Cisco Canada, in celebration of our 25th anniversary, launched a search for 25 notable Canadians who through their vision and leadership have helped to transform the lives of others in Canada and around the world.
More than 800 nominations and stories were received, inspiring Canadians from coast to coast. From humanitarians and climate change activists, to child-rights advocates, and business champions, the list spanned leaders in six categories: business, science and technology, environment, education, healthcare and community. To see the impact that these Canadians and all those who were nominated have made not only in Canada but also around the world makes me proud to be a Canadian.
The 25 Transformational Canadians program was launched on September 14, 2010 and has set records as one of the most successful “custom content” campaign ever launched by the Globe and Mail. In a few short months over 200,000 Canadians have visited the site registering comments, uploading videos and photos in support of nominations for over 800 inspirational leaders – almost triple of our original target. By celebrating these extraordinary leaders, Cisco is helping to extend their stories, their visibility and, through gifts of collaboration technology, their ability to scale.
According to Willa Black, who is the visionary and architect of the program:
The Cisco Canada team saw the celebration of Cisco’s 25th Anniversary as a great opportunity to set Cisco apart, and reinforce our relevance in Canada as a driver of transformational change, and our commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility.” This breakthrough program bought together Cisco Marketing, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sales team in a powerful campaign to position us a multi-national that is decidedly “good for Canada”. In partnership with The Globe and Mail, Canada AM, and Cyber Presses.
The work on the campaign does not stop here! Each leader will receive up to $25,000 in Cisco technology to demonstrate the potential of Cisco solutions and products to enable great Canadians to scale, and do more great work.
And on February 24th we will gather these leaders for an event in Toronto to lead a discussion with the Globe and Canada AM around excellence in Canada, the challenges we face, and how we tap into our strong sense of social justice, innovation and drive as we move into the next decade.
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What is Cisco ūmi? Think of it as a TV-based video conferencing tool designed for consumers to help stay connected with our loved ones (for now in the US). You and the person you want to connect with each get a Cisco ūmi, hook it up to your TV, pay a monthly fee and you’re ready to chat away with grandma and grandpa on the East Coast or with your son or daughter in college. Wondering how to set it up? Check out Cisco ūmi social media manager, Zoya Fallah’s blog and first video message using this product. Then, read Alisa’s story on how she used ūmi to connect with grandpa.
Now that you have a better understanding of what Cisco ūmi is and what it does, let’s shift gears. The purpose of this blog post is to share with you how we introduced this product. This launch wasn’t just about a new product, but about a new experience…Our goal was to show through Read More »
I’ve never been a fan of the way that Facebook photos jump me from mini view to another page. But this new lightbox like version of clicking on photos really rocks! Nice work Facebook. Too bad the first experience I had was Tyler’s ugly mug!
Click on photos in your Newsfeed or Notifications to see the new feature.
There it was, in my living room against the wall. My comfy couch. The couch that has been the place of many fond memories. Now, I was on a quest and I had to sell it. I had couch 2.0 on the way. I decided to post an ad on an online marketplace and after many spam emails, several scam attempts and an invitation for a drink (ha, no, I did not post my ad on Match.com), I did get emails from people that seemed genuinely interested. A great start, or so I thought. I responded to each person and called those who provided their phone numbers. To my surprise, I only heard back from one person. This experience got me thinking: has the social web, and electronic communication in general, Read More »
Last week, I explored 4 reasons for not adopting social media. This week, I’ll be focusing on the second phase of adoption: experimentation. Let’s call this group “Seekers”. The Seekers are the early adopters gaining hands-on social media skills, experimenting with different tools and learning how to connect with their audience. In this phase, financial and human investment in social media marketing is typically scarce and most likely this group will not have advanced listening, monitoring or analytics tools besides the free resources available. The Seekers can be found in small pockets of the organization and their activities will be limited to a group, department, function or program. In large organizations, this phase will typically happen in silos where one or a few groups start experimenting independently. Some companies may decide to set up a central social media group, a hub, to test social media tools and tactics, and keep participation within the four walls of their department. Regardless of where the effort originates, these groups will not be about scale and sophistication. The first wave of Seekers within a company are known as the pioneers. Their grassroots efforts help prove a concept and set a foundation for others. Read More »
Collaboratively written by Charlie Treadwell and Sushant Sahani as a summary of the Social Media Club – Silicon Valley chapter’s inaugural event titled Social Media for Social Good.
With no shortage of events for marketing professionals to speak about social media, ROI, lead generation and corporate adoption, we thought it would be great to share our experience participating in an event from the opposite side of the spectrum. At PayPal last night, the inaugural meeting of the Social Media Club – Silicon Valley chapter focused on Social Media for Social good. The panel consisted of:
Louis Gray, vice president of marketing at My6Sense, and a well-known commentator on social media tools and trends, will moderate a top-notch panel including: Read More »
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We’ve all seen the amazing innovation and mass adoption of mobile apps like Groupon, Foursquare and Yelp, but I’m starting to believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg. With mobile penetration in the developing world far surpassing wired, innovative people are beginning to use seemingly simple technology like SMS to drastically improve people’s lives.
Source: ITU World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database.
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This week, I’d like to explore 4 concerns of the Mistrusting: fear of losing control, fear of change, lack of commitment or support, and lack of knowledge or skill. The other name for The Mistrusting is The Missing because they’re absent from social media. (If you need more background on what I’m talking about, please read last week’s blog.) To lighten things up – and because I’m inspired by the music playing in the background -, I’m going to use song titles as sub-heads. Grab a cup of coffee or tea, sit back and relax…this is going to be a longer post.
Losing Control (I.e. Fear of Losing Control)
Control over what? According to a report Flowtown published in February 2010, each year the number of people engaging in social conversations on the web increases by about 30%. The same analysis reveals that 80% of the social community’s engagement with content happens on platforms other than the one the content originated on. (1)
Whether or not a business embraces social media is only part of the equation. Many people already have – and they can (and will) say whatever they want to about your company. Dialogs and information exchange are already happening online.
Social media does not create these conversations, it just provides a series of platforms to move them online and uncover them. Read More »
I’m participating in a panel discussion at PayPal on Thursday evening about using social media for social good. This is the inaugural meeting of the Social Media Club – Silicon Valley, and it will be a great opportunity to meet some social media professionals.
I’m extremely interested in this discussion, as I am only 3 months into my new role as Marketing Strategy Manager for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). I believe social media is powering a revolution in social causes today.
Please join us at this event if you’re in the bay area, and if you can’t make it, I’ll post a follow up blog and try to capture some video interviews.
Community Managers are the unsung hero of social media ballads. However, today is Community Manager Appreciation Day (#CMAD), so step away from your Facebook, Twitter, Quora, or blog and give yourself a pat on the back!
In honor of #CMAD we created this image that truly captures the role of a Community Manager.
Don’t forget to set your reminder for Community Manager Appreciation Day (#CMAD) which happens Monday January 24, 2011. (Watch Cisco’s LaSandra Brill interview Altimeter’s Jeremiah Owyang on this topic below.)
Held the fourth Monday of every January, this holiday is meant to make our community managers aware of just how much we appreciate what they do. You know, it’s not just posting content. Community Managers are responsible for the overall experience and relationship one develops in a community. Community Managers can be answering a support question one minute, developing a new community the next, while submitting some product innovation feedback on behalf of their communities. And that may just be in the first couple hours of coming into the office…
My yoga studio is packed these days. No wonder, it’s January, -- the time for new year’s resolutions.
I’m not big on new year’s resolutions because I feel like I can make a change at any time but, I want to start off this year with a new blog series: Lost in Social Media or #lostinsm for short.”What inspired the title of this blog series?”, you might ask. Getting lost in Iceland. Not kidding (check out the evidence below).
You see, I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time now: how do we, corporations, evolve or grow in our social media adoption? Over the next few weeks, Read More »
I was traveling last week. I decided to order a shuttle service for the one-hour trip from San Jose to the San Francisco International Airport. Last week, however, the trip took 2 hours. Our super helpful driver tried his best to speed up our travel time by taking a different route and changing freeways -- but with not much success.
As I was looking out the window admiring the long parking lot on the freeway (insert sarcasm here), my mind started wondering: “I wonder what’s going on out there while I’m sitting in here”. Fueled by curiosity, I later jumped on the Internet to do some research and got my calculator out. Here is some fascinating information on what 2 hours means in the world of social media and web 2.0. Read More »
We’re so thrilled that Santa spared 2 minutes of his time today to give my dear friend and colleague, Nancy a short interview on how he’s using social media this holiday season. We connected with him at the North Pole using Cisco WebEx and Flip technologies. Check out our interview with him and pass it on to spread the holiday joy. Read More »
Mark Zuckerberg is Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.” As I read the article which talked about the growth of Facebook as being close to twice the size of the U.S. and Zuckerberg’s net worth estimated to be almost $7 billion, I started thinking about my own personal journey with the social entity. I recalled the days in 2006 when my brother who was in college at the time, kept harassing me to get on Facebook. He told me that it was a way to connect with all of my friends and that once I start, I wouldn’t be able to stop. Mind you, those were also the days of Friendster and MySpace. So as a professional who tries to maintain a healthy balance between my personal and professional life, I told him what I’m sure others who’ve been asked to join Facebook have said in the past, “I am a very private person and don’t have time to play with friends online.”
