March 4 marks the beginning of the third annual Telework Week, a week-long effort to get public sector agencies, companies and individuals to pledge to telework. Once again, Cisco is proud to be a platinum sponsor of this worthwhile event.

Last year, more than 71,000 people -94 percent of whom were federal employees -participated, saving more than 250,000 hours in commuting time and more than 6.4 million miles of driving. It was a new record, but this year's participation promises to be even greater and we have already surpassed our goal of 100,000 pledges. Among the federal agencies participating this year are USDA, DOT, FEMA, NASA, FAA, and USPTO.

Telework has evolved over the years, from "working from home" with a PC, a telephone and a simple VPN connection, to mobile connectivity and video collaboration that enable employees to truly interact with one another and access critical data, anytime, anywhere, on any device. As more and more people adopt these technologies the advantages will become even more widespread including increased productivity, improved work/life balance, better continuity of operations, reduced operational expenses and environmental benefits.

Cisco is not only a sponsor of Telework Week, it is an active participant. Eighty-nine percent of our global workforce of over 72,000 employees telecommutes at least once a week. Cisco enables voice, video and data on mobile devices and at the desktop thanks to Cisco's secure, integrated network architecture and collaboration technologies including Unified Communications, WebEx, TelePresence, Jabber, Unified Contact Center and WebEx Social. We provide the foundation for individuals and organizations, such as federal agencies, to reap the benefits of teleworking.

Specifically, Cisco is empowering the federal mobile workforce to access government services, tools and technologies from the field to optimize efficiencies. Through our flexible and agile solutions organizations can enable their employees to work the way they want to work, driving costs down and making smarter use of human capital.

I am committed to teleworking during this week, and hope you will as well.

To learn more about Telework Week, click here. To learn more about how Cisco is enabling the future of workforce mobility, please visit www.cisco.com/go/telework.