Archive for the ‘dell’ Category
December 6, 2008
37 Comments
[This cartoon I drew this morning pretty much sums it up…]
For the last six months or so, I’ve been trying to get my head around Dell. Trying to see what they’re good at, what they’re not so good at, and seeing if there’s a way that maybe, just maybe, I could help them in some small way become a better company.
But it’s been a somewhat arduous process. Progress has been slow. Not because anyone’s done anything wrong– on their side or mine– it’s just a big nut I’m trying to crack here. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Today I had a bit of an EUREKA! moment.
I like Dell. They are good friends of mine. They’ve been good clients to me. Big Kudos all round. They have a lot of good qualities. For example:
They’re very good at being efficient.
They are very nice people, for the most part.
They have a very tenacious streak to them.
They seem to frown on what they consider to be needless extravagance. They’re frugal.
They’re very practically minded. They like numbers, they don’t like getting too excited about all this airy-fairy, new-age marketing pixie dust.
They are driven to constantly create great products.
They are driven to constantly create a better company and culture. They figure that if they don’t keep raising the bar, somebody else will do it for them.
Nothing I have seen there with my own two eyes would lead me to believe otherwise. All well and good.
But one word I’m going to keep of the list: “Creative”.
Of course Dell has tons of creative people working for them. Of course they’re always “creating” great stuff. Of course there’s huge reservoirs of creative capital, teeming away in those large glass building of theirs.
But if I randomly asked you to make a list of the world’s top ten most “Creative” companies, would Dell make it on to the list? I’m guessing, for most people reading this, they simply wouldn’t.
Yes. I happen think this is a SERIOUSLY huge problem.
What needs to happen for Dell to be a more “Creative” company? What would need to change in order to get Dell onto that Top Ten List? What EXACTLY is involved?
The good news is, this is a huge opportunity. For both Dell, myself, and anybody else who actually cares about this kind of stuff.
Man, I’m excited now. Rock on.
November 24, 2008
18 Comments
[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.
November 20, 2008
12 Comments
I loved the comment my friend, James Cherkoff left in my last Dell-related post.
Almost all commercial copy increasingly sounds like something from the 1950’s when compared to the bazaar of the live web. The example I use is one very close to my heart — Arseblog, the super-popular blog about Arsenal FC [London’s largest pro soccer team].
While Arseblog offers insightful, balanced football analysis his colourful language is very much of the terraces — not the boardroom. For instance, here’s a description of the morning-after his return to Dublin, following a long stay in Barcelona :
“My brain is discombobulated and I have had to send Blogette off to her new school wearing my runners which are at least 4 sizes too big for her because all of our stuff is in a box coming from Spain. I now have no shoes at all but I am wearing her fleecey red dressing gown. So all of you who might have a hangover today at least be thankful you have some shoes. I have no shoes. I am like a bag lady in a red dressing gown without any bags.”
You would be forgiven for thinking that such rhetoric wouldn’t ingratiate him with the club, a famously conservative organisation. In fact, the opposite is true and the Arsenal Chairman, an old-Etonian, and Amy Lawrence, a journalist at The Observer, are both regulars on the blog’s Arsecast podcast.
[N.B. “Arse” is English slang for “Ass”, “Butt”, “Rear End”, “Bum” etc. Fun bit of wordplay etc.]
I’ve been saying this for a while: Art is Language. Marketing is Language. Art evolves Language, Language evolves Art. Same with Marketing. Your marketing will evolve once your language evolves.
My three big marketing successes, English Cut, Stormhoek and The Microsoft Blue Monster didn’t work because I had some clever, rocket-science metric for them to play with. They succeeded simply because I convinced all three parties to talk to their markets in ways they simply hadn’t been talked to before.
English Cut is probably my most lucid example. My friend, Thomas Mahon is one of the top bespoke tailors in the world, certainly one of the top on London’s Savile Row. His handmade suits fetch upwards of $5,000 if, and only if you can get on his waiting list for an appointment.
Instead of the usual high-end, mahogany-paneled, men’s fashion blether [“Imagine yourself draped in the luxury only a privileged few can aspire to yak yak yak… The highest standards of quality, tradition and service maintained since 1852 yak yak yak…”], what did he do? He started praising his competition. And he used informative, helpful, friendly, straight-talking language in the process:
Kilgour’s (formerly Kilgour French & Stanbury). I have a very soft spot for this firm, as their old cutter, George Roden offered me a job when I was very young and just starting out in the trade. An excellent pedigree in classic tailoring (Carey Grant was a favourite customer), but even though they keep one foot firmly in the past, they’re not frightened to move forward. This is shown in the new contemporary facelift their shopfront just had. They also have an excellent ready-to-wear collection.
And it worked. Sales went from a steady trickle to through-the-roof in less than a year.
Whether we’re talking about a large company like Dell, or a small cottage industry like English Cut, the first marketing question to ask is not what tools and strategies we want to use– the first question to ask is, “How do we wish to talk to people differently, than how we were talking to them before?”
Once you can answer that, the tools and strategies will quickly and easily reveal themselves.
Language. It’s all about Language. You want me help you with your marketing, you have to be willing to talk to me about Language. Exactly.
[Disclosure: Dell are clients of mine.]
November 15, 2008
20 Comments
[“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.]
November 3, 2008
8 Comments
When I lived in London last year, one of my best pals was David Brain, CEO of Edelman Europe [The largest private, global PR firm in the world]. Our schtick was to meet for breakfast about twice a month, and just talk about the crazy world happening around us. Sometimes we’d invite other friends along, like Steve Clayton or Lee Thomas. Other times we’d meet at The Groucho Club after work, drink some beers, and hatch new secret evil plans. It was fun times all round.
“Crowd Surfing”: 10 Questions for Edelman’s David Brain
1. Let’s cut to the chase. You just co-authored a book with Martin Thomas, “Crowd Surfing”. Please give us the schpiel.
Martin and I were interested in how companies and organisations were managing to deal with the new empowered consumer. There’s been a lot written about the crowd, but less about how the people inside big companies deal with it. As you know we have some experience of this with Edelman clients, so at the heart of the book is a series of interviews with some interesting people who have to juggle the often conflicting demands of the crowd and the company.
2. What made you want to write this particular book? You’re already busy enough, you’re already doing well enough professionally, so what was the motive? What was the conversation you wanted to start with people, that wasn’t happening already?
Well, someone once told me that a great way to start a conversation was to create a ‘social object’.…and to some degree this is my social object. There is something about publishing a book that allows you to have a different type of conversation with clients, colleagues and prospects, and that has proven to be the case. We are now talking to many clients for whom this stuff was in the ‘too difficult’ basket, and somehow talking about case studies from the book has made that easier. I also felt that the corporate side of the story has been underplayed. The heroes of this book are not bloggers or consumer activists but the people inside firms who have changed their companies (sometimes at significant career risk) to better serve the new consumer. People like Microsoft’s Steve Clayton and Dell’s Richard Binhammer.
3. It seems both the Microsoft Blue Monster and the folks I’m currently working with at Dell [Lionel, Richard, Bruce etc] feature heavily in the book. What was it about these stories that sparked your interest?
Sometimes it is easy for an entrepreneur or small business to be in tune with their customers or stakeholders, because their scale (or lack of it) means everyone is close to the customer (an obvious point I know, but size does sometimes matter). The bigger a firm gets the more difficult that becomes . Big companies need robust processes and structures to organise, to do what it is they do, and that can mean that the people inside can sometimes begin to focus on those processes and structures to the exclusion of the customer or the crowd. Dell and Microsoft have both worked really hard to find ways to bring the crowd inside the firm (at the cost of significant disruption) so that they don’t make that mistake. For me, where the crowd meets the organisation is where the real action is.
4. We’ve had this conversation many times before in private, allow me to take it public: You and I both believe that in this hyper-digital, post-Cluetrain world of ours, the PR industry has a huge opportunity, simply by taking huge chunks of business away from what was traditionally the domain of the large advertising agencies. I’m thinking the work Edelman did for Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty would be a good example of this. Care to elaborate on the business model?
Everything these days is work in progress. Customers and stakeholders know that about the companies and brands that are part of their life, and yet many of those companies still seem to over-use the mass communication vehicles of the industrial age, presenting a perfect ‘image’ or a ‘lifestyle’ and looking for aspiration or approval. So much advertising, direct marketing and promotion (and some PR to be fair) is a one-way street and that just does not fit the world I see around me. PR, or good PR at least, was always about things like relationship, influence and dialogue (in the old days focused more on the elite few maybe, but now with the many as well) and so PR now has an even more central role in helping companies align with stakeholders and customers by properly engaging with them. Thankfully many firms and brands are seeing this and many PR people (in agencies and in-house) are embracing this new mandate and the responsibility that comes with it. Every day the false certainties peddled by the old-school advertising agencies look more and more out of place and time.
5. You weren’t always in PR. You also have backgrounds in advertising and journalism. Like you once told me, “Anybody who’s any good at this business, usually ended up working in it by accident.” What’s your story? How did you end up in it?
You have a good memory. It was indeed a distress purchase. I was briefly in journalism but got turfed out by the recession of the mid 80s, and had to parlay my training into something to pay the bills. I have also been in advertising (in Asia in the 90’s) and client side, but have always come back to PR, which I guess shows a lack of imagination to some extent.
6. You’re not just a PR flack, you actually run a pretty sizable business. What’s the toughest part of your job as CEO?
Finding good people. At Edelman in Europe, Middle East and Africa we now have just under a 1,000 people across wholly owned offices in 14 countries, and we always have vacancies for talent. You have helped us find people in the past as you remember, and one of the best things for us about social media has been the ability to spot talent and people who ‘get it’ by what they say and do online.
7. When we think of PR, we think of the stereotypical smoothie in an Italian suit, schmoozing away at some fancy sponsored event [See “Pickaxe” cartoon above]. But as we both know, Global PR is actually a pretty sophisticated business. Again, back to a conversation we’ve had more than once, the big challenge for PR firms in the next decade is all about becoming more culturally and technically diverse, AWAY from the typical smoothie archetype, towards something more hardcore, valuable and interesting. How does Edelman Europe see the challenge? Do you see a “new breed” of PR practitioner emerging?
I do see a new breed. PR used to be based on the top-down principle of managing a few relationships with senior journalists or stakeholders. These respected authorities would say good things about your business or firm and the world would gratefully receive their view and act accordingly. Well as you know, that world got blown up and the new democratised world of the enfranchised consumer and the occasional angry crowd has forced businesses (and the PR people and firms that advise them) to open up. It used to be in this business that you could trade on who you know, and now it has swung much more to what you know as well. I can’t imagine hiring people these days who are not actively engaged in the conversation or community in some form . You can’t fake this stuff. And so that means we always look for technical skills, people with a wide set of interests and a passion for something (other than work). Richard Edelman calls this ‘Living in Colour.…the idea that if you only live for the office and home you become a little grey. And if you cut off from the world in that way, you are much less use to our clients, who are looking for insight and advice and connection.
8. Of all the global players, it seems to me that Edelman got seriously interested in the implications of Web 2.0 sooner than the other big guys. Hence Richard Edelman hiring Steve Rubel etc. What was it about 2.0 that initially got Edelman all excited, where did you see the opportunity for your business, and what was particularly unique about the company that allowed you to arrive there first?
It really was Richard Edelman. He was banging on about this stuff five years ago when I joined the firm, and I was probably the leading naysayer at the time (I may even have expressed the view that blogging was like CB radio). The Trust Study, the big survey we do each year, had given us some clues when it showed that a ‘person like me’ was becoming a credible source of information on companies and organisations. ‘A person like me’ is now globally the number one credible source of information on companies…the CEO is the seventh most credible! And once we got our heads around that and the seismic changes of which that was just one part, the rest was about putting our money where our mouth was. And Richard hired people who got it, like Steve Rubel, and we invested in research and we bought digital agencies for their technical and creative skills, and we adapted their ways into the mainstream of the firm and invited in people like you who addressed our teams and our clients. And of course training, training, training. But we did make some bloody big mistakes along the way as everybody knows, and boy, did we ever learn from them!
9. Edelman is privately-owned. All your big, main competitors [Weber Shandwick etc] are subsidiaries of the large, publicly-owned advertising conglomerates [Interpublic, WPP etc]. Pros? Cons?
Every shareholder is in the firm, and that means that what’s right for the clients, the people and the business is never diluted by Wall Street or some bully-boy advertising suit. When I worked at some of the advertising-company-dominated, publicly-owned firms you could never point out advertising’s limitations…you were muzzled. We can say precisely what we think is right for the client without worry– and no other PR firm of scale is in that position. On the money front, because we don’t have outside shareholders bleeding cash out of the firm, we can re-invest in intellectual property like research, and in new products and training. I really can’t think of any cons.
10. What advice would you give to a bright young thing wanting to break into the PR business? More specifically, what advice would you give today, that you wouldn’t have given say, a decade ago? In other words, for a young person just entering the trade, how has the world changed in the last ten years?
Be involved and have a voice. When I got into this business in the early Jurassic period those two things were much more difficult to do. But society has changed and it is easy to express opinions and debate and join with like-minded people to pursue your interests. It does not all have to be online, but obviously much of it is now. And we look for that. Someone who is interested and passionate about something and who contributes. I still expect new joiners to be passionate about news, culture and politics in the traditional senses too, but what you read through your aggregator and via your community is as important as what you can buy at the news stand (OK not the most original point, but you would be amazed how many people still come to interviews with no views on news and no understanding or participation in social media). One other thing that has struck me about people joining the business now, especially in the US and the UK, is that they are amazingly conservative about their careers. Many look to progress through the ranks in small linear steps, I guess because the business has become so big and so structured. One of the most difficult things is to find people who will take a risk and go live in the Middle East or Moscow or China and I find that so hard to understand having lived and worked outside my country for seven years … something which broadened my horizons significantly.
18 Comments
The kind folks at Dell recently gave me a new Mini to try out. Here are my notes.
1. It’s inexpensive, light, small, and fun to use. I call it my “coffee shop computer”- it’s good for traveling, it’s good for surfing the web, writing docs and sending emails from Starbucks. It’s good for very basic programs– Mozilla, Skype, etc, it’s not designed for something heavy like Photoshop. It all depends on what your needs are. I use it as an on-the-go alternative to my main computer, not a replacement for it. The small keyboard I found a bit fiddly at first, but I soon got used to it. Now I’m fine with it. I like it A LOT more than I thought I was going to. I own four computers– it turns out this is the one I now use the most, without question.
2. Before this came along, my main workhorse was a Mac laptop. I toted that everywhere. Now I just leave it my office. Macs are great computers, don’t get me wrong, but they’re expensive and with the exception of the Macbook Air, a lot heavier to lug around than the Mini. Because of the price, the prospect of losing a Mac on the road is a lot more daunting than losing a Mini. Last month when I flew to Amsterdam I just took the Dell Mini along with me– I left the Mac behind– and got on just fine.
3. Of all the computers I’ve ever owned, this by far has gotten the most attention from random members of the public. People come over to me all the time when I’m out and about, amazed that a proper computer could be so small. It gets the most attention from women– they like that a computer could fit in their handbag. They like the prospect of not having to lug something larger and heavier around with them.
4. As Dell is a client of mine, I find it encouraging that they could come up with something that credibly competes with Macbook Air on its own terms, rather than just making a cheaper, less elegant version of the latter. Before I got the Mini, I was thinking of buying a Macbook Air. I no longer am.
5. From what I know about the iPhone and the Blackberry [i.e. quite a bit, but nothing too extreme], I’d much rather surf the web with the Mini, than with a phone. Sure, the Mini doesn’t fit into my jeans pocket like a phone can, but it does fit easily inside my denim jacket’s inside pocket. That’s not a bad compromise.
6. A lot of the time I simply don’t feel like schlepping my backpack around. I have this much smaller bag that I use most of the time, just big enough to carry around some pens, a small notebook and blank business cards to draw cartoons on. The Mini is small enough to fit into that, which I’m REALLY pleased about.
7. All in all, I’m very happy with it. I think Dell might have a wee hit on their hands with this one. Good news.
8. I was under no obligation from Dell to blog about the computer. They didn’t ask me too, nor did they even drop any subtle hints my way. I certainly wasn’t planning on blogging about it, but I mentioned on my Twitter feed a few times that I had a new Mini, and a lot of people started asking me questions. In order to answer them properly, I decided a blog post was in order.
9. Would I buy one myself with my own money, had Dell not be so generous? Sure. Having used it for just over a month, I now can’t imagine not having it around. Rock on.
September 5, 2008
23 Comments
[“Edges 5″. Part of “The Edges” Series. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
Reading this piece about Dell’s new mini-computer, halfway through the PR schpiel I YET AGAIN came across them using the term, “Digital Nomad”.
With a starting weight of 2.28 lbs.[i], digital nomads will value the Inspiron Mini’s durable design, with sealed keyboard and reliable solid state drive (SSD) memory storage. A bright 8.9‑inch glossy LED display (1024x600) presents most web pages with no left-right scrolling, and the keypads are large and easy to navigate.
About the same time that I first started seeing this term being used a lot from them, their Digital Nomads blog appeared on the scene. So I guessed something was up. I figured the blog is not just some crazy side project from some renegade Dell employees, this fits in to a much larger corporate strategy. Like I said in a recent blog post:
The Digital Nomads blog is what I call “indirect marketing”. People aren’t supposed to read it and go, “My, what a lovely blog. I think I’ll go out and buy me a couple of brand new Dell laptops”. This is more of an “Alignment” play. In other words, by “aligning” themselves more with the digital-nomad crowd, they hope it’ll help them in time to create products that are more compelling and relevant to them. If you were in the computer business, you’d want to have the same alignment. “The Porous Membrane” etc. The good news is, Alignment plays can be extremely effective. The bad news is, they take FOREVER to gather momentum.
So the last time I was in Round Rock visiting their bright & shiny offices, I asked around. My hunch seems to have been proved correct. This is the alignment they’re going after. I was also delightfully surprised to learn that they have no intention of trademarking, or attempting to trademark the phrase, “Digital Nomad”. They want to be aligned with it; they don’t want to “own” it. A small distinction, but a noteworthy one. To try to own it would rob the idea of all its meaning and power.
Yeah, I know, “Digital Nomad” is not the only term one can use to describe a web-enabled worker. There are others. There are also differences of opinion as to what “Digital Nomad” actually means. Are we talking mere tele-commuters, or is there some even bigger sociological trend going on? Depends who you ask. I’ve been a blogger and a digital nomad long enough to know how blurry the edges get sometimes. Rather than worry about THE definitive semantics, frankly, I’d rather worry about how to use this brave new world in order to make money, more quickly and easily than the generation before me.
In conclusion: Dell wants to align itself with the “Digital Nomad” crowd. Groovy. If I were them I’d do the same.
OK, fine. So now the next question is, what needs to happen to make all this more likely? Do they carry on doing what they’ve always done, or is there some FUNDAMENTAL change in their culture going to be required? And if so, how costly and painful will that be for their people, their customers and their shareholders? I’m not saying they’re necessarily doing anything wrong so far, I’m just curious, that’s all. Change is the only constant etc.
[ON A MORE PERSONAL NOTE:] Over the last few weeks I’ve been having a grand ol’ time getting to know the company better. So far it’s been an interesting experience. I’ve met some really smart, passionate people. The only problem for me initially has been, they’re a big company; it’s hard for somebody new on the scene to know where to look to find the interesting stories going on. Design? Tech? Marketing? Operations? Finance? Who’s making the secret sauce?
But then again, I’ve been a digital nomad for most of the last decade. So suddenly, with their Digital-Nomad-Alignment schtick, I see a glaringly obvious fit between my interests and theirs. Problem solved. Easy. Rock on.
August 18, 2008
19 Comments
I’m writing this from an outside table at Jo’s Cafe on South Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas.
I spent part of the morning having a good look at Digital Nomads, the new Dell blog. It seems Lionel Menchaka, one of my pals over at Dell is helping to run it. Also, I find to my delight that my old buddy, the uber-smart, uber-creative Phil Torrone, is also a contributor. So yeah, I’m hoping to see great things come out of the enterprise.
A “Digital Nomad” is roughly defined as someone who, thanks to the internet, can and does work anywhere he or she likes. Thanks to the internet, last February I was able to move from London, England to Alpine, Texas without changing jobs, so I guess it’s not surprising that this new Dell blog caught my attention. Here are some random thoughts, in no particular order:
1. Though the blog was created by Dell, it seems they don’t want the blog to be all “about” Dell. I think that’s a smart move. As I’m fond of saying, if you want to be boring, talk about yourself, if you want to be interesting, talk about something other than yourself. Of course, in the comments there were a few “This is just a cynical marketing ploy by Dell to sell more laptops” remarks. This is to be expected, I suppose. If Dell tries to have a conversation online, some bloggers are going to have a problem with it. If Dell says nothing, some of the very same bloggers are going to have a problem with it. I call this, “Having Your Cake And Eating It 2.0″. I find this phenomenon increasingly common in the blogosphere. Maybe it was always thus, maybe once I was better at not noticing it.
2. I remember when I had a god-awful office job I had to commute to every day, how appealing the idea of being “digitally nomadic” appealed to me. You mean I can hang out in cafes all day and still get paid? No more commuting? No more paying high, big-city rents? How cool is that?!! But being a digital nomad has a dark side. There’s something unhealthily addictive about being “Always on”, “Always online”, “Always connected”. Reading Clay Shirky, it seems than whenever Society takes huge cultural shifts, mass addiction sets in as a coping mechanism. Clay pointed out that in 19th Century England, the addiction of choice was drinking gin. In postwar United States, the addiction of choice was long hours vegged out in front of the TV. In today’s world, I’m guessing our new mass addiction of choice– the Internet– means not even being able to go to the bathroom without bringing along your laptop. They call it “Crackberry” for a reason.
3. Yes, the Digital Nomads blog is “marketing”. Then again, so is the sentence preceding this one.
4. The Digital Nomads blog is what I call “indirect marketing”. People aren’t supposed to read it and go, “My, what a lovely blog. I think I’ll go out and buy me a couple of brand new Dell laptops”. This is more of an “Alignment” play. In other words, by “aligning” themselves more with the digital-nomad crowd, they hope it’ll help them in time to create products that are more compelling and relevant to them. If you were in the computer business, you’d want to have the same alignment. “The Porous Membrane” etc. The good news is, Alignment plays can be extremely effective. The bad news is, they take FOREVER to gather momentum.
5. The blog is still in its early days. I can see it still struggling, like all new blogs do, to “find its voice” [Hey, if a blog can find its voice in under twelve months, I consider that good going]. Of course, it’s going to have the same problem that ALL corporate blogs do i.e the problem of balancing BOTH the needs of the perennially kvetchy, perennially skeptical, perennially dissatisfied blog-reading public, and the commercial interests of the company. Harder than it looks. The fact that they are giving it a go AT ALL I find encouraging.
6. As someone who has been lucky enough to actually become a professional digital nomad, not just dream about it just happening one day, I can honestly say that yeah, it’s a tremendous privilege. Big-city wages with small-town overheads is a damn good business model, and I simply could not do it without an internet connection. I also believe that yes, there’s a lot of people out there who are not really digital mavericks, though they would very much like to be some day. With these folk in mind, I guess my advice to Dell would be, forget about trying to get the digital mavericks to read your blog. If your stuff is any good, they will happily come of their own accord. Instead, ask yourselves what can YOU do to help MORE people become digital mavericks, themselves. If you play a tangible part in shaping this part of their lives, they will love you and your products forever. And recruit their friends to your cause. It’s all good. Rock on.
August 15, 2008
17 Comments
I’ve worked with a lot of companies over the years, big and small.
I have found that even small companies are remarkably complex organisms. But of course, anywhere that ambition is allowed to focus usually is. Human beings are messy creatures.
It seems to me that in any company, large or small, you can divide the people into three broad categories.
1. The “Changers”. These are the people who use their work as a platform to “Change The World”. They go into a market and try to change it, in order to create something better, both for themselves and for the market at large. They can be the CEO or work in the mail room. Theirs is not a social position, it’s a psychological condition.
2. The “Contributors”. These are people who want to do their jobs, do it well, and get handsomely rewarded for it. They don’t necessarily see the need for “change” per se, they just want to see what works, and get it done. They want to find out who’s on the winning team, and get themselves a place on it.
3. The “Coasters”. They just want to turn up and get paid. Their lives and identities are outside their work– families, friends, hobbies etc– their job is just a means to an end; a way to pay for their “real lives” elsewhere.
None of the three is necessarily better or worse than the others– we all have different needs, different agendas, different temperaments. We’ve all made different decisions about what kind of life we want to lead, what kind of compromises we’re willing to make, what kind of adventures we want to have. All roads exact their own unique toll. All choices come with a price.
I suppose I’ve always ended up in the “Changer” camp, somehow. It was never deliberate. It was just about how I relate to the world. Sometimes it was a definite advantage. Other times it was career suicide.
So in the last couple of weeks I’ve been having a lot of conversations with people at Dell. The subject of the need to “Change Dell” has come up a bit. Actually, no. It has come up A LOT. A WHOLE LOT.
As a “Changer”, the word “Change” really doesn’t frighten me. To talk about “Change”, doesn’t necessarily imply that there’s anything abnormal or wrong going on. As I’m fond of saying, all business models are wrong. Whatever system you’ve got in place, it’s yesterday’s model. Whatever process you’ve got installed, the world has since moved on– all you can do is try to play catch-up, to greater or lesser degrees of success. Hence the cartoon posted above.
So in a meeting in Round Rock, I ask this one Dell person, “So why are you guys interested in talking to me? I’m no Peter Drucker, I’m just a cartoonist.” The person answers, “Because we like your very atypical point of view. We think it could perhaps be useful to us.” Fair enough. If I had been that person, I’d probably have said much the same.
So these last few weeks, I’ve been mulling over the word, “Change”, and how it applies to Dell. Or to put it more simply, what ACTUALLY needs to change? Sure, they’ve had their fair share of trials and tribulations over the last few years. But there’s a lot that they’ve gotten right, as well. Sure, you might prefer Apple over Dell for your personal choice of computer, but guess what? The consumer sector represents only 15% of their total business. In the other 85% of the business, B2B, they’ve not been doing too shabby. The company still makes a profit. Their biggest customers still return their phone calls. Sure, they have their issues, but hey, who doesn’t? As I’m fond of saying, this stuff is HARD. Get over yourselves.
i.e. “Change”. What does it REALLY mean for Dell? I’m just asking… Yes. I really, really want to know.
I’ve also been mulling over how this experience differs from the work I’ve done with Microsoft.
One thing I have noticed so far inside the company, is how often the word “Dell” is used interchangeably with “Michael”. Sometimes we’re talking about the man, sometimes the company. The lines seem very blurry. I don’t recall “Microsoft” and “Bill” being so interchangeable, I really don’t.
Michael Dell seems to cast a huge presence over the company, even more so than Bill Gates casts a presence over Microsoft. This is no bad thing. It just is what it is.
Actually, I find this quite an endearing aspect to the company. Michael is certainly no absentee landlord CEO, from what I can make out. Every day, I’m told he sends a lot of emails to people to lots of different levels in the company. He’s very hands-on, he doesn’t just hold court with the people reporting directly to him. Dell might be a Fortune 50 company, but there’s something about it that is STILL just this crazy college kid from Austin, building made-to-order computers in his dorm room for his friends. These humble roots still hold strong. Walk around the offices, and you can still smell them around you.
So one evening last week, after a long but interesting day over at the Round Rock offices, I’m having dinner with an old friend in South Austin. A nice little Mexican joint I’ve become very fond of. Avocado margaritas. Smoked pork tacos that melt in your mouth. It’s all good.
My friend asks me how I’m getting on with this new Dell project. I tell her, “Well, I’m finding it pretty darn interesting so far. But at the end of the day, if Michael Dell doesn’t grok it, there’s not much I can do. From what my gut tells me, it seems like it’s very much ‘his’ company, even more so than Bill Gates and Microsoft. I could be wrong, but there it is… Of course, if he does end up grokking it, then it’ll get pretty intense, pretty quickly. But in a good way.”
My friend and I are sitting there, enjoying the evening, talking about the good old days, back when we both attended university in Austin. Suddenly in the back of mind, I’m thinking about the “Changers” inside Dell. These, I decide, are the people I need to speak to. All roads ANYWHERE worthwhile begin with these good folk. The rest can look after themselves. The rest won’t quite understand me, and there’s simply no point pretending that they will.
It is true. I don’t know EXACTLY what I’m looking from them quite yet. It’s still early days. Then again, a jazz musician never knows EXACTLY what notes he’s going to play, before the gig actually starts…
We live in interesting times…
August 6, 2008
25 Comments
Funny how Dell is so heavily tied into the GAMING industry, yet as a company it could use a much greater sense of “PLAY”. “Playfulness” etc.
Just had this thought over on Twitter. Thought I’d share it over here as well…
[UPDATE:] Frank Pendergrast made the following comment:
If Iron Man had used an Apple, I bet you’d have known, it would have been all over the blogosphere… but the fact that IronMan used Dell servers just seemed to produce a minor level of outrage that he’d use something so uncool — and as for the fact he seemed to be using an XPS M2010? Nobody even noticed.
A symptom of the brand image Dell have?
I dunno, Frank. What’s the ROI on coolness? 
August 5, 2008
14 Comments
[Click on image to enlarge/download/print etc. Licensing terms here.]
I just drew this little cartoon for my friends over at Dell. Feel free to print it out, use it to make t-shirts or whatever for your own personal use etc etc.
Anybody who knows Austin well will get the “Weird” reference, i.e. the now-famous “Keep Austin Weird” slogan…
But that’s what inspired the cartoon.
I know Dell is a global company. I know they’ve got big plans for China and India. That being said, I don’t think one can overstate JUST HOW MUCH of Austin’s culture is hard-wired into Dell’s company DNA.
A big part of why so many people work for Dell is quite simply, it allows them to live in Austin.
And although Austin has doubled in size in the last decade or so, at its core it remains what it’s always been– a pleasant, genial, small college & government town.
Austin is a fabulous place. People live there because they love it. The locals are very passionate about the city they call home.
After finishing college at UT Austin, Michael Dell could have set up his company anywhere he wanted. He could have easily have moved it back to Houston, where he grew up. Or maybe the West Coast. East Coast. Whatever. He chose not to.
Does Austin have a unique vibe, a sensibility, a set of values that can be exported globally? The way, say, Apple exports Californian culture globally, or Starbucks exports Seattle culture globally? I think it does. I think it can. And I think Dell’s the right company for the job.
[NOTE TO PEOPLE WHO WORK AT DELL:] Remember where you’re from. Austin, Texas. Love it. Cherish it. Never forget it. Rock on.
[PS: Yeah, I know Dell is technically in Round Rock– an Austin suburb– and not within Austin city limits, but that was for tax reasons, and little else.]
August 4, 2008
10 Comments
About a year ago, I was at a geek breakfast in London with Steve Clayton and some other folk, including a few people from Microsoft.
Steve and some other geeks were talking about “The Cloud”. At the time Steve was making the transition from working in the UK Partner Division, to working in the “Software & Services” division of Microsoft, which is how the conversation came up.
Right then and there I drew the cartoon above. Steve saw it, and right away asked me if he could use the picture for his business card, which he now does.
That was the first time I really started paying attention to the term, “The Cloud”.
I would by no means call myself an expert or an authority on the subject, but in the last couple of months I’ve been getting increasingly aware of “Cloud Thinking”. It’s seriously interesting to me.
As far as I can tell, all three of the big tech companies I know best, Microsoft, Sun and Dell, seem to be betting a lot of their future on The Cloud. It was even just announced recently that Dell was applying to trademark the term, “Cloud Computing”. Heck, even my friends over at Techcrunch are looking to get a piece of the action.
Even today, I learned that Microsoft is now seriously planning for the post-Windows era, and you guessed it, The Cloud features heavily. And Businessweek just ran a big article on it:
A Sea Change in Computing
Some analysts say cloud computing represents a sea change in the way computing is done in corporations. Merrill Lynch (MER) estimates that within the next five years, the annual global market for cloud computing will surge to $95 billion. In a May 2008 report, Merrill Lynch estimated that 12% of the worldwide software market would go to the cloud in that period.
Those vendors that can adjust their product lines to meet the needs of large cloud computing providers stand to profit. Companies like IBM, Dell (DELL), and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), for instance, are moving aggressively in this direction. On Aug. 1, IBM said it would spend $360 million to build a cloud computing data center in Research Triangle Park, N.C., bringing to nine its total of cloud computing centers worldwide. Dell is also targeting this market. The computer marker supplies products to some of the largest cloud computing providers and Web 2.0 companies, including Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo (YHOO). “We created a whole new business just to build custom products for those customers,” Dell CEO Michael Dell says.
I was also recently really surprised and delighted about all the discussion my last post, “The Cloud’s Best-Kept Secret”, seemed to generate. Not just the amount of discussion, but the quality of it, from some of the smartest people I know on the planet. People like Tim O’Reilly, JP Rangaswami, Dennis Howlett, James Governor, all piping in. Rock on.
And of course, there’s the “Cloud Portraits” I’ve been drawing recently. Clouds, clouds, clouds… Clouds everywhere. Like West Texas in the rainy season etc.
What does this all mean? Frankly, I have no idea. I have no intention of becoming a “Cloud Blogger” or whatever, I’m just start to feel a connection here. Connections are my lifeblood. One of my favorite cartoons ever exists simply because I saw a connection between ego, emotion and typography. In 2005 I was the first person to see a connection between $5K English suits and the blogosphere [which back then, I can tell you, A LOT of people thought that was a bit of a stretch]. In 2006 I saw a similar connection between a small South African wine brand and the geek community of Silicon Valley.
This year I’m feeling the same sort of connection between all of the work I’ve been doing in the last year. It’s hard to explain– it’s visceral; it’s like you can just smell it, even if it remains so far invisible. It’s just there. A feeling, not quite yet a fact. And a wee voice keeps telling me that The Cloud is at the center of it somehow. Wait and see.
July 29, 2008
6 Comments
In my last post about Dell, Len left the following comment:
Hugh, I’m curious what exactly they want you to do? Their direction or lack there of baffles me.
Although a reinvention can be many things or have many meanings, setting the course of a company the size of Dell is a tall order. A tall order that a CEO and a board of directors are paid to envision and carry out.
Companies hire consultants all the time, that’s not a big deal, however it strikes me that if they don’t have an idea of what direction they need to go in, the management needs to change before anything meaningful can occur.
It would be a different story if they had an idea and needed expertise in getting there, but it’s completely another when they ask someone to tell them where they need to be. The old quote from Wayne Gretzky applies here. The reason for his success was that he didn’t chase the puck, he skated to where he thought the puck was going to be.
Clearly their present leadership is unable to do this, so unless you plan on taking up permanent residency at Dell, they’ll still have trouble long-term. That is unless they have a clear vision and just don’t know how to get there (enter Hugh), which takes me back to my opening line/question.
There’s lots of stuff to chew on here; so let’s make a list:
1. So far, the haven’t told me what they want me to do. I’ve not even been officially hired by them yet, though we are talking. We’ll see. I’m just kinda making it up as I go along. Microsoft never hired me to create The Blue Monster, either.
2. I think the “re-invention” will come from four angles:
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”…?
The fact is, one can never underestimate the importance what the military call, “Esprit De Corps”. One can never underestimate the importance of what my friend, Mark Earls calls, “The Purpose-Idea”. If you work for Dell [or for any other company, really], I’d seriously recommend you go check out his “Bananas” book to find out more.
It’s not about “The Brand”, People. It’s about something far more important.
3. Though re-invention may be a favorite word of mine, I think it might be a bit strong in Dell’s case. Though Dell has plenty to keep itself busy over the next couple of years, it’s not exactly a dying company. It’s not exactly a company in crisis. But, as I’m fond of saying, it is entering a new, globalized, internet-enabled era. Things change. Contexts change. Adapt or die. Simple to understand, far harder to execute.
4. I think it’ll be tempting for a lot of people to say, “Dell sucks. F*ck off, Hugh”. Whatever. Any schmoe can have a opinion. What’s far more interesting [and far harder] is figuring out EXACTLY WHAT you’re going to do to solve a problem. The good news is; I don’t claim to have the answers; I’m just a fly on the wall. But I am genuinely curious what the answers might be. Hence this blog post. We live in amazing times, and this all seems to me like another good opportunity to prove it. Exactly.
[Bonus Link:] Dell’s Richard Binhammer points to some recent Michael Dell interviews in the mainstream media, which I found to be very interesting reading. Rock on.
[Bonus Link:] BoingBoing describes Dell’s latest product offering as “Small, gorgeous & cheap.” Cool.
[UPDATE:] Microsoft’s Ray Ozzie made a recent keynote: Here are his salient thoughts:
1. Constraints are empowering
2. Accept threats as resignations
3. Never follow; either leapfrog or stop
4. Diversity means survival
5. Don’t tolerate intolerance
6. Strategy and architecture are inseparable
7. Short and direct earns respect
8. Delaying the inevitable inevitably backfires
9. A re-org will never cure what ails you
10. You needn’t be an #%@hole to get things done
[From an excellent post on “Belief”, by James O’Neill.]
July 16, 2008
24 Comments
Four years ago in “The Hughtrain” I published the cartoon above, with the following thought beneath it:
: There’s only one thing harder than starting a new business: Re-inventing an old one.
Start-ups are fine and dandy, most people reading this will know all about them.
But what about Start-Agains? Are they an exercise in futility or a tremendous opportunity?
THOUGHT: The future of advertising is clients increasingly asking their agencies to help re-invent not just their brands, but their actual companies. The future is agencies being increasingly unable to deliver on this.
Out of this wreckage a new industry will emerge…
So how do companies, businesses, brands etc re-invent themselves?
Big, big question. Worth a fortune to know the answer.
Actually, the answer’s pretty simple: The same way humans re-invent themselves.
I know. It shouldn’t be that simple, but it is.
1. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I like the entry, though four years later, I’m not sure how comfortable I still am with the statement, “Actually, the answer’s pretty simple: The same way humans re-invent themselves. I know. It shouldn’t be that simple, but it is.”
Corporate re-invention may be in simple in retrospect, but when it’s happening in real time it’s a tough, nasty, brutal business [Ask IBM if you don’t believe me]. Not for the faint of heart. But that’s what makes it so damn interesting. And potentially lucrative.
2. In the early 2000’s I had gotten quite disillusioned with traditional, Madison Avenue advertising, the industry I had entered when I left college [Though let’s be honest, it had never thought that highly of me, either, but that’s a story for another day].
Thankfully, with the advent of The Cluetrain, blogs and what later went on to be called “Web 2.0″, it seemed a new world order was emerging. The Internet was changing things; just none of us knew exactly how. But it was damn exciting new reality to contemplate.
In 2004, I first started articulating a belief that I still hold true today– that good, well-executed communication via blogging can make a huge difference in the fortunes of a company, large or small [I went on to explain it as “The Porous Membrane”]. And this time, the emphasis would not be a one-way message, but in a two-way “Conversation”.
Of course, “Conversation” is just a metaphor. When was the last time you wanted to phone up Hershey’s and have a long, deep, stimulating conversation with one their employees about 75-cent candy bars? No, sometimes you just want to put your money on the counter of the convenience store and buy your kids a little treat. And. That. Is. Enough. Human beings don’t scale. Our capacity for deep-and-meaningful is limited. “Conversation” is just convenient shorthand to better explain how markets– suppliers and buyers– relate to each other as human beings, not just as numbers on the spreadsheet. But that’s all it is. That’s all it needs to be.
Since I’ve become aware of this new world of Web 2.0, I’ve always been interested in testing its limitations, especially when it comes to marketing. So I’ve always been on the lookout for new opportunities in this area of business.
3. Earlier this year I started a conversation with Dell. So far the conversation is still going on. Some folks inside the company had seen The Microsoft Blue Monster and wondered if there was anything in this kind of thinking that could help their company. I’m guessing the answer might be “No”. The Blue Monster came out of pretty unique, random circumstances. Which of course, is the whole point. Ergo, I’m not really interested in a cartooning gig with Dell per se. I am, however, interested in the company.
4. It seems to me that, like a lot of large tech companies of a certain age, Act One in the Dell drama has reached its end. The war to get computers onto the desktops of the developed world, cheaply and easily, has been largely fought and won by companies like Dell, Microsoft, HP and Apple.
Mission Accomplished.
But what happens in Act Two? How do large tech companies like Dell have to re-invent themselves in order to make the grade? To keep their ever-growing army of customers and shareholders relatively content? Seriously. I want to know.
5. What needs to happen in order for Dell to become a better company? What needs to change? What needs to remain the same? These are huge questions. Like I said, it’s worth a fortune to anybody who can come up with good answers.
6. What is “The Conversation” that needs to happen? You tell me.
Over the last few years, I’ve had a few ideas about marketing and the internet. English Cut, Stormhoek and The Blue Monster were opportunities for me to prove them. And for the most part, I succeeded. Dell might be another opportunity. I’m not sure yet.
