Creating Movements and Tribes....that Matter too

A couple months ago, I blogged some thoughts about the value of connecting...company and customers, customers and customers and purpose ideas of Mark Earls. That post was about several books and thoughts and related to Seth Godin's Tribes. He has talked before about how tribes sort of change the world, marketing perspectives, and a whole lot more. He relates it to changes as we flip advertising and marketing upside down and think about "the privilege of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them....adding up to the fact that what people really want is the ability to connect to each other, not to companies....or perhaps connection to humans who are part of companies?

You can check out the latest from Godin on Tribes over at TED site where he argues that at the same time as the Web changes mass communications, every day people like you and me go off to work to change things and have an impact....and today, we can have that impact.

His argument about living at a time of significant change certainly holds. No doubts about the Web changing how we connect, live and work; mobil devices change how we stay in touch...in fact it is not just about mobility, it is increasingly about technology's ubiquity; when and how we work is no longer governed by place and time, necessarily; and, geography knows few boundaries.

Information is so readily available, who knows what theory will explode tomorrow and if we were somehow organized enough we could probably earn our own advanced degrees, maybe without professors. As the media fragments and, in some cases, struggles to adopt, what are we to do with more information than we can digest, or ever work through or consider?

Of course, we are to rely more and more on friends and those we respect or trust.

Sure we have moved from factory to television (mass media) to the current situation of today...a period when Godin argues we demand leadership, ideas that challenge the status quo, connections with others and are ready to make commitments.

But in that pursuit of demanding leadership and all that information...and our reliance on a Tribe or others we trust, lets also not fall into the trap of sleep walking through it all. Seems we shouldn't forget to be demanding of ourselves -- not just for the right connections and exciting ideas so that we can jump into tribes. But also to require of ourselves and the Tribes we join the kind of critical thinking and thoughtfulness that keeps us progressing, challenging and thinking. In that respect, rather than just following Tribe leaders or the Tribe, we need to make and find the time to reflect and digest, coming to our own conclusions too about why, what, and wherefore. Godin talks about TV messages hypmotizing. The Web might yet prove to be very capable of that too...

At the end of the TED video Seth Godin issues a challenge: in the next 24 hours create a movement that matters. Its not just the movement part, in these chaging times. I think equally important is the "that matters" aspect of that challenge. Two thoughts worth thinking about

Corporate Blogs: 2 Leaders Speak, 3 to follow

Funny how things happen. Today two of  my favorite people posted commentary on corporate blogs.  The third best resource on corporate blogging is the timeless: Naked Conversations by Shel Israel and Scoble

Thing #1
Over at Dell's new blog about technology and education Edu4u.com Lionel Menchaca, Dell's Chief Blogger talks about lecture he gave last week.  Couple highlights...but go read the whole post:

Benefits of corporate blogs:

• Purpose: they are built for two-way communications
• Versatility: As a platform, blogs bring together text, video
• Huge and growing: According to Technorati in June 2008… 112 million and counting.
• Empowerment: Blogs empower individuals within companies and humanize companies
• Trust: People inherently don’t tend to trust corporate blogs. I told the class I wasn’t at all surprised when Forrester said only 16% of the folks they surveyed trusted corporate blogs. In my view, companies help create that reality—hence the cartoon from Hugh McLeod above. Good blog posts help us chip away that distrust at the individual level.
• No matter how transparent a corporate blog is, there are some things you can’t share. Personal blogs don’t have many limitations in this regard.
• Legal issues: When we’re dealing with safety issues like the battery recall, or other product issues that may impact lots of customers, we work with our legal team before publishing.
  

Aside from the great content and perspective, let me tell you something. Lionel is tech savvy pro, loves Dell  customers (in fact even helped this one buy his first Dell before he was a Dell employee).  He is someone I have come to know pretty well....and even though we disagree from time to time.....I ADORE him, professionally and personally.  He is a friend.  And even taught me a few things about this space (OK...maybe more than a few, but dont tell him I said that).  He is Chief corporate blogger for a reason.  He is GREAT and gets it!

Thing #2
Scoble, who I have come to know and admire working in this space since 2006, out of the blue posts a link to something he wrote in 2003.  Its here:  The Corporate Blogging Manifesto.  I didnt even know blogs existed then.  For all the jokes about Scoble's gazillion  followers......this piece from 2003 has clearly withstood the test of time.  NO JOKES. Go read it.

Conclusion: Follow them and it will come
I didnt even pay attention until August 2006.  Thats when I started to listen, learn and engage.....AND learn a few things I did from Lionel, Shel and Scoble. I still do.  You can't go wrong reflecting on these links ....and by the way, not one them talks about traffic or maximizing search or visits from Twitter.  I think if you follow their examples.....people come.

And really, that's what its all about anyway, right? 

The Value of Connecting: The Creative Age, Tribes, Social Media and ROI

Apologies for not blogging more lately, but sometimes there just is not enough time or mental space in a day after catching up with people on Twitter, popping over to FriendFeed, visiting and reviewing other blogs and working on current and new Dell social media initiatives.
Dell Commmunity Forum Got me thinking: We are excited about changes happening with the Dell Community and are in the midst of a migration to a single platform where we will be able to integrate Dell community forums, blogs, and wikis.  Its another step to connect and further build community, applying some of the newer social media tools while offering additional features for customers to further connect and communicate with each other. The Dell Community forums have been part of Dell's heritage since the mid/late 1990s when we started these online chat rooms so that Dell customers had a place to connect, share and learn online and together. 
More than Products/Services: The Value of Customers Connecting, Sharing and Being Connected

On the advice of Hugh MacLeod I recently read Welcome to the Creative Age: Bananas, Business and the Death of Marketing by Mark Earls.  Just by chance, Hugh also just blogged about Mark Earls book, social objects and "purpose ideas," something else I have been thinking about lately.  Hugh also interviewed Mark over at Gapingvoid (its great).
The Value of Connections: Mark Earls notes that companies getting attention in today's cluttered marketplace are businesses who deliver something of value beyond the physical reality or intangible associations to which we are happy to ascribe economic value.  He notes this concept is not the traditional "brand value." Rather it moves toward a sense that the business is offering to change the world for the customer and with the customer...the business and customer are connected through "purpose ideas" that engage emotion and form human bonds....sort of like a tribe.
Tribes: Connecting, Leadership and Value: Seth Godin in his new book, Tribes, states

"Thinking about stuff is easy because we can see and touch and hold the stuff....Tribes, though, aren't about stuff. They're about connections...unlike the residue of stuff, the tribal connections you can create with leadership grow, they don't fade....those connections lead to more connections.  The tribe thrives; it delivers value and it spreads...tribes are longer lasting and more effective"

Godin notes you don't tell Tribes what to do, you don't "manage" them or their effort.  For those interested in the whole issue of social media and "losing control," guess that sort of sums up that argument in a whole new way.  Godin also notes the importance of leadership (read the book). He points to three key elements for building tribes and movements are:

1. A narrative that tells a story about who we are and the future we're trying to build;
2. A connection between and among the leader and the tribe;
3. Something to do -- the fewer limits the better (organizations tend to focus on this and forget the others).

Clearly the connected era we live in today makes #2 and #3 easy.   Businesses that choose to connect online with their customers and others interested in them are on their way to building tribal strength.  If done properly, businesses benefit from the value of those connections, beyond the product or service they sell.
Value of Customers Connecting/Relationship ROI
On a recent trip to visit the Queen of PR measurement, KDPaine, I stumbled upon these signs from a turn of the century corner store. I wonder what the ROI was on these signs and whether the company ever knew or asked how or why these signs impacted customer decisions?
More importantly, I am betting these signs did not foster the kind of tribal connections or benefits associated with connections that go beyond a product purchase....Just a guess on my part.
Social Media ROI Moving Us to New Grounds? While there continues to be a debate about the ROI of social media and its development, I wonder if it offers us the opportunity to move beyond traditional measures of sales and brand image to better understand the true nature and value of connecting with customers? For a great discussion check out Jason Falls' Social Media Explorer blog. 
Social media measurement still has a ways to go in the development stage.  However, the tools available start to take us in a direction to understand engagement and connections, moving us beyond eyeballs, clicks, awareness, share of voice, or hypothetical sales results....although you can measure those too.
Value of Engagement: if you know what it is you want to measure, then often the web analytics can be found to deliver information that supports or more accurately helps business understand "engagement"....not a bad first pass for understanding tribal connections. Google analytics (and other web analytics programs) start to answer questions about who is engaging with us on a regular basis; in what way; did they ultimately make a purchase from us and do they continue to have an online (and even offline) relationship with us. 
Value of Listening and Learning: Using social media measurement tools and analytics, we no longer have to guess about whether customers are talking about us at the corner store or over a coffee at the diner.  And, we can hear it all, not depend on whether it breaks as a media story.  There is a business value to real time feedback that any business can use to constantly improve its products, services, customer interactions and overall business.  Business changes based on that feedback have value.
Thoughts? In what other ways do you think social media could result in better and more effective ROI measures for business?

Thoughts from Around the Web

Human Companies, Blog Responses: Todd Defren over at PR Squared posted a thoughtful piece this week about the approach companies take to address negative posts on the web and whether corporate community relations pros should remain unflappable or show their humanity, making them (us)– and our brands – that much stronger? 

I responded with a fairly lengthy comment.  It could have been a blog post here, so I am linking to it.

A Tribute to Randy Pausch:  If you have not seen this video in the last lecture series, check it out. One of the segments in the lecture (and related to the item above) was his comment that when you screw up and no one tells you, thats when you are in BIG trouble.  In August 2006, Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  He died this week.  Thank you for this wonderful lecture. 

Digital Age Literacy in The New York Times:  Interesting article about how we read on the web; is it better than being in front of a television or is it destroying traditional ways of reading, like reading a book.  Great quote:

Young people “aren’t as troubled as some of us older folks are by reading that doesn’t go in a line,” said Rand J. Spiro, a professor of educational psychology at Michigan State University who is studying reading practices on the Internet. “That’s a good thing because the world doesn’t go in a line, and the world isn’t organized into separate compartments or chapters.”

Interesting Graphic too from The Times

 

The New Media Divas from Blogher talk Twitter: Blog World Expo on Blog Talk Radio talks to the New Media Divas who offer insight and perspective, especially related to Twitter.  Great to listen to these pros together. The New Media Divas include: Erin Kotecki Vest, Lucretia Pruitt and Laura Fitton.

Twebinar 2 a Blast, Sign Up for Twebinar 3: Crosstech Media and Radian6, put together a wild, fun and experiential social media learning program with their Twebinars. Hosted by Chris Brogan, the second twebinar had a new more interactive format and seemed to be a hit with the large crowd.  It resulted in more than 1100 tweets in a two hour time frame --I know it kept LionelatDell and me busy and made for some fast-paced discussion on the impact social media is having on brand ownership.

Why Your Company Should Consider the Blog Council: The Blog Council has a blog here: http://blogcouncil.org/.  Glad to see JohnatDELL headlining the video about why companies might want to consider this organization.  Keep an eye on the Blog Council Site tomorrow, Monday, July 28th for some news, I think.

Social Media Club Appoints Interim Board and Focuses on Deliverables: While I was away the Social Media Club announced a new interim Board to chart the organization's strategic direction related to development of membership, acceleration of local chapter development, increase adoption of industry standards and implementation of a new legal structure for the organization.  If you have thoughts or views, I'd love to hear them as one of the interim Board Members.

Social Media Camp here in Austin:  Related news, from the Social Media Club, lets get social, have some fun and get more people involved.  Here is the link for the July 30th event: http://barcamp.pbwiki.com/SocialMediaCampAustin

New Tools: Lately I have been preoccupied trying to figure out how to make us of and apply some of the many new tools available to bloggers and people like me trying to find their way around the web, without getting lost along the way.  While I am still working with some of these tools/applications, and it took a bit of work to get there, here are some I am trying out to see if they make life on the web a little more productive and fruitful.

1. Friendfeed:  With special thanks to Louis Gray and Scribin I have a "customized" friendfeed that works for me and am finding pretty darn good so far.   The key add-ins for me are the scripts available in Firefox that add tabs and allow you to filter services.  Let me know if you want additional details to shorten your learning curve.  PS: Im not leaving twitter for friendfeed.  I use them differently :-)
2. Feedly: If you are interested in "user interfaces" and making the web more friendly for getting through feeds and finding information, versus the "raw data" sort of approach, check out this magazine style reader that integrates with information from others to give you recommendations.  Its pretty cool.
3. AideRSS: Thanks to Jason Fallis for this lead.  Very impressive for sure.  Its an interesting way to take a look at material in your google reader and see what is bubbling to the top with others.
4. RSSmeme: Is another interesting approach to see what is moving and being shared around the web.  I think both it and AideRSS have tremendous implications for business wanting to be involved with communities and determining whether their contributions online are in fact becoming part of the community. Can you say new metrics perhaps? 

Any other good finds? Other thoughts? Looking forward to hearing from you

Dell Community and Online Ambassadors

People have asked me why I am RichardatDELL and what if I leave Dell etc etc. The moniker RichardatDELL has to do with our online policy of making it clear where you work.

As for the "what if I leave Dell" or issues of tying myself to "Dell"...I have often explained there are a bunch of great people working together to listen, learn and engage with our customers.

You will start to see more of them over at Yourblog talking about personal tech...and we hope you'll come post there too. I have a couple posts going there about photography and personal tech.

Most importantly though, check out the Dell Community Ambassadors page over at Direct2Dell.

You will find these great team members who I have the pleasaure of working with every day around the web, commenting on blogs, on Facebook, on Twitter and more. Its all of them that make (or I hope help us make) Dell a human company.

I just wanted everyone to know this is a great group of people committed to connecting, conversing and doing what is right for our customers and working hard to keep up with the web, your conversations and your views. I toast them all, each and every one, every day and tip my hat to say what a great team....and watch out, more to come :-).

Information is Power? Nope. Understanding Is

Richard Saul Wurman’s Passion for Understanding

In 1962 at the “age of 26, Richard Saul Wurman began the singular passion of his life: making information understandable. Each of his 81 books focus on some subject or idea that he personally had difficulty understanding. Among his many publications is the best-selling book Information Anxiety.

Wurman is well known for creating and chairing TED (Technology/Entertainment/Design) conferences. I highly recommend spending time visiting the videos at that site. They are very interesting, engaging and thoughtful perspectives. There is now also the EG conferences bringing together the best creative people in the world to share with each other and guests. Share what? With each other it appears. And with the magnificent purpose of celebrating creativity in making entertainment informing and information entertaining. Imagine how exciting that must be to attend in California, next week.

UNDERSTANDING from Conversations about Information

In Richard Saul Wurman’s 2000 publication, UNDERSTANDING he noted we live in an era where public information is ours. As information increasingly becomes more publicly available it is our right to ask questions; and, get answers to the questions we asked.

He is a proponent for visual "architecture" being applied to enhance our ability to fathom questions and answers in ways that lead to a better, more nuanced and fuller perspective. Helping digest and communicate about data in deeper more meaningful ways fosters rich and full perspectives and perceptions -- that would be "understanding". He said:

“Conversation is the most natural, effective, yet most complex mode of human connection. The goal of conversation is understanding between the participants… Understanding information is power.”

“I dream of asking a question, a single childlike question and receiving an answer.
What a dream! The dream is here. We are at the cusp of the marriage of information technology and information architecture. Our extraordinary ability to store and transmit data will make this dream a waking dream.”

He called it the primitive formation of a new era and pointed out how he loved beginnings.

I recall this because it was the beginning of my own primitive formation too. His wonderful (although slightly dated today) publication has become dog eared and is falling a part from years of “understanding” efforts on my part. UNDERSTANDING is a visual communication of the social, commercial, educational, technological, media, political and other trends impacting the USA.

My UNDERSTANDING

My copy of his book means a lot to me. It was given to me by a friend the day I submitted the first “batch” of papers that would begin my journey to becoming an American Citizen. The statistics and data inside the book meant something because it was a personal gift on a personal occassion, from a personal friend. It became part of my personal journey to understand my soon to be country/citizenship-of-choice. Wurman’s book helped me to more deeply understand a different society than Canada (and yes they are different but that is another story for some other day). His book was part of my personal journey to more deeply understand the society and country I had decided to make my home.

Wurman says that successful visuals are like a “frozen conversation.” I marveled at how the visuals made the data understandable, multi-dimensional and nuanced, like a conversation and like the country itself. Wurman and his team gave the statistics (which I was never any good at, except in political polling) meaning in his frozen and absent way.

That personal journey led to my American Citizenship in downtown New York City – just a few months after 9/11. That personal journey and choosing one’s citizenship was an important personal decision and commitment. Wurman’s frozen conversation with me contributed to understanding. I listened and learned. Citizenship was granted and took place in the shadow and sorrow of 9/11.

Business, Meaning and Understanding

Just as I made my personal decision to become a citizen of this great country, I made a professional and personal decision to leave friends and a city I called home to come and be part of a company that is going through growing pains and change. Having been here, it’s the people, conversations and understandings that make it meaningful and powerful. Im not sure we are ever really objective. Im not sure understanding is objective.

Statistics have not given the story meaning. People have. Being committed to listen, learn and do better is not a bad place to start. Its an “ethos” to believe in, if you want to make a difference in the world and for business, and for other people.

And then there are the people who are prepared to have that conversation with you, because you are a person, even if all is not perfect. Together we work to understand and do better…that is the positive power of understanding and consideration. Like the Social Media Workshop group; or the author of a book like the Fred Factor

Change Understandings or Stagnate?

And as Dell is 22+ years old, who among us at that age didn’t make mistakes. The real question is did you learn from them? And, did you keep going and growing to be the best you can be? Are you listening to those you want to have a conversation with? Are you learning? As Michael Dell said to Jeff Jarvis, business issues ebb and flow and you take action “in a continuous improvement sort of way.”

For those in other businesses -- irrespective of your age or your company's -- are you treading water? Afraid of change? Got the walls up to only interact when you choose? And only with your information? The trends do not bode well for those business or communications strategies. I suggest you get ready. As my frozen conversation friend might say, the information is going free. Moré more and more is coming and coming at you, with understandings others have imbued it with. We are just at the beginnings.

For example, there was more content on YouTube in 2006 than on the Web in 2000. I don’t want to pre-empt the video included with this post, but think about what is said in it versus these stats from Wurman’s 2000 book, with great visuals I cant re-produce here. Better yet, go have a conversation with someone about the numbers and see if these numbers start to come alive and have meaning in a much more powerful and meaningful way because of the complicated art of conversation. Talk about the changes between the video information and this data from Wurman seven short years ago:

• the Internet reached as many Americans in its first six years as the telephone did in its first four decades.

• When looking at a range of technologies, Americans expressed greatest enthusiasm for communications technologies like the Internet and saw technologies like computers and cell phones as continually contributing to a better life.

New Beginnings and Powerful Understanding

Im with Wurman. You got to love beginnings.

What he is up to today sounds like a "blow your mind" project. As for me, Im focused on no blow your mind project, just solid listening and conversing and seeing what its like to be a listening and conversing company in a time of change. For my friend David Armano, it is all beta.

The online connections and conversations will explode in the next few years. People will access information and produce more data than we can comprehend, maybe more than we can "manage". That information will be shared and mashed up and distributed. But on its own, the information is mere data. It is static. It has no meaning. And no company that I can think of will give that information meaning either.

That information produced and shared by people will access and whip around the web, around the world. All those 0s and 1's processed in cell phones or laptops and swirling about through servers and networks and complicated connections and held in large corporate data centers -- its nothing. Its data.

Information and data is only given meaning through the most natural, effective, yet most complex mode of human connection, conversation. Some of it may be frozen conversation, but is still people adding value through sharing and considering. Interactions that count.

Only people are capable of interacting, and buiding information into understanding and power. Conversations provide context, nuance and meaning to static information. It’s all messy and subjective. But messy and subjective is also meaningful, understandable, connectable, perceptable and real. Its why brands are suppose to have a "value"...they are not objective.

Businesses thrive on organized, objective data. Its "management" and "equitable. " Its not. Its people interacting. Its messy. Its real. People are not emotionless robots, they are human with values and subjective views. And that is why conversations are rich and full and can create meaning and understanding. Those shared perceptions are very powerful....just ask a so-called objective brand manager.

Video and Your Conversations

The video accompanying this post has some good data/ information. The visuals are part of the “frozen” conversation and contribute to several important issues. Those issues deserve rich and real conversations. The conversations could be between you and me, between you and Dell, between you and a neighbor, a boyfriend or girlfriend, your best friend, spouse, or another brand. That’s really not my business. Im just here as an advocate to have the conversation and make it real.

I am interested in you and others joining the conversations you choose to chat with and that you think are important. See if the conversation is natural, complex and yet results in better understanding. I am willing to bet that the understanding from a conversation is powerful and meaningful. The data-information on its own falls flat in comparison.

The video was used as part of Michael Dell’s keynote address at Oracle World this week. Yes, the video has its promotional elements. I encourage you to drop the cynical perspective, even just on a flyer, and have real conversations.

As the video notes we are 80,000 people around the world listening and wanting to do more. This is more than just Dell the company; it’s the people who work at Dell…a lot of us listening, learning and working to achieve some things we believe are right, while listening and learning all along the way. We want to do the right things for an increasingly complex, connected and resource-limited world.

We think we can accomplish a whole lot more by listening, learning, having conversations and working with others.

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.