April 2008 - Direct2Dell

This past week, the IdeaStorm community received updates on several support-related suggestions. Kay_s posted a fairly candid response to how we have improved our chat wait times. Also, andrea_l, the DellConnect program manager, weighed in on several DellConnect ideas talking about what we offer, downloading, optimization and pre-installation (launching May 1).

We've seen a bunch of IdeaStormers on Twitter over the past several weeks. So, for all tweeting, you can follow the most recent IdeaStorm ideas http://twitter.com/IdeaStorm and all our Ideas in Action updates http://twitter.com/IdeaStormAction via Twitter.

In the world of online news, IdeaStorm was called out as a "good first step" in incorporating Web 2.0 technology beyond blogs and wikis (Who Are The Web 2.5 Winners?).

It's been almost two months since we started the Weekly Recap. Let us know what else you would like to read about.

Windows continuously monitors the power level of your battery and warns you when the battery power reaches low and critical levels.   If you’re like me, there is never enough time to find an outlet before it is too late and the battery dies. Did you know that you can adjust when your low-battery light comes on, giving you more (or less) time to find a power outlet?

The quickest way to adjust the low-battery warning in Windows XP:

1. press the Windows key (the key that is typically in between your Ctrl key and Alt key) and the r key at the same time.
2. From there, type cmd and hit enter. Then type powercfg.cpl,1 and hit enter.
3. Level meters will pop up and you can adjust the settings from there.

In Vista, it's a little different: 

1. Click Start, Settings, then select Power Options.
2. On the Select a power plan page, click Change plan settings under the selected plan. 
3. On the Change settings for the plan page, click Change advanced power settings.
4. On the Advanced settings tab, expand Battery, expand Low battery level and Critical battery level, and then choose the percentage that you want for each level. 
5. Click OK, and then click Save changes.

Next time you are over at the Dell Forums searching for answers, look for the image like the check mark on the left. It's telling you that there is an solution for that issue. It's part of something we launched in February called Accepted Solution.

The concept is based on a simple premise... that customers who create a forum thread about a specific issue are the best ones to tell the community which post fixed their problem. Said another way, an original poster of a thread can now select the specific post within their thread that answered their question.

Here's how it works:

• Login to the Dell Forum (if you don't register, you can still browse)
• Click on a thread that contains the kinds of details you're looking for (like Desktops and General Hardware)
• Look for the threads with a green check mark labeled Solved!

Note: Clicking on the picture above will take you to a larger version of it.

If you click on one of those threads, you will see the comment that started the thread.  When a customer identifies a post as a solution, the thread gets a special logo in the top right corner that looks like the logo below. Clicking on it will take you right to the solution post.

It also marks the specific comment that fixes the issue with an Accepted Solution icon and turns that comment green like this one below:

This provides a visual way to search through the millions of threads on our forums for an answer to a question, by allowing users with the same question to quickly identify answers already provided by other users. If you spend time on forums like we do, you know that threads can get quite long and quickly! From the usual conversation back and forth to the many steps it often takes to arrive at a good solution, this feature helps users help each other ‘cut to the chase’!

It's taken off faster than we expected: we recently reached over 5,000 accepted solutions, and are averaging about 60 new accepted solutions added each day. Over half a million views of accepted solutions, our database of questions and answers is growing! We are excited and pleased to see so many members of our community using this feature and helping not just the first user with the question they have, but potentially millions of other users who have the same question in the future.

So next time you have a question, whether it’s technical or you’re not sure what to buy, check out the forum. There may already be an accepted solution waiting for you. Starting there will probably save you some time and effort.

For more details on how the Accepted Solution functionality works, take a look at the FAQ.

Whether we're talking fashion, home decor, or laptops, it's pretty clear that people like pink. Since we unveiled our color Inspiron laptops last June, pink is the second most popular color. And lots of our customers have made it clear that they want to see pink on more laptops.

That's why we introduced pink as an option for XPS M1330 and XPS 1530 customers worldwide beginning recently. For more details, check out www.dell.com/thinkpink, or watch this YouTube clip.

Note: Clicking on the above picture will take you to the XPS M1330 configurator for customers in the United States.

In thinking about Earth Day this week I was contemplating the opportunities that are out there for channel partners to go GREEN. Rarely have partners been able to effectively articulate a business strategy built around Green IT initiatives. A lot of channel providers talk about green, they want to be green, but at the end of the day, are they really more green than the rest of the IT industry?

And yet there are so many opportunities to make this real. Look at what VMware did in 2007 by leveraging their virtualization products to reduce power and cooling consumption. VMware worked closely with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) - who have already paid energy credits and refunds on 5 projects with another 60 pending - while at the same time executing on Green IT initiatives that saved companies about 7,000 kwH per server that they virtualized.

And now Dell is in the news, Michael Dell was a keynote speaker at Fortune's Brainstorm: GREEN Summit where he was introduced as one of the most forward-thinking CEOs in the country when it comes to environmental issues. It was interesting to me as a fairly new employee at Dell (due to the EqualLogic acquisition) that there were so many Green IT initiatives underway. One of the new product introductions this year is the new Dell blade series that boasts a 28% improvement in energy efficiency and at the conference Michael Dell previewed the company’s smallest and most environmentally-responsible consumer desktop PC. Scheduled to be released later this year, the computer is approximately 81 percent smaller than a standard mini-tower desktop, uses 70 percent less energy and comes in recycled and recyclable packaging – talk about products that channel partners can leverage to begin building a real go to market strategy around Green IT. Add to that a strategy around server and storage virtualization and channel talk becomes channel action. Making it real. What else can we do?

While traveling in the UK this past summer, I met a channel partner that has already made this strategy real for their clients. At the core of their business model was virtualization but they made sure their clients understood virtualization was a means to realize their vision for reducing client power and cooling costs. But they do not stop there, they are active in community green forums, they belong and contribute to the GreenGrid initiative and they actively market their green strategy. Wow, a partner really doing it and serving their customer’s IT needs at the same time.

What is your company doing? How are you making it real? What are the other real efforts out there?

I want to know.