October 23, 2016
Cisco has a bit of a reputation within the technology industry for purchasing and acquiring small technology startups to improve their own technology offerings. That reputation continues to be true this month as Cisco purchased the collaboration software developer startup, Worklife, out of San Francisco. Cisco plans to continue selling Worklife as a standalone product, but, more interestingly, Cisco also intends to integrate the application with Cisco Spark.
This move is sure to bolster the appeal and excitement surrounding Cisco Spark with new capabilities and better time management in meetings.
What is Cisco Spark?
Cisco Spark is an all-in-one collaboration solution unlike any other. It combines chat, file sharing, video meetings, and more in one application, and packages all these features into what is called a “Spark Room.”
A Spark Room is a persistent digital meeting space. Project teams are invited to and assembled in a unique Spark Room where the team can post files, discuss projects, host meetings, and stay organized. Because the rooms are persistent, users can exit and enter the same room as much as they like and review content and discussions posted in the room at any time.
Perhaps best of all, Cisco Spark is based in the cloud. Users can access their Spark Room from anywhere, anytime, and on any device.
Worklife: Bringing Better Meetings to the Table
Worklife was founded in 2014, and in a couple short years, it has garnered a lot of interest within the collaboration market. In essence, the product is simple. It allows meeting organizers to create meeting agendas and easily share meeting notes and minutes among the team. Upon closer inspection, this simple tool has tremendous value.
- Review meeting agendas for all meetings: A sleek calendar app allows you to review all your meeting agendas throughout the day at a glance. The calendar integrates with your Google Calendar or Microsoft Office 365 Outlook calendar.
- Meeting Agendas, Notes, and Tasks: Set your meeting agenda in clear and concise bulleted lists. Make sure no topic slips through the cracks in your meetings and your conversation stays on track. Furthermore, the team can add notes for each agenda item and create tasks to complete before the next meeting.
- Cooperative Control: Much like Google Docs, Worklife allows every user in the meeting to edit the same agenda, tasks, and notes at once. The entire team is literally on the same page.
- Meeting Templates: Save time and leverage Worklife’s library of meeting templates.
Combining with Cisco Spark
Cisco Spark is already changing the game for project collaboration and coordination, and the Worklife acquisition serves to make an already impressive solution even more so. Project teams across the globe can partner together in their Spark Rooms and meet at the drop of a hat. Now when a meeting is called to session, Spark and Worklife will make sure it stays on track.
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