In 2020, in the early months of the pandemic, Amir Ashkenazi was taking online guitar lessons when he hit a barrier, which turned out to be an epiphany.
He and his teacher found they could not access some of the necessary tools they needed in a single space, like a metronome, a PDF viewer for sheet music, a media player for playing back tracks, and a second camera to see the fingerpicking.
That's when Ashkenazi realized that video conferencing tools could work similarly, increasing collaboration by allowing users to interact with multiple apps, and with each other, in one space.
He founded Switchboard – his sixth company.
Ashkenazi envisioned a digital room that would bring the team’s tools such as apps, files, images, and videos together focusing not on the team members’ faces but on the work they share.
Switchboard, a Cisco Investments’ portfolio company, is revolutionizing digital collaboration.
As Ashkenazi says, “anything becomes immediately collaborative when you put it in a Switchboard room.”
Revolutionaries on the Front Lines of Hybrid Work
If the pandemic brought a paradigm shift to the workplace with the widespread adoption of hybrid work, Switchboard has revolutionized how we collaborate.
“At the onset of the pandemic, the main objective of collaboration tools was just to get people working from home securely. Now that hybrid work is here to stay, our goal is to create new tools that will make working from home as efficient as working in-person. That’s what we’re focused on building,” says Ashkenazi.
In a Switchboard room, team members can easily access the tools, links, multi-media and documents they need to create and interact as a group. They can add content without taking turns sharing screens, and everyone has the same context from which to work.
The persistent context of the platform saves all documents, browsers, and chat at the end of each session. At the same time, team members work side by side within their existing cloud-based tools and can view a Figma file next to a Google doc and a Linear tracker, without anyone having to share a screen or toggle between tabs.
“Context switching is very costly in terms of productivity,” Ashkenazi says. “Many people feel it in their lives with 50, 60 or 70 browser tabs open simultaneously, and it's just a byproduct of how fragmented and disorganized our work environment is today.”
Still, some pundits claim that remote work has killed team innovation and creativity, to which Ashkenazi smiles and reflects on what his remote-based startup has created.
“We are proof that a 100% remote team can be creative and innovative.”
Switchboard has won several accolades for its innovation, from making Time Magazine’s Best Inventions 2022 list as well as Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies 2023 to being named one of the Rising Stars as part of the Forbes 2022 Cloud 100 list.
Where the Mission Aligns for Cisco and Switchboard
The pandemic has revolutionized the workplace in many ways, namely by expanding the playing field for recruiters to find the right employees no matter where they live. However, remote and hybrid work has its challenges, which include stifling spontaneous conversations and genuine interaction that can happen in person.
Cisco Investments saw an opportunity in Switchboard to disrupt the digital collaboration workspace by making it as collaborative and interactive as in-person. But we also saw a deeper potential in the companies’ aligned mission to level the playing field as a path to a more inclusive future for all.
“Cisco is all about connecting people securely, no matter where they are, to build for an inclusive future. Switchboard and Cisco are kindred spirits in that way, because inclusivity, making sure that everyone can work together, regardless of their physical location, is what makes us unique. There’s no better partner for us on this journey than Cisco.”
Part of the vision is to continue improving the product to gain greater teamwide adoption. A powerful platform like Switchboard with so many use cases can sometimes run into challenges with where to get started. To address this issue, the company recently rolled out templates catering to specific personas and use cases to make setup faster and easier for first-time users.
“Whether it’s a design review or a team meeting, each will have its own template,” says Ashkenazi. “So, you'll land in a predesigned room ready for your exact needs. And we’re connecting the message through the experience to make it easier to focus on solving a specific problem.”
The Future of the Collaboration Software Ecosystem
A turning point for Switchboard came when Ashkenazi and the team unlocked the power of cloud browser technology that enabled multi-player collaboration. “When you open a browser in Switchboard, it runs in the cloud, which is the magic that allows us to make anything collaborative. So any website, whether it’s a SaaS tool or just a regular website, will become immediately collaborative inside Switchboard.”
Ashkenazi believes that they’re “only scratching the surface.” New advances in mobile technology will soon cut the laptop tether for workers who want to retain access to their entire workspace even when they’re working off a mobile device.
“One reason that I’m excited about our cloud browser technology is the ability to bring the full access of a worker’s desktop to any device you want to use,” says Ashkenazi. “It’s important that people can collaborate wherever they are.”
As the company enters its next growth phase, Ashkenazi thinks full circle about the remote workplace that first inspired it. “Our ability to hire from anywhere has made a big difference. There are talented people everywhere. Great teams are hard to build, but they’ll win in any market condition,” says Ashkenazi. “I’m so proud of the team we’ve built at Switchboard. It’s my sixth company, and I’ve never had a team so strong.”