To reach out to customers, Dell describes how Dell, Inc. has created blog sites, an idea-generation forum called Idea Storm, and translations of its sites in Spanish. In this manner, the company has begun to build online communities, which has sparked enormous participation from customers, says Dell.

Transcript



Some of you might have seen, we had been setting up a number of ways for us to reach out to our customers. We have blog sites, we have a very interesting site called Idea Storm. And actually, today, we are setting up our Spanish language blog site. So for all of our customers who speak Spanish around the world, we now have a community forum where our customers can comment, our people inside the company can present ideas and new things that we're doing. And we can basically build this online community. And if you go to our sites and you look at these, they're quite fascinating. There's just enormous participation from customers. If you go to dell.com/conversations, you can see all these different sites that we have set up. And we're going to continue to expand this. So we have this site called Idea Storm, which is really fascinating. A customer can go online and just submit an idea, say, "Dell should do the following."

1. The Origins of Dell, Inc.
2. The Culture and Dynamics of Dell, Inc. During the Early Years
3. Take Caution in Forming Close Friendships in a Company
4. Setting up the Initial Board of Directors for Dell, Inc.
5. Enhancing the Effectiveness of a Board of Directors
6. Overcoming Some of the Early Mistakes of Dell, Inc.
7. The Reasons Behind Dell, Inc. Going Public
8. Critical Changes to the Business Model of Dell, Inc.
9. Self-Disruption at Dell, Inc.
10. Starting a New Company in an Inefficient Industry
11. Implementing Processes in a Fast-Growing Company
12. Creating an Effective Communication Infrastructure
13. The Flawed Model of the Early Computer Industry
14. Revolutionizing the PC and IT Industry
15. Innovation at Dell, Inc.
16. Finding a Common Language for Improvement inside a Company
17. Current Threats to the PC Industry

Michael Dell lectures on Entrepreneurship for Stanford University students, May 1, 2007. Michael Dell is the founder of the computer company Dell, Inc. He created one of the most profitable computer companies in the world with annual sales of up to $50 billion American dollars. Dell has also become one of the wealthiest people in the world with a 4th place listing on the Forbes rich Americans list in 2005 with an estimated worth of $18 billion. In this Stanford lecture, he talks about taking caution in forming close friendships in a company, creating an effective communication infrastructure and starting a new company in an inefficient industry.

Related Links: http://www.dell.com/
                            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell

Last Updated: Mon, Jul 16, 2007

Course Details:
- Endeavor's Entrepreneurs' Summit
- Stanford University's Entrepreneurship Corner (ecorner)

Original Course Name: Endeavor's Entrepreneurs' Summit.