In the second half of FY12, the US Public Sector Marketing team is taking to the next level our strong focus on building awareness, relevance, and engagement with customers through our social media channels.  We are making several changes to our current plan which include the "retirement" of our Federal persona, Fred Federal, and redirecting this effort to additional channels.  Fred has served us well by acquiring more than 1000 followers, many of them key influencers in the industry. Although Fred's persona has provided an innovative and creative platform for us to share our solution stories, his retirement will enable us to:

• - Better promote Cisco expertise, offerings and events, as well as industry issues and trends
• - Address each sub-vertical with relevant content
• - Engage with more of our customers
• - Be more transparent about the source of our social media postings

In addition, we are implementing tools to listen and respond to what our customers are saying, to monitor our competitors' activity, and to track the results of our effort more meaningfully.

You can find our Cisco Public Sector-focused social media per the following offerings:

Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cisco-Federal-Government/110355786227

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cisco-US-State-Local-Government/135651874382

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cisco-US-Education/74166934989

Twitter:

@CiscoFederal

@CiscoStateLocal

@CiscoHigherEdu

@Cisco_K12Edu

Also, you or your teams may share your posts and news through the ps_tweet_this@cisco.com alias and we will post/retweet through our central PS channels.

Software defined networking (SDN) is gaining momentum in the public sector as the need to widen collaborative activities across different organizations requires more dynamic provisioning. In order to maintain affordable OpEx, many organizations are experimenting with SDN to consolidate isolated networks. Cisco has developed a proof-of-concept SDN controller designed to both maintain flexible network experimentation and consolidate SDN functionality onto production networks.

Please join us for this special Cisco Technology Happy Hour event in which Cisco's Phil Casini will discuss how the Cisco proof-of-concept SDN controller enables campus network slicing experimentation for production networks as an example of how to meet the challenges of adopting SDN.

Invite your customers to this Feb. 23 webcast where Deloitte Consulting will reveal their findings from an in-depth study comparing single versus multivendor networks. Your customers will discover the critical factors used to determine TCO and why many have found that a multivendor solution may not be more economical. There will be live Q&A after the webcast, so your customers can get their questions answered by Deloitte and Cisco experts.

Lake Washington School District (LWSD) needed to increase the throughput of its wireless network to accommodate the significant increase of wireless devices used in and out of its classrooms.

The school district installed a Cisco 802.11n wireless network to support its one-to-one computer-to-student accessibility initiative.

• A Cisco Unified Wireless Network delivered broad access to students and faculty, enhancing student learning and teacher access to needed resources
• Cisco Access Points increased throughput and provided a more reliable end-user experience
• Cisco Wireless Control System offered IT staff greater control and monitoring of the district's wireless network

The Cisco Prime Network Control System: Delivers converged user access and identity management with complete visibility and end-to-end connectivity regardless of device, network, or location.  This VOD goes over the features and functionality of this unique network management application.

Find out how the latest technology can help turn the mobile explosion from chaos to opportunity. Join us along with a special customer guest from Bowdoin College, as we examine the Aironet 3600, an access point that's ushering in a new era in mobility. Tune in to hear about the industry's first 4x4 access point with 3 spatial streams that's delivering up to 30% faster performance.

Public Sector workers are becoming increasingly mobile.  As more employees work remotely, there is a need to keep them as connected and productive as if they were in the office.  To address this need, Cisco is launching a Mobile Collaboration for Public Sector marketing program to our customers in December.   Through a series of webinars, emails and online resources, customers will learn how Cisco can help them support this evolving workforce.   New assets are posted on CEC (http://wwwin.cisco.com/us-canada/marketing/ps/mc/index.shtml) and new customer facing websites are live for Government  and Education
on Cisco.com.

Stay tuned for details on the Webinar series and demand generation campaigns scheduled to start in January.

In partnership with Telework Exchange, Cisco is hosting "Telework Week 2012," a program designed to educate, encourage and enable agencies, organizations and individuals to work remotely.  Join the movement!  Pledge to telework during the week of March 5-9, 2012 and determine your impact and savings (http://www.teleworkexchange.com/teleworkweek/)

The campaign includes a webcast series, which will be available live and on demand: "One Year Later: Status of Federal Telework" - December 7, 2011, "From Planning to Preparedness: Build Your Telework Strategy" - January 19, 2012 and "Turn the Key on Telework: Telework Pilot to Enterprise-Wide Program" - February, 23, 2012 (http://www.teleworkexchange.com/events/webcast/)  In addition, sales materials including white papers, At-A-Glances, Telework ROM BOM Generator, case studies, ROI Calculators and promotional discount materials are available.  Visit the Public Sector Marketing site for more information http://wwwin.cisco.com/us-canada/marketing/ps/telework/index.shtml 

The "One Year Later:  Status of Federal Telework" complimentary webcast highlighted the one-year anniversary of Public Law 111-292, The Telework Enhancement Act of 2010, and focused on best practices in telework management and technology. Panelists discussed strategies taken to ensure compliance with Public Law 111-292, next steps in telework program development, and the technology requirements of the law.

Attendees learned:

• Priority considerations when creating and revamping telework programs
• Best practices in gaining management buy in
• Agency best practices for collecting and tracking telework data
• Identifying and overcoming technological challenges to meet the outlined goals of the legislation

The "Turn the Key on Telework: Telework Pilot to Enterprise-Wide Program" complimentary webcast will focus on how to build and expand on an agency/organization’s telework pilot program, and implement a robust telework strategy throughout the enterprise. Panelists will discuss requirements to address when making the move towards large-scale execution and adoption of telework across the enterprise.  Additionally, panelists will detail technology requirements, challenges, and changes when progressing towards an enterprise program, including how to leverage Telework Week as a strategic component for agencies’ telework programs. 

Attendees will learn:

• Evaluating pilot program successes and next steps in implmenting an agency-wide program
• Identifying agency infrastructure and security needs
• Tailoring technology solutions based on pilot program results
• How to train employees on collaborative tools and secure technology solutions that support telework

 Join Cisco at an exclusive executive event and hear Gartner Vice President and Distinguished Analyst Andrew Butler discuss why Fabric Computing is poised to become the preferred infrastructure for virtualization and cloud computing. Gartner believes that organizations contemplating large scale virtualization or cloud computing should consider a fabric-based infrastructure given the compelling benefits this unified computing approach enables.

Hear and see government and education IT leaders from across the country share technology best practices that have helped them connect, innovate and save in this unique TeleWebcast.  You'll hear use cases from federal, state and local government, and education organizations about how technologies like virtualization, collaboration, mobility and video are helping them transform their organizations.  Access the TeleWebcast on demand.

The old rules of economic development are giving way to a whole new model for job creation that has everything to do with technology. Trends like superfast networks, the data deluge, social media, bring-your-own-device, and many more are converging to open a door to truly revolutionary improvements for our cities, states, and nations. But if we are to capture these benefits, government needs to look "beyond the bottom line" towards ever greater impact. Read the whitepaper to learn more.

Cisco is a sponsor of Consero's Government IT Forum. Mike Shepherd and Tony Berlingeri will be presenting this "Knowledge Bridge" session:

State and Local government entities are under tremendous pressure from shrinking budgets, less data center space, greater complexity in managing many and diverse platforms and applications, while trying to deliver greater value-add services.   All of this is compounded with the explosion of data and constituents demanding greater access through "bringing their own devices".

These greater business and operational challenges mean governments need to do more with less.  Cloud computing provides an option to this growing problem.  Clouds come in many different instantiations and the journey to cloud computing is a multi-step process that includes consolidation, virtualization, automation and ultimately connecting these various clouds to enable agencies to transform Central IT from a cost center to a Services organization. Questions to be discussed include:

• What are your department/agencies plans for cloud?
• What are your primary concerns?
• What applications do you see moving to the cloud first?
• What are the non-technical challenges you are facing?
• And how best can the vendor community support your needs?

Access the National Town Hall on the Next Generation Workspace, presented by Cisco, VMware, and 1105 Media, now on demand.  Federal, State/Local and education organizations discussed how they implemented desktop virtualization solutions and addressed challenges along the way.  

This event is now archived and available for viewing at your convenience: http://custom.1105govinfo.com/events/2011/1215-virtualization/home.aspx .  To view the event archive, please use the link provided and log in with your email address.

For more information on Cisco's Desktop Virtualization Solution: VXI Virtual Experience Infrastructure, please visit www.cisco.com/go/vxi.

This intensive, free one-day program, produced by Digital Government Institute and hosted by Cisco, will include detailed discussions about compelling topics facing today's technology and program management professionals in governmental and educational organizations.  The four conference tracks will review tools and techniques for effective:

• Mobile / Collaboration
• Managing Risk in a Dynamic Network Environment
• Unified Data Center and the Cloud
• Cutting the Cost of Government

Sessions will feature speakers from government, industry, and academia who will explore how public sector agencies and educational organizations are successfully implementing new processes and technologies to:

• Improve operational efficiency
• Enable workforce productivity, and 
• Deliver measurable results. 

 Additional event activities will include

• Recognized keynote speakers
• Technology showcases
• Interactive demonstrations by Cisco strategic partners
• Peer-to-peer networking opportunities
• Detailed discussion of proven customer best practices.

See attached invite to use to invite your customers.

GOMACTech is a conference established primarily to review developments in microcircuit applications for government systems. Established in 1968, the conference has focused on advances in systems being developed by the Department of Defense and other government agencies and has been used to announce major government microelectronics initiatives such as VHSIC and MIMIC, and provides a forum for government reviews.

We are kicking off our eight city VXI Roadshow entitled, "Powering the Next-Generation Virtual Workspace!!!"  This is a unique opportunity for customers to meet with subject matter experts, understand steps to success, view Cisco VXI demonstrations and detailed roadmaps and meet with solutions partners like Wyse, Citrix and VMware.

Here is the link for the most current information on the upcoming VXI Roadshow: http://iwe.cisco.com/web/view-post/post/-/posts?postId=157000004

Target Audience:

• All segments (Enterprise, Commercial, Public Sector, Service Provider (sell-to))
• Enterprise Architects, IT Architects, Desktop Virtualization/Collab/DC decision makers
• Existing or potential UCS or Collaboration customers

Key Customer Message:
        Join us for a special event that examines how to successfully deploy desktop virtualization, including why a holistic approach to the data center, network, and collaboration infrastructure will create a robust end-user experience.  We'll have our solution experts on hand, and also take you through our roadmap (NDA) and how it helps solve common VDI pain points.  We'll wrap it all together with breakout sessions with companies like Citrix, VMware, and Wyse to understand how to best make your workspace virtualization project a success.

        As a special bonus, one or more attendees will receive a VXC sample kit, to help kick off testing within your Virtual Workspace deployment. The number of prizes provided at each event is still being defined.

Agenda (noon-4pm)

• Welcome, video, exec summary (25 mins)
• Implementation steps to Success (50 mins)
• Demos (45 mins)
• Roadmap Review (30 min NDA session)
• Cisco differentiation & Next steps (30 mins)
• Partner breakouts (60 mins - Citrix, VMware, Wyse)

Follow Up Offers:

• Have customers sign up for our monthly VXI webcasts
• Invite customers to Firefly VXI Test Drive - approximately 4 weeks after event
• Offer Services Discovery session
• Host VXI Business Demo over TelePresence (confirming)

Cities:
Tuesday, February 28 - Bloomington, MN
Tuesday, March 6 - Rosemont, IL
Wednesday, March 7 - Richardson, TX
Tuesday, March 13 - New York, NY
Thursday, March 15 - Herndon, VA
Tuesday, March 20 - Bellevue, WA
Thursday, March 22 - Miami, FL
Wednesday, March 28 - Los Angeles, CA

PS Marcom has implemented new tools to monitor customers' and competitors' social conversations, and to track our effectiveness in influencing the conversation. Please contact Matt Nees with any suggestions for whom to follow.

A new U.S. Government site that merges the old Federal and State/Local Government sites on Cisco.com launches Feb. 7.  The U.S. Government page will now list all our architectures, solutions, and resources for government, saving visitors a click in reaching the content they seek. The combined site will still meet segment needs for specific content and personalization for Defense views.  However, it will also enable us to more effectively drive visitors to the site through our demand gen activities. Check out the new layout of U.S. Government page.

This month, the Cisco customer connect team completed a new internal write up for Capistrano Unified School District and a new case study for Farmington Public Schools.

Capistrano USD performed a network refresh to increase both management support and capacity for the network. Capistrano USD's network refresh can be characterized as more of a necessity than a decision. Over 40% of the existing network equipment was more than ten years old, which severely limited the USD's ability to allocate sufficient management support, and the aged networking hardware also limited access to the number and kind of programs that could run on the network. The most immediate success demonstrated by this customer engagement is Cisco's proven and reinforced reliability - not only in the quality of its products and solutions, but also in its world class customer service.

As a part of the "Farmington Forward" initiative, FPS adopted a wide range of innovative Cisco technologies - wireless and virtual - to enact their BYOD vision for the community. A large part of the success enabled students who otherwise wouldn't have mobile learning devices to engage in new education programs. Using Cisco technologies to create a BYOD learning environment freed a large amount of the district's laptops, meeting student needs in new ways and providing positive outcomes regardless of economic constraints. This is an excellent example of how Cisco technology can create and enable BYOD environments.