November 15, 2008
so what’s a crazy-ass cartoonist in alpine, texas going to do about dell, anyway?
[“Edges 6″. Part of The Edges Series. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
I’ve spent a lot of time in the last few days thinking about Dell Computers, a tech hardware company from Round Rock, Texas. Here are some notes:
1. When I developed The Blue Monster idea for Microsoft, a wee voice told me there was a business model in there somewhere. Some kind of post-advertising, Purpose-Idea, social-object, marketing-disruption kind of thing. Something that would scale, something one could turn into a little cottage industry, creating TONS of value for the fraction of the cost of the traditional advertising agency model. Dell liked the idea, and let me have a meeting with them. Since then I’ve been having this little back-and-forth with them, trying to get know the company better, trying to figure out an “Angle of Alignment” with them that would hopefully allow me to create something interesting.
2. So far it’s been a great experience. Working mostly with Richard and Lionel, they’ve been introducing me to tons of people, while I’ve been trying to get my head around the company– what they do and why they do it.
3.Though I find it a bit simplistic [nor do I agree with much of it], I love this article from Fake Steve Jobs, “Why Dell Won’t Bounce Back“
Bottom line is this: the only innovations worth making are the ones involving product ideas and product design. I mean, Duh. Right? It’s pretty obvious. What’s amazing to me is how few companies actually seem to realize it. To sustain an edge in any market you must make better products than your competitors, consistently, over and over and over again. Just making the same products as everyone else but taking a little friction out of the system can give you an advantage, but only a temporary one.
The article basically lines up all the most obvious challenges Dell faces. Like I said a while ago, I see Dell’s challenges fall into four main categories:
i. Evolution of customer service. Sure, they have a ways to go. Then again, don’t we all etc. They’ve certainly come a long way since Jeff Jarvis and the whole “Dell Hell” episode, which gives me reasons to be cheerful.
ii. Design. Ten years ago, I didn’t own a computer. I really didn’t. The company I worked for gave me one– a Mac desktop. The internet was still relatively still in its infancy back then, so besides using Word to do my job, sending emails, and surfing the net occasionally, I didn’t really have a lot of use for it. Now I can’t imagine life without my laptop.
To use a Real Estate allegory: When your company sets you up with a temporary accommodation in a new town, you don’t really mind too much that it’s Embassy Suites. It serves a function. But let’s say you’re looking for a new house for you and your spouse and young children to move into, your needs become A LOT more exacting. Not to mention, a lot more expensive in terms of both square footage and decor. There’s a reason why commercial real estate tends to be cheaper than residential etc.
More and more people are using their own computers to do their work. Their “Own Homes” for their data, as it were. Dell has long been been in the “Temporary Accommodation” business, for other people’s data. And now as the market changes, they’re having to make the move from building “Embassy Suites”, to building actual “Private Dwellings”. There’s a contextual headshift to work through. And it won’t happen overnight– it’s a big company.
iii. India & China. In 2007 for the first time, Dell made more money from outside the USA than from inside it. 50.2% vs 49.8%, I believe are the figures. The question is not about how one get more business from the West Coast, Mac-using hipster crowd. The big question is, how do you get technology into the hands of people who THIS SIMPLY WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN AN OPTION FOR, even a couple of years ago?
iv. Culture. To me this is the biggest issue of the four. You can’t thrill your customers until you thrill yourself first. Let’s face it, a big part of the Dell schtick is built around processes– sales, manufacturing, controlling costs and all that lovely, corporate back-office stuff. That’s fair enough, most big companies operate like this. I would very much like to know, what percentage of Dell employees feel “This is just a paycheck”, versus how many feel, “Dammit, we’re frickin’ changing the world here”…?
4. Somebody at Dell once described his employer as “Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.” Though my granny always told me that it’s good to remain humble, and to a large extent, I do agree with that sentiment, I did scratch my head a wee bit at that one. Does Microsoft see themselves as “ordinary”? Does Apple? I doubt that they do.
5. Though it’s still early days, I think Michael Dell coming back from retirement to captain the company [like Steve Jobs did at Apple] is a big deal. I think the effects are only just beginning to show themselves. Personally, I’m glad to have him there.
6. Part of my motivation for working with Dell is simple patriotism. For 20 million Texans to prosper long-term, we need large, world-class creative powerhouses. Same as every other state in the Union, same with every other nation on Earth. We’ve done the efficiency thing for three hundred years, and have gotten quite good at it. Like I said in my talk at StartupEmpire the other day, the future of wealth is now all about “Creativity”. Embrace it, or die.
7. They’re called PCs, they’re not called BCs. They’re called personal computers, not business computers. That being said, the demands of an affluent, creative American are different from the needs of an IT manager in a large widget factory. As the lines that separate business and personal get ever more blurry, I see all major computer companies [including Gosh! Yes! Apple!] struggle to bridge the gap.
8. I asked somebody at Dell what she thought made the company so special, what separated it from the others. “Basically, we’re tenacious sons-of-bitches,” she said. Good answer! As I spoke to more and more Dell folk during my many visits to their Round Rock campus in the last 6 months, this “tenacity” started to become easier and easier to sense. I find that encouraging.
9. The Edges cartoon series came directly out of my talking with Dell. They spent the last 20 years “pushing the edges” of manufacturing, supply, distribution and pricing [and the world, frankly, would be a lot poorer had they not done so]. Where else can they push outwards? Design? Customer Service? I have no idea. Only they can answer that. [Note to Dell Employees: If you can shed any light on this question, I want to talk to you. Please feel free to ping me at gapingvoid@gmail.com, Thanks.]
10. “Live on the edges or not at all” are pretty empty words, unless you can actually live by them. Harder than it looks. Maybe “Live on The Edges” is the right choice of words to articulate Dell’s Purpose-Idea, maybe it isn’t. At the very least, it’ll start a conversation internally, maybe externally as well. I don’t really care at the moment. All I’m trying to do is get my head one step closer to understanding the collective drive of the company. And I don’t mind failing a few times in order to get there.
11. Trying to create a “Blue Monster” for any company, be it Microsoft, Dell, or whoever, is basically an act of futility. That’s what makes it interesting. That’s what makes it potentially powerful. That’s what makes me love doing it.
[Backstory: “Blue Monster: Why Social Objects Are The Future Of Marketing”]
[Written at Harry’s Tinaja, Alpine, Texas.]
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The one (1) thing!
Wishing you good luck and good hunting.
I have about 20 dell computers sitting in my closet and I use two mac’s. It’s not because of design necessarily…but because of software. I was tired of how slow they were and how many times they crashed. Very unreliable…even for basic functions like surfing the internet at times. It’s not a cool factor for me, it’s a frustration factor. I hate hating my computer. I want to love it. Smooth functioning software does that, not design or creativity.
Dell focuses on back end office efficiencies because they don’t do the front end work. That is Microsoft’s job. It’s hard to make a box and a monitor cool that runs on bad software.
If I want to buy a Microsoft based PC, I will buy a Dell. The problem is I don’t want to buy a Microsoft based PC. I will guarantee Dell’s sales will go up when Microsoft does a better job with their software.
“You can’t thrill your customers until you thrill yourself first” — love it.
Patriotism is an interesting motivator but if that is the generator for your pride in an organisation then it is just as reasonable as anything else
I have no idea whether my move to Mac was pushed by MS or by Dell, nor do I care. Deep down, I resent the hype and overpricing by Apple; however, I could no longer work on a computer that wound down slowly to a crash nearly every time I used it. I got real tired of reaking the flow of work every 2 minutes to Save and STILL being on the MS site weekly for some or other patch or fix.
This task of channeling a company’s purpose/master idea/soul/core concept etc. is, as you suggested, an act of futility. Especially, if we require of ourselves that we “create” it.
My sense of the process has evolved over the years to the point where I inform clients that we don’t really create core concepts, we *uncover* them – like digging for nuggets of gold by asking the right questions, then listening attentively enough to recognize when they’ve been spoken – often by the most unexpected people.
I’ve tried to discipline our branding agency not to invent, and instead, to *identify* and in doing so believe we’re helping our clients communicate much more authentically. I’m always reminding myself and our teams that we aren’t the experts as it relates to our clients’ business and their essential natures; our clients are. The true creativity of our work is to use our talents to enable clients to communicate their truths as effectively and memorably as possible.
Good luck with Dell. They’re lucky to have you.
Illusionists thrill their audience all the time without necessarily being thrilled themselves. But many of them become notoriously jaded. The key is to find an audience you can thrill in a way that ultimately becomes thrilling to you.
Forget trying to thrill the unthrillable (the West Coast hipster crowd for example), it’s your capitalised phrase that resonated with me. Getting technology into the hands of those without it will unquestionably thrill them and the potential that act can unleash cannot fail to be thrilling to even the most jaded among us.
Hey Barbara,
Actually, my Dell Mini crashes a lot less than my MacBook, though to be fair, I hardly run anything on it, except Mozilla Firefox.
I hear what you’re saying; I’m more interested in how we can help make Dell a better company, rather than articulating what’s wrong with them.
The one thing I will say is, they DO listen, especially to bloggers. More than any company I’ve ever worked with.
Rick Julian, I agree. Blue Monsters don’t “create” anything new. At the very most, all they can do is shed light on what’s already there.
I can articulate passion with a Blue Monster, I cannot create it for them.
“Embrace it, or die.“
And with M$ it was “Something else, or die.“
“With me or against me” is mocked when it comes from Dubya, but rewarded in all its shapes otherwise, especially when it’s draped with yuppie babble about better world and patriotism.
NB: nobody said being corrupted makes a person stupid.
Interesting post Hugh, I enjoy hearing about your experiences at Dell, its funny how many seem to match life in other big companies. I guess everyone’s in the world changing game to some extent or another.
I thought your 7th point was a good one, that balance between business and personal computing is something that I see coming up more and more, and not many people are getting it right — it’s actually prompted me to post some thoughts of my own.
Hugh, you’re not crazy-assed — you’re colorful.
bonnieL
Hugh–
Great post about a company that is important to a lot of us. So great to have you working with them.
James
Hugh–
Great post about a company that is important to a lot of us. So great to have you working with them.
James
For what it’s worth I’d like to see Dell break down the barriers in the Windows world. Why do we have to have just one ‘official” Windows? I’d like to see a “Vista for Dell” or something that has a distinct look and feel, and that comes with a whole bunch of integrated, Dell specific apps.
. Microsoft need to get some momentum back and Dell is a huge OEM.
MS are prevented from bundling much, but Dell could do this quite easily (and base it on open source
If they got even halfway to level of integration and “just works” that Apple has it would surely be a big win.
For what it’s worth I’d like to see Dell break down the barriers in the Windows world. Why do we have to have just one ‘official” Windows? I’d like to see a “Vista for Dell” or something that has a distinct look and feel, and that comes with a whole bunch of integrated, Dell specific apps.
. Microsoft need to get some momentum back and Dell is a huge OEM.
MS are prevented from bundling much, but Dell could do this quite easily (and base it on open source
If they got even halfway to level of integration and “just works” that Apple has it would surely be a big win.
The fantastic years to come! We’ve not even scratched the surface yet
With it’s stores & geniuses, Apple can provide a level a support that DELL cannot match, not at a personal level.
What‘s the purpose idea?
It should be point 3.iii.
…trying to sell dull grey boxes to disinterested westerners or perhaps moving some exciting grey boxes to the marginalised — africa et al?
about time all business was conducted for the benefit of the many not the elite few.
Hi Hugh,
Enjoyed reading your thoughts and seeing how the journey for you and discussions we have had are starting to crystallize.
Here is an additional thought.…Dell’s direct business model has often been associated with manufacturing efficiencies and processes and/or “mass customization”.
Personally, I believe that the Dell’s direct model is about more than efficiencies and customization. Its also very much about Dell having direct connections/relationships with customers. This is often overlooked.
Even as we grow distribution through retail and channel relationships, grow in new markets, those direct connections between Dell and customers (including our channel partners and retailers as customers) underpins who we are and is part of what Dell is all about. That direct connection with customers contributed to the impetus for much our involvement with blogs, Ideastorm, Twitter…and so much more.
As you note we constantly seek to improve the customer service element, just as we can always improve our overall relationship/connection with customers. No relationship that I know of is perfect.
I think its the sign of a good business that always wants to get better…especially a young company like Dell. At 20+ years, the crucial thing for any person or company is do you continually learn; get better and grow.…as you mature.
Some additional thoughts to the points you raise. Ill likely have more tomorrow
Hey Hugh, I just may end up using your cartoon of the day (today)(if you hold me to standards that you cannot meet yourself, you shall earn my disfavor). Pretty much sums up our environmental relationship with them to a T. Hope your conversations fare better.
When I was managing one of the big 3 US distributors’ Microsoft biz, your blue monster served as my department’s flag. (Literally.) It was by far the best conversation starter in our arsenal. It also set the tone of every conversation we had with customers and gave us a clear sense of purpose. I loved that thing.
“Change the world or go home.” It doesn’t get any better than that.