, support and use of Webex Meetings and Teams means your team can be set up for success from wherever they may be.   

We’ve created a page with more guidance for end users and people managers on working remotely at cs.co/webexremotework

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Cisco Webex: Supporting customers during this unprecedented time

Working smarter anywhere – Working remotely 

3 tips for working with remote team members

There is an unprecedented increase in remote working happening worldwide, which is growing exponentially daily. Today, due to global circumstances resulting from COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease), many who are working from home are not doing so as a perk, but as an imperative.

Let’s start with some facts

• Traffic on the Webex backbone connecting China-based Webex users to their global workplaces has increased as much as 22 times since the outbreak began.
• During the same time period, we also saw 4 to 5 times as many users in Japan, South Korea and Singapore, with the average time spent on Webex video meetings doubling among users in those countries.
• On average, free sign-ups in impacted countries are up 7 times over pre-outbreak sign-up rates.

Cisco’s proactive plan

With the recent uptick in Italy and additional countries, Cisco continues to actively monitor global traffic trends and usage worldwide, and have a proactive plan to support our customers with their changing needs. It’s our priority to enable people to work from anywhere (including home), anytime, and on any device so they stay connected with their teams and can continue their business operations. As the market leader, we’re enabling this in multiple ways.

Effective immediately, we’ve expanded the capabilities on our free Webex offer in all countries where it is available, not only those impacted by COVID-19.  Full details on the offer and eligible countries are available here

The additional features include:

• Unlimited usage (no time restrictions)
• Supports up to 100 participants
• Offers toll dial-in (in addition to existing VoIP capabilities).

Additionally, through our partners and the Cisco sales team, we are providing free 90-day licenses to businesses who are not Webex customers in this time of need. We’re also helping existing customers meet their rapidly changing needs as they enable a much larger number of remote workers by expanding their usage at no additional cost.

Expanding our worldwide meeting capacity

We’re also proactively expanding our worldwide meeting capacity, scaling up further in the United States and Europe, working with non-governmental organizations to enable schools (among other use cases), while partnering closely with our customers who are rapidly scaling up their work from home efforts.

Around the clock assistance for all business needs and continuity

Our team is working around the clock to ensure your business needs are met. Most cloud services plan and size for peak volumes – not only infrastructure but also the network capacity required. Cisco is continually improving our worldwide connectivity by working with carriers to assist with last mile connectivity, to reduce latency between our end-users and the Webex cloud. This work is enabling organizations, like The Nestbitt Center and Expert Systems Limited (both based in Hong Kong), to help their people stay connected and productive.

We are happy to support The Nestbitt Center, an organization that works with young adults with physical and mental disabilities. Like all schools in Hong Kong, the Center had to suspend their day program. Videoconferencing has enabled them to continue delivering sessions, and enabling the rollout of future therapeutic services including music, speech and language therapy.

To ensure business continuity, Expert Systems Limited have chosen to implement a two-team system by which each team alternates daily between working from home and the office. Despite less physical interaction on any given day, the collective team is experiencing a historical high in team engagement.

Our team in China

Our own team in China is also using Webex (you may think of Webex as just conferencing – but Webex includes video meetings, persistent chat, specialized work from home video devices and calling) from their homes in Hefei, Hangzhao, Suzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, and other cities. It’s incredible to witness this team’s high spirit and comradery as they work together not just in their business dealings, but also in banding together as one family, deeply connected to their communities and each other.

Closing thoughts

Cisco has been in this business longer than any other vendor on the planet. We are doing all we can and are prepared to help through this trying time. We will continue to provide our point of view, timely updates, and practical advice on remote working and much more. (See additional online resources below.)

In the meantime, our thoughts are with all those who are impacted.

Additional resources and practical advice on working remotely

• “Working Smarter Anywhere”, a blog offering practical advice on working from home: https://blog.webex.com/video-conferencing/working-smarter-anywhere-working-remotely/
• IT User Advice Page, offering technical guidance and best practices for setting a team up to work remotely: http://cs.co/webexcovid19
• End User Advice Page, offering best practices for users when working remotely: http://cs.co/webexremotework

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