This week there has been a middling stir regarding Dell’s public blog. Largely any kind of de-shrouding of the corporate enigma is received with some automatic appreciation. Dell’s effort was also met with the requisite criticism from the uber-bloggers who feel Dell was half-hearted in their attempt and did not meet expectations. While I agree the “Direct Conversation” with Dell seems a bit sanitized and mediated at first glance, it is an enormous step for any hierarchical corporation to fully open up publicly and interactively.

The comments seem fairly direct and unfiltered on the site which seems like a reasonable start. Around the blogosphere, Dell is getting the whip for not immediately, pro-actively bringing up important issues (exploding computers, 14 hour hold times, new pricing strategy…Bueller?). Alright so the blog does actually suck. For now. This is v.1 and as we in the 2.0 world where companies share decisioning and address consumers directly: continuous feedback, improvements, perpetual beta, and other 2.0 jargon should be applied. In fact Dell did the smart thing in their latest post by addressing the criticism of some biz-blog heavies.

The fact that Dell has a feedback platform is a phenomenal move considering the now medieval looking companies that it beat up on the way to the top. (Compaq Presario anyone?)

Also, working in a mega corporate, I can tell you the decision to greenlight a blog that is even slightly cloudy and occasionally trustworthy is like a pox on the PR department and the multitude of agencies that rely on being able to produce volumes of mediocre marketing because the message is always the same. Imagine that, now they will have to actually read and hear what people are saying about the product and produce communication that explains what the consumer wants to know.

I for one welcome Dell to the discussion. Take your time jumping in, trust me there is alot to talk about.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 12th, 2006 at 2.15pm and is filed under 2.0, blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.