Every year at the SXSW Interactive Conference, tens of thousands gather in Austin, Texas to get a first look at what's new in innovative technology. And while the atmosphere this year was festive, it's safe to assume that many attendees were trying to stay connected and get work done on-the-go with colleagues back in the office.

While email and conference calls have long been the staples of business communication, the reality is that people on-the-go, whose mobile devices are their business lifelines, need solutions that make it simple and easy to work together from anywhere. Since Cisco was on the ground with attendees at SXSW, it was the perfect opportunity to not only hear how they collaborate, but also discuss the future of collaboration and find out directly from users what they are looking for.

While we think collaboration is the best thing since sliced bread -or in Austin, taco trucks -we wanted to hear how users describe it: how do they use it, how does it help them, what do they wish it could do? Because Cisco Spark is so easy to put in the hands of users, we asked people to try it out.When we followed up with them, each person was consistent in describing its user-friendly interface, real-time capabilities, and accessibility from any device. But everyone had a unique story about how they would use it in their daily work lives.

Candace Dean, who works with multiple third parties to finalize projects, expressed that Cisco Spark makes it easy to bring everyone together in a way that helps her stay up-to-date and make progress fast. She also enjoys simple document sharing with people outside her organization. Isaac Naor spoke about his excitement for Cisco Spark's multiple collaboration capabilities being located in one space and having "true" collaboration tools at his fingertips. Check out their stories and hear from other people using Cisco Spark for the first time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozQTHPNghKg

Cisco Spark's name pretty much sums it up. "Sparking" a new way to work with your teams where everything everyone needs is right there, so you can make progress faster. And these stories are just the beginning. How has Cisco Spark changed the way you collaborate? If you haven't, download the app today from your app store or visit www.ciscospark.com to learn more.