Do you have a life? How about a Second Life?
A few days ago, I was having lunch with Navid Rastegar - one of Cisco’s bright young hires. I was supposed to be his mentor. Ironically, he was the one educating me on why I should have a presence on Facebook and become active there. The world, he said, is moving towards Tweets, diggs and scraps. My response was to fall on the information overload argument and emphatically state that for now, my multiple e-mail accounts, my cell phone and instant messengers sufficed for me to be connected. Aside from the hassle of maintaining a track of all the additional logins and passwords, I told him I wasn’t sure if it was a time sink, and I’d rather spend time frolicking with my 3-year old.
But even as I was talking to him, while trying not to be uncool, I was reflecting on something I’d heard a few years ago - the Gen Y workforce is going to come in to the workplace with a language all their own. For them, this social media networking is not a chore, but a way of life. Companies that recognize this will tend to be flexible,and deliver more value to their partners and customers. Cisco is no exception.
As a company, Cisco has been slowly but surely adopting best practices in social media networking. I want to touch upon just one - Second Life. When Cisco initially launched a presence on Second Life in Dec 2006, it was a novelty. We had a few visitors, but it was mostly a lot of Cisco employees logging in to create their avatars and flying over the islands. Though it was loads of fun, I wasn’t sure if it’d really take off. But it did. Today, when we host a Second Life event, a few thousand people attend the live and archived events. The sessions are very interactive, and we find the community to be real fun. So, here’s more.
Attend a Cisco AXP Technical Session on Second Life:
We’re using Second Life to host a technical session on “Cisco Application Extension Platform - Your Open Developer Platform” with a couple of Cisco Experts, and SAGEM-Interstar. The Second Life event is on Nov 20th, 2008.
If you miss the Second Life Event, you can access the recorded version.
Cisco AXP - Ask the Experts Session:
Alternatively, you can also attend an “Ask the Experts” session from Dec 15th-Dec 30th, 2008 on the same topic. You can ask questions, and have them answered by a panel of Cisco technology experts (yeah, what could be a better way to spend the holiday season?).
Additional Questions or Comments?
If you’ve questions on the Cisco developer contest, comment about it here on this blog, or send your question to “ask-devcontest@cisco.com”. Remember, Phase-1 of the contest is scheduled to end on January 12th, 2009. So, spread the word around on the contest, and if you’re planning to submit your proposal, register quickly.
Till then - Blog on, and have fun!
P.S: I did check out Facebook, and found my boss and the rest of my management chain up there. That solved the mystery of why I was missing out on the office gossip. Suffice to say I created a facebook account now. My 3-year old can have a play-date 
Posted by Shashi Kiran at 09:58PM PST
John A. Nov 22, 2008
SL is cool. Enjoyed the session. I’ve been a SLifer for 3 years now.