#DellCAP: From Behind the Curtain to Next Steps

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Fodder to Focus

Wed through Friday last week I was honored to be part of the inaugural DELL Customer Advisory Panel (CAP) event at the DELL HQ in Round Rock, TX. (Thank you, DELL, for generously covering the costs of our travel.) I arrived with curiosity about the experience fueled by the information sharing that introduced the event.

Now I’m home and my mind is filled with the experience — so much “fodder.” This is a case study in a new sort of customer outreach. It was participatory anthropology. The people studying our responses were in the room asking questions, adding thoughts, and most importantly, listening and hearing.

This was NOT a focus group.

What Impressed Me

This was the first #DellCAP event.

Here’s a little about the event that impressed me:

Two groups attended each on a different day. The fifteen invitees on Tuesday were people who might be considered DELL critics. Some in that group told me they didn’t see themselves as anti-DELL. The fifteen invitees on Thursday were people who might be considered DELL evangelists. Some in that group said they didn’t see themselves as particular pro-DELL either. The idea that DELL invited people they saw as both ends of the spectrum impressed me.
The morning sessions included C-Suite and senior executives. DELL interest in the event was high. The room had an audience and folks outside the room could “dial in.” DELL considered the event a valuable experience. Conversation with people at every level of the organization proved their excitement to be learning from outside sources what they need to change.
The breaks and side interviews showed DELL employees interested in extending the conversation and forming relationships that went beyond the day that we were there.
The tenor and the tone of the morning conversations, especially that around customer service was particularly open and centered on learning. The people who work with the outsourced and overseas help talked frankly about their goals and their focus on price. Their ownership of policy problems led to some great discussion that went beyond service to strategic positioning — ideas that could bring the awesome DELL of the past back to us.

What Might Have Worked Better

The afternoon was in the DELL Labs and took the form of a presentation. Personally I see some ways that it might have invited more interaction to pull more value from the event.

The product presentation about the specialists and generalists DELL serves was enlightening. It might have been fun to ask the invitees which group most described them and invite the larger group split off to explore more deeply the products designed for them. A chance to discuss one product line might have triggered a more invested discussion than a survey view of the whole product offering. Smaller groups might have offered a refreshing change in the day and a chance to see who’s most like us.
The upcoming new product (NDA session) naturally had to be a “talk at us” session. At this stage, our input is moot. It’s nice to get insider information, but it might have been more exciting if DELL had said, “If you’re interested, we’ll send you more information right before the release it so that you can play with it and be the first to share news about it, if you choose.”
The session on sustainability and recycling was also Web 1.0. Imagine how engaging it might have been if DELL had shared what they’re doing; then invited us to brainstorm ideas on how they might use social media to spread the news about the worldwide efforts on http://www.dell.com/recycle/ I had no idea they have so many sustainability partnerships going on.

Information to Strategy?

I can only imagine the wealth of ideas and information compiled throughout the two long days of conversation and demonstrations. Graphic conversationalist, Sunni Brown, recorded key points throughout in this murals like this one …

4714070461_e200a062b9_dellcap_conversation_via_paul_mooney

DELL said they’ll be displaying the murals where customers and employees can see them often. The calls to action throughout are both inspiring and almost overwhelming. It’s hard to move a huge company — every huge company becomes less adventurous and more protective of what it already owns.

DELL how will you report back on what you’re doing with what you’ve found out?

Strategy that Leverages Opportunity

The task before #DellCap is to keep the conversation going, to refocus on people who grow the company — inside and out. It takes strategy and company-wide focus to reconnect with customers in a true value relationship. Change isn’t easy. Without a deep commitment and strategic plan the vision is just a nice thought.

Some strategic thinking I’d love to see (and be part of) include:

Building a strategy about finding opportunities, not holding ground.
True strategy combines mission, position, current conditions, resources, and well chosen tactics set out incrementally to move us forward.
Build from strengths and eliminate ‘thinking poor.”
Thinking poor leads us to throw away the good things without seeing them and to increase our chances of following them down into that hole. Some great examples of poor thinking include … discounting prices for unlimited periods … customers who value us only for discounts will leave when they’re gone … reducing services … just tells customers we don’t value them at the time we need them most …
Build out the social media leadership group.
Macro and micro businesses get stuck in process models that they’ve outgrown, but keep using. Fear of change, love of past success, bias that interprets history in our favor leads us to repeat and re-imprint bad or outdated behaviors in our organizational brains.

Tactics: Where I Might Go From Here?

I sat in a room rife with opportunities. Fine minds were jumping into help and offer ideas on how to reach out and grow.

What might I do if I were in that “OK, big shot, moment?” What next steps seem possible to gain the most traction from what started at #DellCap? Here are a few ideas to get the folks who want to stay with it moving forward with you.

Premise: You can’t be inside and outside the system at the same time. Know that the real value of the event was that the people who came weren’t part of the thinking that built the system. Every system needs a clear outside view.

What I might do:

Compile, reflect on, and share the ideas and issues came out of both groups in an open report available to anyone interested in the event.
Invite 2-3 attendees to write a presentation — a case study on the event itself.

Premise: Follow through is the loudest thank you. Honor all valid input and the time of those who contributed. Asking for opinions and insights is good. Valuing and honoring what you get is imperative to keeping communication open. A change in behavior is a tribute and shows respect to people who inspired that change. Show that commitment.

What I might do:

Talk about what’s been learned with gratitude online and offline. Just as you’ve been doing.
Blog about the event. Thank the people (inside and outside of DELL) who gave time to be part and link back to what they write with your thoughts.
Compile one major list of all posts people write from one main blog and use individual blog posts as fodder for ideas and future blogs posts when they might be relevant.
Start a newsletter that shares changes that came from this conversation. Send it out to people both inside and outside the company who have interested in #dellcap.

Premise: Intentionally extend relationships. Make room for the best. At least two people in my group are looking to work full time with DELL and several others would be delighted to keep working together.Value truth tellers who won’t let you fail. We all need to invest in the people who help us thrive.

What I might do:

Gather more information about the areas of expertise of the invitees. You might invite managers to consider this group when opportunities to test new products, discuss new ideas, or train new employees might benefit from an outside view.
Invite employee volunteers to keep in touch with one guest as a personal “customer advocate.”
Arrange for attendees to manage one relationship with DELL, not one with every department.
Invest resouces in the building the online #dellcap channel you’ve opened to solicit ideas.
Invite each guest to advocate for their customer segment from the “generalist / specialist” pie chart. Offer those who do a chance to be advisors, community builders, or “prototypical customers” for products in the appropriate product line. Make a long-term plan of building some ambassadors for each distinct product line.

Premise: Gather ideas and new process innovation by partnering strategically at every level and across industries. As the world becomes flatter and more social, the opportunities to raise a company to a category of one come from partnering with people and businesses who want the same things.

What I might do:

Build partnerships outside technology circles with companies, customers, and employees who have passionate values that align your values.
Invite social media, marketing, and PR students from UT to build a campaign to get the word out about DELL sustainability efforts.
Partner DELL interns with entrepreneurs to bring in new ideas.
Sponsor think tanks and events and send DELL employees to learn how other industries solve similar problems.
Invite experts into your building to for a learning exchange.

Premise: Claim your rewards and leverage them for the future. Find a way to commemorate and claim the investment and growth that took place. Make it something special to have been there — something special that we’ll all look back on with pride.

What I might do:

Build a #DellCAP Hall of Fame page as the first step in a TimeLine of Change. Include the biographies of all who attended — employees and guests. Record the event and add to it as you move forward. Share the page url with the company.
Pick a #dellcap team to brainstorm ways to extend the breadth, depth, and reach of the event before the momentum fades.

I’ll stop here.

The Wizard of OZ and Trust

In a sidebar discussion about the new iPhone and the DELLStreak, I was mentioning how some folks are feeling an anti-Apple sentiment over their closed system. The designer I spoke to said …

Open is a huge thing.

yes.

In the Wizard of OZ, OZ, the great and powerful, was just an image. Remember the saying?

Pay NO ATTENTION to man behind the curtain.

Dorothy didn’t have a relationship with OZ. She feared him.

Fear doesn’t inspire fiercely loyal fans. Trust and fear can’t exist in the same space.

It was when the little man came out from behind the curtain that the problem solving began.

Thanks for coming out from behind the curtain. Now on to the problem solving. Thank you Chris, Carly, Sarah, and Vance, for inviting us. Thank you, Mack, for an outstanding job at moderating a group who likes to talk.

What ideas do you have for DELL? What problems do you think they should be working on?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Social Media Book List: #PARTNERtweet and Endless Referrals

Filed Under Business Book, Business Life, Comments, Successful Blog | 7 Comments

A Weekly Series by Teresa Morrow

I’m Teresa Morrow, Founder of Key Business Partners, LLC and I work with authors and writers by managing their online promotion. As part of my job I read a lot of books (and I love to read anyway!). I am here to offer a weekly post about one book author I am working with and one book I have put on my reading list. This week I will be highlighting ‘#PARTNERtweet: 140 Bite Sized Ideas for Succeeding in your Partnerships ‘. and ‘Endless Referrals’ by Bob Burg . The books will cover topics such as social media (Facebook and Twitter), organization, career building, networking, writing, self development and inspiration.

#PARTNERtweet

#PARTNERtweet is written by Chaitra Vedullapalli.

Here are few of the tweets from #PARTNERtweet:

~Smart Partnering helps you to deliver functional solutions.
~Smart Partnering provides you access to valuable resources (technology, money, and education).
~Smart Partnering provides you the arsenal to compete on an ongoing basis.
~Smart Partnerships provide a gateway for international expansion.
~Your relationship to the customers does not end with the sale of your product. It begins there.
~The best way to know what your customers want from your products is to ask them.

About the Author:
Chaitra Vedullapalli is the Senior Director of WW Sales and Marketing Communications, where she oversees the information workplace for Microsoft Sales Force. Past work includes shaping the Microsoft Customer and Partner Self Service Experience which touched over 10M Customers & 1M Partners. She was also an integral part of creating the Service Culture at Microsoft and an architect of the Microsoft-IAMCP (International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners) innovation program. Chaitra has also served as Director of Licensing and PartnerNetwork at Oracle where her projects drove licensing simplification and enabled state of the art innovations in Partner Self Service Experience.

Chaitra holds a Patent in WebMethods and Bachelors of Electrical Engineering from RVCE, Bangalore, and is currently active in community efforts to help children in need.

You can purchase a copy of #PARTNERtweet online at ThinkAha books or at Amazon.

This blog post is part of a virtual book tour done by Key Business Partners and I have received a complimentary copy of #PARTNERtweet by the author.

Endless Referrals by Bob Burg

Now I would like to highlight a book on my “review” reading list–Endless Referrals.
I have to admit before I go any further. I have read some of this book and I enjoyed what I have read so far.

I would like to share a bit of this book that I feel has great points (and believe me there are many more in the pages of this book) about the six essential rules of networking etiquette.

1) Don’t Ask for Immediate Repayment – Yes, so true. Don’t go into a networking event with expectations of getting (or asking) for something in return.
2) Treat a mentor like a mentor – When I see this, it reminds me of “do to others, what you would like done to you”.
3) Keep an eye on the clock – Don’t overstay your bounds…with the people you are getting to know. Be sure to allow yourself to meet people within the event you are attending.
4) Follow through on your promises – If you offer to send an email or offer to someone, do it.
5) Be extra careful not to offend a referred prospect – Don’t offer to refer someone to someone else without knowing it is a good fit.
6) Say (and write) a Thank You – still one of the greatest and simplest ways to create lasting connections.

About the Author:
Bob Burg shares information on topics vital to the success of today’s business person. He speaks for corporations and associations internationally, including fortune 500 companies, franchises, and numerous direct sales organizations.

Sharing the principles contained in his bestselling books, Bob has addressed audiences ranging in size from 50 to 16,000, sharing the platform with notables including today’s top thought leaders, broadcast personalities, athletes, and political leaders including cabinet secretaries and a former United States President.
*courtesy of Amazon.com

You can purchase a copy of ‘Endless Referrals’ on Amazon.

I truly hope you will check out these books and please comment and let me know your thoughts on them.

What if FDR’s Ideas Ran the C-Suite and Your Social Media?

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These Times Ain’t So Different

As part of a my quest to move outside my dad’s story, to learn from it as a business case of a growing business in a bad in economy, I’ve been studying the climate, conditions, and character of the people who lived through the terrible economy after World War 1 through the 1929 Stock Market Crash and the Great American Depression.

One hero, a pivotal leader in changing the world, was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States, the only president to serve more than two terms, the man married to the famous Eleanor Roosevelt, also called FDR.

franklin_d_roosevelt_and_eleanor_roosevelt_1920

He’s of particularly interest because he was elected in 1932, at the height of the depression and took office in 1933, the year prohibition was repealed and the year that my father opened his saloon.

What if FDR Ran the C-Suite and Your Social Media?

FDR was faced with a jobless population and a world that was preparing for a second war. I don’t wish to devalue the power or gravity of what he said then, but as I read his speeches and his conversations, I can’t help to think his words and wisdom might serve us all now as we look for leaders — not dreamers — to change the world and get growing again.

1: Try Something.

To the students of Oglethorp College, he set this challenge in 1932, but every commencement speaker knows the audience is more than the graduates and as a presidential candidate he was speaking to the country as well as to those before him.

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

2: Don’t Wait.

The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach.

3: Connect with Young Hearts — your own and others

We need enthusiasm, imagination and the ability to face facts, even unpleasant ones, bravely. We need to correct, by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our economic system from which we now suffer. We need the courage of the young.

In his first inaugural address , FDR laid out the challenges we face and pledged himself to leadership for change in ways that resonate to this day.

4: Speak the Truth

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.

5: Fear paralyzes.

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

6: Confidence requires deep commitment.

Confidence… thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.

7: Achievement and creativity are joyful and thrilling.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

And from his speech at the Citadel in 1935 …proof in his relentless, fearless, strategic leadership.

8: Our strategy will save us.

Yes, we are on our way back— not just by pure chance, my friends, not just by a turn of the wheel, of the cycle. We are coming back more soundly than ever before because we are planning it that way. Don’t let anybody tell you differently.

9: Leaders embrace change and value social justice.

Throughout the world, change is the order of the day. In every Nation economic problems, long in the making, have brought crises of many kinds for which the masters of old practice and theory were unprepared. In most Nations social justice, no longer a distant ideal, has become a definite goal, and ancient Governments are beginning to heed the call.

In his speech before the Democratic National Convention in 1936, he summed up our mission.

10: Leaders rise to the call.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

It’s good to have heroes. It’s good to learn from them and carry their wisdom forward with us.

The tools may change. The speed of connections may get faster.
But the values that move and motivate people to great things are unchanging, authentic, and core to our species.

These new social tools are only as good as the leaders who pick them up and the strategies and cultures they choose to bring to them. This new reach, this new speed the tools offer can help us, our friends, our clients, and the people we meet grow our businesses to get our economy rolling again … we are the difference in whether that happens.

What if FDR’s Ideas Ran the C-Suite and Your Social Media?

How will FDR’s words guide you to grow your business? How will you his wisdom to enlist those around you to join you to bring the economy back?

Start small. Raise a barn. Don’t build a coliseum.

We can change the world … just like that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Forget About Your Ship Coming In – Think about the Captain

Filed Under Business Life, Comments, Marketing, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog, Trends, Writing | 11 Comments

For @ChrisCree , @SheilaS , and @BeckyMcCray

about how often we end up looking and caring in the wrong direction.

A friend is going for a job or a contract and does everything she can to be all that person wants. Then hears “I’m sorry, but you’re just not a great fit for this job.” She’s so involved in that one position that she’s crushed and any other option is a loss.

Another person so needs a sponsor to move his project forward. He puts together what is a most compelling argument. The potential partner, unfortunately, doesn’t have the resources to help. He sees time lost and his inability to convince someone.

Both are waiting for their ship to come in.

Every day I talk to someone who’s got a grand plan for how things will lay out or how things should be, will be, if only that ship comes in. Listening to them talk you can almost see that ship in the distance on the horizon. The hidden assumption is that the ship will come in and pick them up.

That’s the problem, even if that is a ship in the distance, you don’t own it. Who knows where it’s going? Even if it comes in, where it goes is up to the captain.

What if we slightly shift our vision — stop looking at that one ship and starting thinking about a world full of captains?

Sometimes the harbor is filled with ships waiting to take on working staff and paying passengers. Sometimes is not. But one thing’s sure more than most. Some of people who run the ships have gotten to know each other.

It’s the person, not the job or the sponsorship, that my two friends should be tracking … care about the “captain,” not the ship. Lots of folks have reasons to want to ride along with them for some reason. You can’t negotiate your way on board if the right person doesn’t care about you.

If you want a chance at the real opportunity …

Get the “captain” to fall in love with your vision and to believe in its reality. Move the “captain” to feel like a hero and smart for helping you.

You see …

Even if the captain’s ship isn’t going where we’re going, that person still knows a whole network of other “captains.” If we communicate the value of what we’re doing, chances are most captains will start looking for a ship going in our direction.

Care about the captain and not the ship.

How can you shift your vision to the people who can get you where you’re going?

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Blue ‘Vette, Pink Flamingos, and Customer Relationships

Filed Under Comments, Design, Inside-Out Thinking, Marketing, Motivation/Inspiration, Productivity, Successful Blog, Survival Kit, Tips, Writing | 2 Comments

How a Car Made a Conversation

I had the lovely experience of spending two hours with @connieburke in a Chevy Corvette Grand Sport while we were at SxSW. It wasn’t because I’m anything special. Chevy had two ‘vettes, two Camaros, and the Chevy Volt ready for Ride and Drives so that folks could have the experience.

On Sunday when my SOBCon partner, Terry Starbucker walked by the cars, we stopped to say hello and talk to Connie about how ride and drive was going.

All I did was ask.

“Hey, Connie, you know I used to live in Austin. We could take one of these ‘vettes to go see the house we built. I could show you hill country and why folks really love it out by the lake.”

All Connie did was ask.

“I’ll put in for a car on Tuesday. Let’s see if we could make that happen.”

As it turned out, Tuesday it was raining … our GOOD luck because it meant we got the Blue Grand Sport for a couple of hours.

Connie and I hit the road at around 11:30 a.m. As we started, she was driving. Google maps wasn’t much help getting us to where I wanted to go. We ended up having a conversation with Onstar.

Seemed kind of weird having OnStar in ‘vette, just sayin’ … Good weird though because it got us to the “pink flamingos” at Pots and Plants the Nursery at 360 and Bee Caves Road in Austin.

The flamingos enticed us to pull in and park.

But I think Connie was most partial to the old Chevy truck.
Or maybe she was just taking pix for my dossier.

I took the wheel as we left. Going up the on ramp to 360, I slowed for a car to pass. Connie quietly said, “Ya know, you have the acceleration.”

Oh yeah! I was driving the ‘vette.

While we took 360 out to 2222 old route then to 620, I told stories of ’69 ‘vettes — one that my best friend, Nancy, raced in gymkhanas and another that my husband raced in the Grand Nationals.

When we reach the house I once lived in I looked over the fence to see the red oak I planted in the clay caliche soil in the dry Austin heat.

On the way to Austin’s famous Oasis restaurant on the lake, we told stories about how our kids grew up. We talked business and possibilities.

At lunch we did about 10 minutes trading our favorite Stephen Wright jokes. Who knew that about either of us?

And at the end of lunch, I bought t-shirts for my son and my husband who’ll remember many meals we shared there.

That’s how a car connected Connie to my best friend, my husband, my son, a house we built — all parts of my history — and a hillside full of pink flamingos.

I became a person during that conversation. So did she when she told me some of the same things.

You can bet that I’ll be showing up if she calls. Proof to seal the deal is that I’m not sharing the conversation on the way back into Austin down 6th Street.

It’s not so outlandish that blue ‘vette and some pink flamingos would lead to good business … The car connected us in a mutual experience. Our trip wasn’t about the car it was about the people in it. The car started a conversation that led to a relationship. I can’t imagine how much longer it would have taken to cover the same ground without it.

This wasn’t a free ride without purpose. It was building relationships one person at a time. Back at the convention center, our meeting with Mark Horvath went even better because we knew other just that little bit more.

We’re already ready exploring some ideas together. A natural one is Chevy: Your Mission. Our Drive. People who would like to make a difference in their community (with the help of Chevy vehicles and volunteers) can fill out a short, online application on our Facebook Chevy Missions tab or follow progress on @ChevyMissions

Every business is relationships and relationships are everyone’s business. Companies who reach out fearlessly with trust in their customers are the ones who can win.

You must have a story about how a product connected two people in business. Will you take a minute to share it now?

_____
Thank you, Connie and Chevy for that … looking forward to how we’ll be helping folks in North Central region with the new initiative.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You're only a stranger once.

Fodder to Focus

What Impressed Me

What Might Have Worked Better

Information to Strategy?

Strategy that Leverages Opportunity

Tactics: Where I Might Go From Here?

The Wizard of OZ and Trust

A Weekly Series by Teresa Morrow

#PARTNERtweet

Endless Referrals by Bob Burg

These Times Ain’t So Different

What if FDR Ran the C-Suite and Your Social Media?

What if FDR’s Ideas Ran the C-Suite and Your Social Media?

How a Car Made a Conversation

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

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