November 24, 2008
hope
[Cartoon inspired by Shel Israel’s recent post]
[UPDATE:] Brian Rethinks Dell
Brian Baily, who follows me on Twitter, emailed me the following re. my work with Dell. Got my attention, to say the least:
The thing I keep trying to figure out is why did a few 140-character comments by a guy I had never met have more impact on my view of Dell than anything else over the last 2 years. I used to love Dell and worked with them all the time in my former life. Over the last few years, I began to see them as a big, soulless company obsessed with only the product and its price (and especially the price of all the pieces that make the product). All of their advertising seems to be about the stuff and the specs and not about me, or my company, or the amazing things I can do with their it. Even if they want to emphasize their price advantage, which is important, tell me that how I can afford a better health plan for my employees because I’m not wasting money on overpriced hardware.
Your few tweets and posts about Dell have already made me think about Dell differently. I’ve heard a little about the determined, loyal people inside who want Dell to build the best products for the best price. I have a sense of the soul inside the machine, and their passion to do what they do better than anyone else, but also to do well by their customers. Dell seems like a company worth paying attention to again. Hell, I even looked up the Dell Mini — the first time I’ve been on a Dell product page in a long time (unfortunately their web stuff and product naming still sucks and is ridiculously complicated… “Dell Inspiron Mini 9″). As a Texan, I want Dell to thrive. I hope you can play a part in making that happen.
I’ve been saying this for years: Blogging [and all its social media cousins] is a good way to make things happen indirectly. Sure, it takes forever and it’s a bitch to measure, but when it works… Boy, it REALLY works.
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Playing off of Barack Obama, are we?
Great days work on the social media series — thanks for the many smiles and laughs
Oh man, I want this cartoon on a T-shirt. A thing of ironic beauty!
Ok Hugh — now let’s see a series for the anti-social
media specialist.
bonnieL
HAAA! Yep, that is me!
Yikes, these color ones are awful. Just loses something in the translation. Barf.
Hey! That’s a brilliant series Hugh, like it.
It would look great on a T-shirt. A note from my kids more monsters please. Great work.
Thanks for the smile. I’m sure Shepard Fairey would smile too.
great comment about the effect of your work with Dell. I’m thinking about how to approach another large company here in Japan: my focus is on creating video and audio stories of their internal staff to share with various outside constituents.
I was thinking of the idea ‘social media you can (at least partially) control’ because I know that’s important to them. But emphasizing the effect is a better focus.
and I think the graphic is excellent and scary.
Brilliant..! Add as business card offering option…
Hi Brian Bailey
Thank you for the perspective and thoughts…not to mention the trip to the Dell website and checking things out. We appreciate it all.
By the way, Dell is a company of people, not big and soulless. Sure, its big but its also full of souls who care, are listening and learning from customers like you every day. We work hard to constantly get better, based on direct feedback from folks like you. In fact, we are even pretty tough on ourselves sometimes, wanting to be perfect…but we are not.…we are just people like you.
But, we are focused on always getting better. And that means we want to deliver great tech (ok…some difficult names and product feature lists) that allows you (and people like you around the world) to use tech to do what you want, while also connecting with each other.
Big task? sure. perfect? nope. Working hard? yup. Hear you? For sure.
And, thanks again for checking out the Mini as well as the feedback!! Hugh tells me the Mini is good machine
Brian’s comment seems positive on its face but it seems to me to strike at the heart of what’s wrong with Dell: the company keeps the passion and the soul INSIDE the machine. Apple (for example) succeeds by showing, if not the soul, at least the passion on the OUTSIDE — not just in their ads but literally in the shapes, colors, and interfaces of their products. And, of course, Brian’s post raises the question “Why did Brian have to wait for Hugh to blog Dell? Why didn’t all Dell’s passionate insiders blog themselves first — or if they did, why isn’t anyone listening?”
Ok, I’m going on record as one who’s not totally in love with the flat colours that have been appearing in the cartoons lately. Yes, I know there must be a marketing angle here, but there was something in the spare B&W that was pure, distinctive and blaringly communicative, that sure worked for me. Call me an old fuddy-duddy or just used to the old and scared of the new?
I recently changed my whole blog layout from a black background to a lighter yellow so that readers don’t have to read “reverse” type in hopes that my retention rate for new readers will be higher. I put a poll on the blog about the new colour scheme and so far the new colours are running neck and neck with the option “Try again dumbo”. So much for my SEO.
Hugh,
Bob’s got a point here, clearly there are brilliant people within Dell. Why not focus on bringing out their voices and letting them talk with you about what is brilliant and amazing about their company — how they live on the edges?
Bob (and Jason too) Interesting perspective about where the passion is, and how it manifests itself. I do think you are seeing Dell’s passion becoming increasingly obvious, like bringing art and tech together to personalize products, new improved interfaces and some great new products like the mini. Indeed, there are also passionate Dell insiders blogging, tweeting and finding their way around the web connecting with people like you. I hope gradually more people will hear and see that too. In the meantime, you raised some interesting thoughts.
I’m chiming in as a (formerly lurking) return on the blogging investment.
I’ve been reading gapingvoid since 2005. I saw Hugh’s post about the Dell mini and it registered with me because I was reading his post on my Asus Eee PC (linux version)…which means I’m already a convert to a lot of the mini’s features.
Thing is, while I liked the price of my Asus linux machine, I miss some of the familiarity of my Windows programs…so I’m inclined to want a Window version of this little machine I love.
Enter Hugh — someone I’m even facebook friends with even though there’s not been a need to build a strong acquaintance there among his 1,000s of fb friends — and he introduces the Dell mini into my awareness.
Because I like reading Hugh’s take on things — and I’m already inclined to want a product like the mini — I hop over to Dell’s site where I could reasonably well find info on the Dell mini. End result, I’m teed up for the Dell mini when it’s time to make my next notebook purchase within the next 6 months. My buying decision is made. All Dell has to do is keep doing what it’s doing so it doesn’t lose me.
End of case study…
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