Dell's IdeaStorm: Social Network Driving Business Innovation

Can social networks provide business value? In most cases, I'd argue no. Very often, those "Web 2.0" sites are filled with gossip or, even worse, registered user names but no site visitors. Still, there are some prime examples where social networks really are driving business innovation.

For instance, take a look at Dell (DELL) IdeaStorm -- an online forum where readers can suggest new business ideas, vote for their favorite submissions and interact with Dell. The site is so popular that other vendors (such as Canonical, an open source advocate) are now copying the concept. And Dell itself may take IdeaStorm into new markets, according to a conversation I had with Dell VP Greg Davis on March 28.

In fact, the IdeaStorm concept could play a critical role in Dell's efforts to build the company's partner network. Dell needs a range of partners -- IT consultants, integrators, value-added resellers and service providers -- to help bolster sales and support in the small and midsize business markets.

Dell has signed up more than 6,000 partners since launching a partner push in December 2007, according to Davis. But how can Dell make sure it's listening to partners, addressing their potential concerns, and implementing their best ideas?

That's where IdeaStorm enters the picture. IdeaStorm is about innovation and spotting new business opportunities before they go mainstream. Readers flooded IdeaStorm with suggestions and proposals when Dell began exploring the desktop Linux market in early 2007. Ultimately, IdeaStorm played a critical role in Dell’s decision to pre-load Ubuntu Linux on selected laptops and desktops, starting in mid-2007.

IdeaStorm also was a great sounding board for customers who wanted Dell to re-introduce Windows XP preloads as an alternative to Windows Vista preloads.

Looking ahead, Dell may build an IdeaStorm-type site just for partners, Davis says. That would be a smart move. IdeaStorm is one of the best social-driven sites I've seen. Repeating that effort for partners should prove worthwhile.

Disclosure: Author has a long position in DELL

Comments

[Dawn@Dell]

Thanks Joe for your comments! We certainly think Ideastorm has been a value to Dell. There is a secret sauce... comes back to the willingness of the business to listen to the customers. We are excited to see other companies embrace listening as well.
Dawn Lacallade, Ideastorm Manager

[JoePanettieri]

No need to thank me, Dawn. I dish out praise when companies deserve it. And I am quick to pile on the criticism when that's warranted, too.

[jervis961]

Interesting article but I’m not sure you have the total picture. IdeaStorm gets less than 2000 unique visitors per day compared to this site which gets around 80,000. I’m not so sure Ideastorm would fall into the popular category with those numbers. Of the almost 9000 ideas submitted less than 100 have been implemented and that is even including easy ones line adding a link for Dell.com to the site. Many users who started with the site have since left out of frustration with Dell or the lousy beta software from SalesForce.com that runs the site. I suggest you go back and actually participate on the site for a month by posting a few ideas, voting and making some comments. The site can be addictive due to the conversations you can have with fellow users and the initial feeling of helping to change Dell. The initial feelings only last so long though before you start to realize that the site is more of a suggestion box than a 2 way conversation though. We have been told that Dell has weekly meetings on the top ideas but of the current top rated 21 ideas there are 7 that show no response from Dell that they have even been read let alone discussed. A third of the top ideas are being ignored and that is only looking at the first page. Mind you Dell has been working to improve the process but unfortunately they started too late and like with the rest of the business they spend most of the time trying to play catch up. Users like myself have complained since the inception of the site that the process is flawed and needs improvement.

The site has a great amount of potential if used correctly and I applaud the poor moderators who have to put up with us because they are doing their best. I still recommend the site, I just wish they would do more with it. I have been a loyal Dell customer for years and should disclose that I did invest in Dell stock recently because I believe the company has the potential to return to the greatness it once achieved.

[IdeaStormerJorge]

Don't believe everything you read or are falsely presented with Joe. IdeaStorm will never publish their web stats for fear of you finding out that there is only a select few on there and then there's what we've termed dupers (more than one account) voting in their own ideas. They've tried to curb it but in reality have no idea what is being done to them, its fills nice marketing pamphlets but not the money barrel.

The purpose of the site has never been fully used by Dell and they continue to side step the real issues/ideas. As a company they will never give any purposeful feedback to the site's ideas and concepts. I do agree other companies are reading and implementing them on their own to much fan fair of the people posting the ideas, I know of a few companies who no longer buy Dell products becuase of Dell's lack of vision on some of these most highly regarded and sound ideas on there. Oh and those companies reading don't have to pay a dime to view and implement those ideas either, but they are reaping the benefits!

On the IdeaStorm concept and others coping them, the OpenSource version is soon on its way for all to install and not have to pay SalesForce.com for their buggly and 20 Centruy limiting features. Dell started something but little do they know what it is they started.

The 21st Century is about Open-ness and Dell has still yet to learn this and will fall pray to their own closed mindedness in the long run.

[gmat]

Nice article Joe. However, you really should have spent a little more time researching before you gave DELL an "attaboy" for the IS web site. I would suggest that you read through a number of the "ideas". Random sample from early to recent. Then participate for awhile and see if you still believe it's what you thought it was when you wrote this piece.

As for the concept. Yes, it was a nice idea. But if you would look at DELL's total lack of participation in the earlier months you'll see how little they thought of it. They didn't know what they had started nor how to deal with it when it seemed to catch on. They weren't prepared because it was obvious from the start that it was designed to be an attention getter. Not for the general public, but for the media. FREE positive advertising. And they have gotten their money's worth in that area.

As to it's popularity. Does the term "smoke and mirrors" mean anything to you? Take a close look at the "point count" they use to indicate the popularity of an idea. It includes a zero added at the end of the number to artificially increase the count total by a multiple of 10. So a total of 240 does not represent a vote of 240 people but rather 24 people. Hardly a significant number. Yet MOST of the ideas on the site have that number or less as a final vote. If you would check further you'd find that a great number of ideas, votes and comments were posted by a relatively few participants. Take any given day and count the ideas, votes and comments for that day. Then remove the posts by the "regular" posters (past and present) and see just how "popular" the site is.

There's more of course. Like the 'half hearted" LINUX initiative you referred to. But you get the idea. You may find IdeaStorm to be a plus for DELL but it is the thing that has turned me off to the company. I try not to deal with companies I don't trust.

Er, Joe? What exactly does this mean? "Disclosure: Author has a long position in DELL" (At the bottom of your article.)

[aikiwolfie]

What can I say that hasn't already been said? You should have gone and actually used the site before reporting on it? Oh wait sorry that's already been said.

As an IdeaStorm member I don't contribute because I think Dell will implement my ideas. I already know that's a long shot. I'm throwing my ideas out to the community to see what they think. If someone else comes along and implements them, then great!

But here's the truth about IdeaStorm. Fully properly implemented ideas are far and few between. So far as I can see most of what has been implemented has been bug fixes to SalesFarce.com's buggy software. Even doing something as mundane and simple as adding a link to a comment is problematic.

Dell have failed to make the best of IdeaStorm.

[Dawn@Dell]

IS regulars- Agree these are valid concerns and ones that you have shared with me on Ideastorm as well. We are working on much of this as we speak and share updates on the Ideas in Action tab as we have them!
-Dawn

[gmat]

Dawn - Which of the concerns do you (DELL) agree to be "valid"? Which are you "working on as we speak"?

The problem with your response here, is the same as the usual responses on IdeaStorm. Nothing specific! You don't address a specific concern with a specific solution. It's all evasion, deflection and redirection. No direct, straight forward answers. It's the stock "non-answers"... "We hear you" (That's nice). "We're working on it". (Working on WHAT? Doing WHAT?). Coming soon. (When?)

You see we (the customer) and you (the company) just don't speak the same language. We want specific answers and you want to give vague answers. So we have this continuous breakdown in communication. Since I stopped participating on IS and no longer consider myself to be a DELL customer, you don't owe me any explanation or response. But I feel you do owe the others here some response other than "just sit down and be quiet and we'll get to it". The only reason I responded to this article in the first place was to prevent yet another DELL BS promotion to go unchallenged.

[IdeaStormerJorge]

Oh too funny Dawn's still running the PR spin, give it up the jig is up! See your stocks lately LOL! Get that resume ready, we'll give you a recommendation as a mod, in your dreams! Right about now you're probably starting to think you should of actually read what a mod should be.

Hey Joe, since you're close to Dell as an insider, ask Legal how their privacy rules are going? (psst, they have none)

Hello to the rest of the Stomers, greetings and wishing you well.

[IdeaStormerJorge]

Oh I forgot Dawn, you can block an IP but you can't block me!

[IdeaStormerJorge]

Oh I also left out, how has your work increased or how has the work increased for the Forum/IS mods since we joined LOL! The easy job is no longer easy is it, gotta actually put some time into it, without leaving foot in mouth.

[IdeaStormerJorge]

Hey Joe, give me a post count I'm on a roll.

[Dawn@Dell]

Hey Gmat- Here are a couple of links where we talk specifically on the challenges and what we are working on as of now. We are giving updates every week on the progress we are making. Specifically we have broken this down into three focus areas for us. #1 Technology: We have been focused on ensuring we answer more ideas than we have historically. Key to this is having an idea management platform to handle the volume on the back end. Last week we shared that we are in the testing phase of this back end functionality. direct2dell.com/one2on...
#2 Participation and Staffing- We have increased the number of Dell team members with regular contributions and have invited additional experts from across Dell to respond directly to ideas. Take a look around... there are a lot of new faces.
#3 Process Improvement- As a part of the creation of the back end tool for ideas management, we have been refining the processes themselves and have found several opportunities for improvement.
As is always true with a new concept, it takes time to get to the well oiled machine... and we are working hard to get there. Let me know if this does not help you understand where we are focused.

Would love to discuss more if you prefer a call.

Dawn

[gmat]

Thank you Dawn. I do appreciate your consideration in responding to my comments. I've checked the items you suggested and can see an improvement in DELL's active participation in the site. It's taken DELL more than a year to get this far. I'm afraid I lost patience with all the bumbling in a poorly thought out web site, from a major "computer company", that should have done a much better job from day one. However, I like to think that I have an open mind and will be checking back to IS more often. But since "change" doesn't always mean "better" I'll wait and see.

[Dawn@Dell]

Thanks all for the reminder that I need to spend less time with my head down and more time updating on our status. Please take a look at an update on Ideastorm that shares the above information with the rest of the IS crowd. direct2dell.com/one2on...

[IdeaStormerJorge]

Quite: "A huge step in the right direction to get responses to the ideas that matter most to the community."

That is dizzy-ing text there, two years and Dell still can't figure that one out! Somebody call Mikey ASAP! All these MOD's and they still can't decipher this, I guess the multitude of duplicate ideas on the subject are no help, not to mention the multiple languages those duplicates came in. No instead the world needs a Pink laptop instead, ghod (no misspell) knows a negatively voted idea deserves to be implemented.

Go Dell, prove yourself wrong and with foot in mouth yet again.

[IdeaStormerJorge]

See no feedback from Dell Joe, they come in and derail your comment section and leave, same as on IdeaStorm. The site doesn't even have support for the mods to post a sitewide message, you have to go another website, talk about feature rich!

[gmat]

Well Dawn, I've been checking back to the IS web site from time to time and have to say that my original assessment of it remains unchanged. The overwhelming number of votes and comments are still being provided by a relatively few participants. DELL's active participation is still extremely limited and totally random. I think that it's popularity in the world is more wishful thinking on DELL's and the regular visitors part than actual reality.

Your company may well be using some of the ideas posted by visitors to your site but, you would have a hard time proving it by anything I've seen there. You "inovations" appear to come on the market after one or more of your competitors has already produced them rather than after you've agreed with a poster that DELL likes his idea.

I wont be back.