Business Blogging According Cisco

Jeanette Gibson of Cisco is introing the this group to how Cisco uses blogs … externally to communicate with the public and media (the example is one on privacy and China and such).

Here’s something that I’ve heard so many times before … they started their blog without a formal policy. Then they developed one, with the help of legal of course, and the stuff is standard … don’t be stupid (essentially).

The iPhone lawsuit  … oh this is going to be good.  The Cisco approach was take it head on.  They blogged their statement, and participated in the discussion.  Yeah bloggers took Cisco to task on the Apple lawsuit thing, but you know at least they were out there.  The slide Jeanette just showed that there was very little blog chatter about earnings, it was all iPhone.  See?

The WebEx deal, same thing.  Out there, adding something beyond the press release.

Event blogs … well gee that’s good timing.  See Cisco gets it.  They blog from events!  There you go.  The behind the scenes look into a conference and giving people a look into what’s going on at the conference (especially for those who aren’t there).

The questions from the audience are pretty basic, but interesting and good.  Thus far the blogger outreach question is interesting.  Bottom line … do your research.

Cisco on Second Life … OMG, why?  Yeah it’s cool, but … well of course.  The 3D interactive web is the future … goofy maybe, but it’s true.  Just read some William Gibson if you don’t believe me (The Bridge Trilogy is appropriate given my location).  Jeanette says their customers are in SL … yeah true and frankly this kind of intense web activity is up their alley.  A 3D demo of a product in SL!  Okay that would be extremely cool.  Cisco has three islands in SL.

Oh the metrics question, yeah the hard numbers aren’t there, but when the WSJ looks to the blog for info and not PR, that really is a good thing.  Jeanette says, though, that they are trying to build more tools for that.  Let’s hope they release cool tools to the rest of us!

Legal concerns, SEC, all that … you know that stuff is important, but is not impossible.  You just have to be aware and handle them.

BTW … they use Movable Type for their blogs, oh well and here I thought they were cool .

Jeanette has made, perhaps, the most important point here.  A blog is a time commitment.  If you start, you need to blog regularly.  If you can’t do it alone, get a team.  If you’re a CEO, set expectations on what posting frequency to expect.  Jim Turner and I see this so often.  Businesses who would like to blog, but just didn’t realize that you just have to keep doing it!

Blogger outreach, not just for evangelism, but linking to other people and commenting, very important.

I’m going to close off this post so I can get a good seat (near power!) for the keynotes!