The problem lies in the fact that all too often companies want to control messaging and conversations. It has been said before (somewhere), but the funnel really has been flipped upside down. Manufacturers are no longer in control – their customers (and their customers) are.

Here’s hoping more realize this and adjust their views accordingly.

LinkedIn I have a suggestion if I may. When I tried to search for it as if I didn’t have the link I used ‘Dell’ which of course brought up 50+ groups that any one of your partners is too busy to look through. I found nothing when I searched Dell Channel or Dell Partner because you named it Dell PartnerDirect which not everyone would know is the name of your channel program. I know legal and the branding police may have a fit but if you saved it Dell Partner Direct more partners and fans would find it.

Facebook page is always fun and anything to get partners and Dell channel professionals singing kumbaya is a good thing!

Has anyone heard from Symantec or Microsoft? Would love to hear what exciting things I am missing there as well. I did hear from EMC yesterday so look for an updated post and announcement next week!

Kidding aside, The VAR Guy warned Heather — politely but firmly — that he disagreed with her views on Cisco social networking. Now, let’s see if the EMC and Symantec folks weigh in…

And despite the differing views on Cisco, The VAR Guy is thrilled to have Heather’s voice and channel experience on this site.

1) It was Dec. 2006, when Cisco established a presence in Second Life and some would say we have been a pioneer in using Second Life as a business tool as discussed in this April 26, 2007 Information Week blog post. On top of that it was May 2007, that Cisco hosted one of the first channel partner events in Second Life as discussed in this VARBusiness blog post.

2) It was April 2007, when a little known blogger, The VARGuy, was approached by Cisco to have exclusive access to follow, former Senior Vice President US and Canada Channels, Chuck Robbins, around during the Cisco annual Partner Summit, allowing for great behind the scenes posts and helping to launch one of the first IT channel blogs.

3) In Sept 2007, Cisco launched Partner Space, an industry first virtual environment that facilitates partner to partner collaboration.

4) Last year at the Partner Summit Cisco launched Partner Exchange, designed to help Cisco partners find, connect, and collaborate with the right group at the right partner. In addition, Cisco took its Partner Summit virtual, becoming one of the first vendors to host a virtual partner conference, which was discussed in this Business Week story.

5) Currently, Cisco has numerous executives on Twitter, including its Senior Vice President of Worldwide Channels Keith Goodwin

In closing, it should also be noted that until the launch of “Channels” on May 1, we used Cisco’s corporate blog “The Platform” as our blog for partners. The Platform gets more than 125,000 hits per month with one of the largest audiences being channel partners.

Still, The VAR Guy disagrees with Heather’s conclusions regarding Cisco. The company has been posting Channel-related videos to YouTube and engaging third-party blogs (including TheVARguy.com) for multiple years. In fact, Cisco claims to have 13,000 bloggers, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Another side note: Heather has disclosed that she previously worked at EMC and Dell, focusing on their channel programs.

Alas, The VAR Guy doesn’t know enough about the social media strategies at EMC and Symantec to defend their efforts against Heather’s quick hits. Anybody else care to debate Heather?

The VAR Guy is all ears.