PowerPoint presentations appear to have become the achilles' heel of Cisco Public Relations!
First, it was the unauthorized release of an FBI PowerPoint Presentation that blasted Cisco and its Gold/Silver Partners for selling counterfeit gear to government and defense contractors.
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And now later today, a 90-page Cisco PowerPoint Presentation will be the focus of a U.S. Senate Judiciary Human Rights Subcommittee hearing on the Global Internet Freedom Act, which aims to defeat Internet censorship.
According to U.S. Congressional Investigators, the internal Cisco marketing presentation appears too eager to assist the Chinese Ministry of Public Security in its goal of combating hostile elements.
Testifying at the hearing today on behalf of Cisco will be Mark Chandler - Cisco Senior Vice President Legal Services - General Counsel and Secretary.
The official Cisco response to this blog story:
Brad,
The Senate Judiciary Committee today asked us to review an internal 6 year old presentation from a 2002 Cisco internal presentation that makes reference to the Falun Gong.
| 1. | The presentation entitled An Overview of Public Security Industry was prepared for internal use by a non-managerial Cisco employee in China. |
| 2. | The document consisted of 90 PowerPoint slides reviewing Chinese government initiatives and various networking projects being undertaken by the public security branches of the Chinese government. |
| 3. | The purpose of the internal presentation was to educate Cisco employees on: |
A: The national public safety structure.
B: Government initiatives to establish/improve its IT infrastructure, otherwise known as the Golden Shield Project ("Project").
The Project was an effort of the Ministry of Public Safety of the PRC ("MPS") to improve its efficiency.
It was part of the e-government initiative by the State Department of China.
Among others, there was golden taxation (upgrading of processes, technology, customer), golden customs (re-vamp customs bureau) and golden shield (modernization of federal, provincial and local law enforcement agencies).
They were:
A: To crack down on Internet crimes.
B: To ensure the security of public Internet services.
C: To combat the Falun Gong cult and other hostiles.
The content of this slide are direct quotes drawn from the public speeches of a Chinese government official, Mr. Runsen Li, chairman of the Project Steering Committee.
Those statements were included in the presentation to reflect the Chinese government's position.
They do not represent Cisco's views, principles or its sales and marketing strategy or approach.
It is very regrettable that one of our engineers quoted directly from Mr. Runsen Li, the Chinese government's head of IT for the Golden Shield project in this internal presentation.
However, we do stress that those statements were included in the presentation to reflect the Chinese government's position.
They do not represent Cisco's views, principles or its sales and marketing strategy or approach.
They were merely inserted in that presentation to capture the goals of the Chinese government in that specific project, which was one of many discussed in that 2002 presentation.
The presentation was 90 slides long, was for internal training only and covered many IT infrastructure projects that were active in China in 2002.
Terry Alberstein - Cisco Director of Corporate Communications
Related stories:
Chinese Internet censorship: An inside look
Mark Chandler Senate Testimony - 05/20/08
View the Cisco China PowerPoint Presentation
Why do YOU think PowerPoint Presentations have become the bane of Cisco?
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