Paving the Roads to and from Dell with Passion??? Conversations, Rooted in Listening and Learning

Talked a fair bit lately about conversations online and using various web 2.0 tools to realizing real world relationships. Some of them have been a sort of short overview, like man, get the post up.

Today I'd like to put some flesh on the bones. Partially, because some people are asking for more evidence that social media works, partially to fill out the longer story that culminated in David Armano's blog today and last week, as well as the Direct2Dell post/vlog interview by the wonderful and effervescent Lionel.

Here is the "more to" this story.
We first met David when we responded to one his posts about a session he had with a group of students. Like a lot of posts it didn't result in a lengthy conversation but more simply a chance to share perspectives. It sort of stopped there...publicly anyway.

A couple months later that rather regular engagement in conversation made its way to a BusinessWeek Story by David. We didn't know that was coming and I don't recall David ever telling us it was.

Sometime after that we found him on slideshare.net -- shocked to see that his presentation on "Twitter Blogs and Customer Experience" not only included the RichardatDELL comments, but David's review and commentary about some of the work we were doing to change www.dell.com. He had taken the time to assess and provide constructive feedback to us, also examining direct2dell and Ideastorm

There it was: a Naked conversations. "They" are talking about you whether you like it or not.

There it was: Transparency. Losing control -- we didn't ask for a public review of Dell.com (although we certainly get them and have learned how to listen and digest that too) or his other notations about our moving into the realm of social media (Ideastorm, Direct2dell...it was and is all there).

And now there are his ideas about geek chic discussed in the vlog and lots more.

And for doubters.....hey, we are ok.

In fact, we even started our meeting with David presenting a Dell "where we are at" overview. The slides? The first group of slides were Armano's own slides because our listening to him has infused our development and directions.

While we engage and enter conversations, we are also listening closely -- on Ideastorm, direct2dell, our forums, and the bloggers who choose to comment on us. We do not always agree with what we hear. We cannot always comment on what is being said. But we do listen.

David was thoughtful. He was constructive. He had something to say and did it well. And we began listening more. One of my good blog outreach "friends" was looking for a replacement for Cathy Sieria's blog (Passionate Users)...I told him it had to be Armano's. He blogged my thinking.

We began to let David know we were listening and exchanging views from time to time. And that all came together in a full day of meetings with David.

We shared ideas, discussed with David some things he might not have been aware of and solicited his feedback. He had done his own homework too. We also just got to connect -- real world, real conversations. There were several reasons for connecting:
1. This week some of our folks join David at the Forrester conference in Chicago, so our meetings helped get the presentation planning underway.
2. David had joined Critical Mass, an agency that does some work for us, so why not get him to come and meet some of the folks involved in social media
3. David didn't know, but we had been following him, his thinking and some of his graphics after we stumbled upon them. As I noted we started "listening" to David quite a while ago.

Good Ole Dialogue, free form
Now, I've been in government relations/lobbying and communications business all my career...and for social media "newbies" (like me) or those wondering about all these changes, there is something that is very refreshing about these changes impacting business and communications beyond the listening to your stakeholders and people.

The chance to sit down in a room, person to person, have a great conversation, share and dialogue...throw the briefing notes out, just share and kick things around. Sure, we used some formal power points to give an overview of what all we have underway. We demonstrated some tools we use and that we hope will emerge from the "development" stage soon ....but the meetings value was in the two way exchange. And David blogged about it and so did we....and guess what???? We are all ok.

OK...BUT Passion? Now whats that about
Not only are we ok, we didn't "plan messages" and look what emerges. Geek shiek, yes.....but David picks up on "our passion". When I first read that I thought, excuse me???? WTF?????????

Can you imagine putting in your executive briefing note "show passion"? Or how about a tech trade or mainstream media story " they are passionate about this"? Wow....that's an interesting note by David. Sort of stopped me

Well, ok....so our being passionate showed through. It makes us human. That's ok too. And I suppose, when we stumble (as we have and as we will again) perhaps people will remember "well they are passionate", even if we make mistakes. Since this is all new turf we are likely to drop some balls occasionally...and in the meantime, some will know we are "passionate."

I hadn't thought about that coming through in our meetings. In the world of "business" and "management," is it ok that someone saw and reported on our passion? I thought for a while....why not? OK then :-)

And our passion for David Armano is now public too. What Lionel didn't mention on direct2dell.com today is that Logic+Emotion has been added to the blogroll.

I hope we get to listen and learn more. I look forward to more passionate discussions with David...and likely others, now that I think about it.