Dell Traction on Changes; Blog Council Steps Out

Busy day today for two things that matter to me:  My Company; and The Blog Council.

On Dell:

For those who follow Dell, since Michael Dell became CEO again we have embarked on some pretty major changes to get our "mojo" back, as it was once referred to.  That has included his push to have us take advantage of what we call the connected era to connect with customers online, listen, learn, engage and build relationships with those interested enough in Dell to talk about us online.  

Brian Solis takes a look at our efforts to date and notes "The company is also actively monitoring blogs, social networks, and also Twitter to identify problems and solve them, and at the same time, cultivate a sense of community by genuinely and transparently participating even when there isn't a fire to extinguish."  Read on and you'll see what sounds like a pretty good description of my job.  I said,  "My actions on behalf of Dell are not mere talk and conversation. Everyday we follow up on the online listening and the learnings we get from customers, fixing issues and bringing customers' perspectives inside Dell -- real time, real views and real customer experiences. We believe that is improving our response times, contributing to better products and services and making us a better company, that is directly connecting with customers who care enough about us to talk about us on the web every day."

I've noted before that Brian posts some pretty helpful commentary for public relations folks and is a must read, as listed in my blogroll.

Over at GigaOm, there is an interview with Michael Dell where they chat about everything from smart phones to cloud computing and the mobile web.  here is a great quote:  "What informs that advantage is the connection we have with customers and the information that customers convey to us in the process. By knowing exactly what customers want and being able to build that and provide products and services tailored to customers’ needs and being able to personalize products — that creates significant advantage and significant growth possibilities for us."

BusinessWeek also has an interview with Michael.  Again, a broad range discussion about growth in international markets, consumer business, cloud computing, software as a service and our move into retail. For marketers, here's the quote I like the best: "We're also seeing an interesting phenomenon where the direct business is starting to grow again. A lot of people had written off the direct business. Now the brand is ignited again and we've got some exciting products; marketing is interesting again. "


By the way, BusinessWeek starts the story with "Dell's uneven turnaround may be smoothing".  I must say, thats a little much for me to take.  Michael always said the changes to the business were not "short term fixes" or a short term game.  I recall last summer he responded to Bloomberg when they asked if we were 50% along the way of completing the turnaround and he said, "more like single digits."  You don't turn a 60 billion dollar business around in a quarter or two. Not in this market and sector anyway.

The Blog Council Disclosure of a Best Practice Tool Kit 

I noted yesterday that the Blog Council has a blog and suggested you keep an eye on it for today.  The Blog Council’s Disclosure Best Practices Toolkit is posted to the site today: http://blogcouncil.org/blog/making_disclosure_and_transparency_easier/
This is a training tool for companies to use to develop their own disclosure guideleines, and its an "open source"  toolkit, meant to continually change and be updated based on community feedback and commentary. 

The Blog Council is not a trade associations or standards body but rather a volunteer group of companies that share perpsectives with each other and hopefully act as "mentors" to support other businesses who want to get involved in blogging and social media the right way.  That's why I am so supportive of our activity there and Johnatdell's leadership on this front...I hope more companies blog and become more social period and this organization is meant to be supportive of that goal. 

Hope you will make sure your voice is heard and contribute in a constructive way to the "Best Practice Toolkit"