When you’re troubleshooting an issue and you’re out of options or simply trying to understand a piece of technology that is new to you, what do you normally do?

Google, right? And where does that take you?
A vendor’s site should have all the answers but is that always the case? Sure not. Some don’t publish a lot, for some the information is hidden. Your best bet then is a blog.

Today I present you a list of 7 best blogs in my opinion when it comes to Cisco Collaboration and not only.

The list is alphabetical and I highly encourage you to have a look at each and every one as you can learn a lot from them.

The Magnificent Seven

Andrew Prokop has been around for a while now. Even though his blog is currently named TAO, ZEN, AND TOMORROW, the original name was SIP Adventures. Must say I really like the new format!
Personal Note: Learned a lot about SIP thanks to Andrew and boy, was it exciting 🙂

Avinash Karnani is the main author behind UC COLLABING. I don’t know how he does it but with a new post coming out every day he’s a savage!
It’s mostly shortcuts to the official documentation but you can also find some “undocumented features” 🙂
Personal Note: The theme of the blog “Learning Never Ends!!” is something that really appeals to me as it’s the real truth.

Chuck Keith aka networkchuck is my very recent discovery. I’m super excited about how excited Chuck is about technology. It’s mostly videos on the blog but definitely worth spending your time!
Personal Note: Chuck is a family guy. I respect the work he does even more knowing he has 4 kids!

Jaime Valencia is an exception on the list as he doesn’t really have a blog but you could easily create one from his posts on Cisco Community. I think Jamie is one of the most active users there with nearly 25k posts at the time of writing this. Kudos Jamie!
Personal Note: I’ve used some of his early posts when I was a rookie in the field of Cisco Collab. You can literally find some posts on CallManager 4!

Jaron Davis is another recent discovery of mine and the author behind Colla.blog. Even though it’s quite new, can’t wait to see it evolve!
Personal Note: I’ve used Jaron’s article on faxes recently as a refresher. I loved the introduction 🙂

Rich Tehrani is writing not only about Collab and definitely not only Cisco. If you want to know what’s happening in the industry, his blog is a must-read!
Personal Note: The list of recognitions Rich holds is quite impressive and something to strive for.

Vik Malhi is mostly focused on CCIE Collaboration training. The fact is you learn a lot while preparing for the exam.
But… Vik is posting a lot of valuable content on his blog that is relevant even if you’re not preparing for the exam.
Personal Note: I’ve used Vik’s blog while preparing for my attempts. I remember a post on QoS that was especially useful 🙂

Summary

There you have it – the list of Collab bloggers I admire for what they’re doing and I also learn a lot from them. I have a question for you though:

Who would make it to your list?