Cisco CEO says All Video

Cisco CEO John Chambers

John T Chambers is the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Cisco Systems, one of the largest and most powerful technology companies in the world. Last year’s revenues topped $40 billion.

Yesterday,in a rather remarkable moment on the Cisco website, Chambers announced that the future of corporate communications, and indeed the future of the dissemination of information on the web was going to be in video.

If there is one aspect of the network that is really the killer application, it is video. Video brings to life our ability to communicate…

Well, we could not agree more.

We think that as companies move to the web, video will be critical to their ability to communicate information and ideas.

Alas, in looking at the Cisco site, while CEO Chambers may ‘get’ the concept, his company does not ‘get’ the most important aspect of video communications, and that is ‘make the video engaging’.

The site is filled with ‘talking corporate heads’. Indeed, even Chairman Chambers very interesting video of how important video is, is produced in that corporate talking head in a suit style.

Tragic.

Tragic because video has the potential to be such a powerful medium of communication, if you understand how to use it to communicate ideas. Just having someone talk to a camera leverages off of about 1% of what video is capable of doing.

I would show you the Chambers talk, because I think it is important, but I can’t because the video on the Cisco site cannot be embedded – another important point if you want to use video as a vehicle to communicate ideas.

John Chambers’ online talk is very encouraging – very. It’s where all companies are going to end up, but as with their embrace of the web 20 years ago or more, they have only just started. They have a long way to go.