Interviewing Michael Dell
I’m headed to Round Rock, TX, on Monday to interview Michael Dell and other folks at the company — bringing my blogging saga full circle — for a magazine piece. I obviously have my own list of questions but as is my habit, I’ll ask you whether there’s anything you think I should ask them. (I’ll also be videotaping much of it and hope to share that with you if I don’t mess it up.)
* Here’s my Dear Mr. Dell post.
* Here’s Dell blogger extraordinaire Lionel Menchaca’s one-year-anniversary post on Direct2Dell.
* Here’s the action Dell has taken as a result of customer’s requests at IdeaStorm.
* My original posts (from the old blog design) here. Later posts (post-redesign) here. It all started June 21, 2005.
* Drinks with Dell.
* The funniest Dell post.
* White paper on the saga here. Followup study on Dell’s progress here. Another followup: Dell’s stock and customer satisfaction up.
* By the way, I note that Dell Hell is now much farther down Google searches on the company. That, alone, is a huge benefit of getting into the conversation.
Tags: Dell
September 21st, 2007 at 5:40 pm
I would be very interested to hear Mr. Dells thoughts on the interplay between design and cost. Obviously Dell has done an unbelievable job keeping prices down but has had a more difficult time coming up with innovative designs that are compelling to consumers.
September 21st, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Yes - “Why are Macs better Windows machines than Windows machines?”
http://stevenf.com/2007/09/macs_really_do_run_windows_better.php
A lot of it has to do with “craplets” installed. Perhaps Mr. Dell could be challenged to ship his PCs craplet free, though it would cost more.
September 21st, 2007 at 6:57 pm
What are three things Mishael Dell would have liked to have seen (or still see) during the Bush Presidency?
September 21st, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Jeff … be sure to have Michael Dell share his thoughts on how the Direct2Dell, IdeaStorm, DellCommunity, and StudioDell social media initiatives are impacting its perceived rigid and metrics-driven corporate culture.
We’ve since seen Dell launch EmployeeStorm to harness ideas from its employees … so obviously, the customer-facing social media projects are having an impact on Dell’s corporate culture. More insight from Michael Dell on this would be interesting to learn.
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:55 am
Ask him if cutting cost through outsourcing customer service to foreign countries and building DELL only proprietary hardware, which was cheaply made and forced you to upgrade through DELL, had any impact on their sales leading to him needing to come back to take control of his company.
Bet he claims all those moves were a great success, he just came back because he felt the need to take DELL to greater heights … blah, blah, blah.
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Jeff, your yeoman’s effort in investigating the problem with Dell’s customer service is appreciated by all laptop buyers.
You deserve the recognition by way of having the opportunity to interview the CEO, but frankly I’m not really interested in what Michael has to say.
What’s the CW about buying a laptop from Dell, now? Yes or no.
September 24th, 2007 at 5:18 am
Jeff, I’d be interested in what Michael’s view are for data center servers and blades. Does he still plan to make cheap servers or will be be inovating more in the data center space? He is so PC focused, I think his data center attention has wained. John
September 24th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Interviewing Michael Dell…
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2007/09/22/interviewing-michael-dell/I...
September 27th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Dammit - wish I’d seen this earlier. Else I’d have pointed you towards http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/02/guardianweeklytechnologysection.dell?gusrc=rss&feed=technology and
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/09/guardianweeklytechnologysection.it?gusrc=rss&feed=technology
essentially pointing out that Dell’s “green” causes don’t spread down to its customers - just 1% have taken up the “plant a tree for me” cause; and that Michael Dell’s fortune could easily offset the carbon emissions from the PCs it sells. In fact 1% of his fortune could do that..
If you didn’t ask, any chance of bouncing those off him?
September 30th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
[...] BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » Interviewing Michael Dell Jeff Jarvis spent a day at Dell this week and interviewed Michael Dell. Business Week article and some interesting blogs posts to follow, I’m sure (Dell is a client). (tags: jarvis dell) [...]
October 1st, 2007 at 6:04 am
[...] Interviewing Michael Dell [...]
October 1st, 2007 at 6:05 am
[...] BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » Interviewing Michael Dell [...]
April 29th, 2008 at 7:37 am
[...] Dell, spurred on by the public complaints of A-list bloggers like Jeff Jarvis (here’s a recent post with links to the highlights of that story), has now become a case study for excellent corporate [...]