Cisco: Visual Tech Support

While catching up on a backlog of reading today, I came across this article in Technology Review that included this interesting insight from Christian Renaud, senior manager of business development for Cisco:

The main goal of Cisco's Second Life initiative is to provide an online forum where customers can ask Cisco's experts questions regarding products and also receive technical support from trained specialists. According to Christian Renaud, senior manager of business development, the company plans on engaging the Second Life community as well as the real-life customers who might come to Second Life for a more visual form of technical support. Cisco intends to have employees, including technical-support staff, man the Second Life islands as part of their everyday routine, says Renaud.

Another very intriguing  sentence:

...Renaud says that Cisco would like to form a council with other corporations in Second Life to discuss security concerns with Linden Labs.

January 7, 2007

Comments

[Christian Renaud]

Hi Linda,

Thanks for the mention.

It is indeed our intent to offer a more interactive form of technical support using the 3D nature of Second Life. We are developing the tools and infrastructure currently to make this happen, which is made easier by the enthusiastic population of Cisco technical support engineers that moonlight as SL developers.

The final sentence by Technology Review was taken slightly out of context (by them, not yourself). Our intent is to work with other large enterprises that are doing business in Second Life to identify 'showstopper issues' and features that we need in order to offer services (like tech support, above). For example, and the source of the focus in the Technology Review exerpt, is the ability to confidently hold non-disclosure meetings while ensuring that the content is not overheard or archived by a third party. There are obvious business reasons and, in some settings, less obvious legal or regulatory reasons for this. This is just one example of a concern of ours and other large businesses we have spoken with. A smaller one would be asking Linden Labs to accept purchase orders, so we wouldn't have to use personal credit cards! :-)

If you have any questions, please feel free to ping me in SL, Christian CiscoSystems.

[Linda Zimmer]

I'm so glad you took the time to expound on the security issue. My personal intrepretation was along the lines you mention, but "security" can mean many things.

These issues are big for confidentiality, but for publicly traded companies, it is a legal one as well.

Linden Lab is surely facing many issues of dealing with the openness of a social world and the concerns of corporations (who have regulatory and other privacy issues an individual does not have).

If you do form this council, readers here would love to know the issues being addressed and any outcomes that could be shared. Please keep us/me updated with any links to information Cisco Systems can discuss. These are vital issues for any company doing business in SL.

And the "visual tech support" is just brilliant and an extremely productive use of this platform.

[Stef]

Hi,
Hope you can help - keep getting this error message, when I try to create an account. I just downloaded SL and I don't have other accounts - and have never had??? Thanks! K. G. Stef

"You are unable to create an account at this time.

Linden Lab reserves the right to limit the number of Second Life accounts an individual may have. If you feel you've reached this message in error, please visit our support page