Direct2Dell

Ledswinger, I'm reading all of the comments we are receiving and we realize we need to move with speed and keep listening to what you and our other community members are saying so we get it right. No other way to say it than to say that I'm sorry we haven't hit it right with this relaunch of our community site. We are absolutely listening, writing down the changes we need to make and, quite frankly, taking a fresh look in real time at what we need to do. If you want to email me direct now or in the future, I'm at bob_pearson@dell.com Thanks for your comments....all taken quite seriously. Bob

"Thank you for the feedback". Yeah, like I believe that. Not only have Dell managed amongst the worst on-line mess ups of all time, but they won't even admit it. The "improvements" that have been implemented are insufficient to restore the functionality of the old forums, and most of them show that the new DCF simply wasn't tested properly. The new single log in was done in such a half baked fashion that you still expect most of us to create new user IDs if we wish to make suggestion on Ideastorm (and then, when it suits you we'll presumably have to link the two logins ourselves, again). Saying "we accept that the site is not complete and not finished" is WHOLLY INADEQUATE. None of the Dell representatives appear able to see that DELL MESSED UP, that the rationale for bringing all of these users and sites together is flawed. Look at what I see as a home user - a tag cloud occuping a large part of my desktop real estate, with tags like Corporate Social Responsibility, Business Strategy, Virtulaization, none of which have relevance to the home user. You've added value-free new content like the media galleries - Wow - looks like the Dell sysadmin has finally found a final resting place for the 10,000 least accessed files on your intranet. You're mixing channel partners, enterprise buyers and home users on the one web site - where's the commonality there? You trashed the old XPS forum for no good reason at all (unless you're planning to can the XPS product line....). The new community starts with a summary of my activity - didn't the developers think that I might know what my activity is - far more useful would be to show where there are responses to my previous activity. New users are dumping tech support queries all over the shop because the navigation is so bad, old users are beginning to realise that the DCF has been so comprehensively ruined that maybe it isn't worth persevering. AND STILL YOU WON'T ADMIT THAT IT IS A TOTAL DISASTER. What's wrong with Dell and its people? The blog responses suggest you really think that you are going to tinker your way out of a mess of not-quite biblical proportions, when common sense says that the only way to to clear this sort of foul up is for the Cat in the Hat to ride in on that machine of his. And meanwhile, you're posting interviews by Bob Pearson (VP of Great Web Disasters) with Forrester. Do you think Forrester know what's actually happened? Or have they taken the corporate hook, line and sinker, and believe that the new DCF is some radical, back-to-front baseball cap wearing, youth oriented Web 2.0 success? So, the original logic of creating one single DCF site was wrong, the site design was and remains badly flawed, functionality and site speed and availability continue to crawl along at a level of inadequacy, we people who buy Dell and pay your salaries are annoyed and frustrated. You know how it looks from here? THAT YOU DON'T LISTEN TO US, AND THAT YOU HAVE NO INTENTION OF LISTENING TO ANYTHING FROM US, OTHER THAN EASY TO IMPLEMENT DETAIL CHANGES.

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The new URL for the Direct2Dell RSS feed is http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/rss.aspx

RSS Feeds are still not working

http://feeds.direct2dell.com/Direct2Dell?format=xml

Still lists a story from Nov 19 as the newest item.

RSS feeds on my Direct2Dell blog bookmark are way behind.

Feed location is: http://feeds.direct2dell.com/Direct2Dell?format=xml

The newest story listed right now is:
Dell talks fourth wave of supercomputing at S...
That story was posted days ago. Please fix RSS feeds.

I don't think I've mentioned this before...the site is way too wide. I have to do a lot of left/right scrolling, which is very annoying. Fluid width would be nice, but if you want to preserve formating, you should make it narrower. The "categories" on the left side is completely useless and very messy, and the navigation links could go across the top.

As an avid forum user, I appreciate the effort in trying to make things better. I truly wish that there would be a way to give everyone what they want. Unfortunately, I think the powers that be are missing one point... That point is... The people that are the most upset with the change, are primarily concerned with the forum side of things. I know that many companies are looking for the Community environment... And that's great, in its own right... But the forum is only a piece of it. If you guys could integrate them... And what I mean is... Keep the Community content, and link/tie into the forum content (and engine). As an IT Architect with 20 years experience, I know it is possible. I dare to say, that with a 70% disapproval rating, the biggest thing you are going to do is... alienate those that are you are trying to please. This is a bad thing for any company. I hope you bring back the old forums. And with the likelihood of repeating everyone else: 1. The old forum was simple, fast, and worked well. 2. The old forum was easy to find just about anything you wanted to find (if the content was there) 3. I often suggested to users and colleagues looking for information to consult the old forum 4. The new forum is cluttered, and has more types of content than I'm looking for. 5. The new forum may have rhyme and reason to it, but as an IT pro, I don't have time to learn a new system 6. The new forum is so cumbersome, that I would never suggest that anyone attempt to find any information here. In closing... I know how projects go get implemented... I know how money is spent on this "new" whatever, and how "things are going to be so much better". I know how when a project flops, people keep pushing it, especially when trying to "save face". I also know how customers and brand satisfaction are lost when the above occur. Please bring back the old support forums, or simply let them coexist with this new monstrosity.

What's with all the error messages? I keep getting THIS... Address Not Found Firefox can't find the server at en.community.dell.com. The browser could not find the host server for the provided address. I've tried links that worked before, different browsers, typing it in manually, everything! Sometimes it works and sometimes- more often- it doesn't! Looks like I picked the wrong day to run out of my blood pressure medicine!

julzie: Thanks for taking the time to respond. I agree with you that we need to fix the speed and the errors as well as line breaks not showing up. All of those things are being looked at. Thanks again for the constructive feedback.

I've been checking in hoping the overwhelming "update" 70% disapproval rating caused a reversion to the previous DCF format that the "participating community" - not Dell personnel - are asking to be restored. Wishful thinking obviously. The parties responsible for this disaster are bound and determined to continue cramming a round peg into a square hole until it fits regardless apparently. For the past 3 or 4 years my prime DCF penchant was the gaming forums and based on the near total absence of new posts there since the imposition of Dell's DCF "improvement" (with the few new posts only from recent newcomers) I think it's safe to say this format change has rendered the two remaining "gaming" blogs (can't call them forums any longer...) all but useless. There's no rationale for a decisioin this bad where Dell previously benefitted from essentially free tech support of such a volume via the "old" DCF format. But having endured a working lifetime of corporate business decision logic (an oxymorom to be sure) I know once the decision has been made, barring a major leadership change it's done. What a shame...

Okay, here's an example of what I'm talking about... I DO know how to separate a written diatribe into paragraphs for easier reading... and I did so. So how come my post above is showing as onebiglongstrungtogetherparagraph?

I am getting tons of timeout errors. I do not have a slow connection, but a lot of my friends and customers are still on dial-up. If it drives me crazy, I'm thinking they'll be utterly livid! It is just plain s l o w. I used to be very pleased to send customers here, but now I'm not so sure. They hate me already. I tried to set it up to insert my signature in my posts like I did at the old place… and kept getting the error message that a sig has to be 256 characters or less. That's okay, I thought, maybe I am a bit too wordy. Maybe I don't really need to put all the details about my Dells in there, right? So I started shortening the sig… and shortening it, and shortening it, but no matter how short I made it, I kept getting that same blasted message. The only way I got it to quit was by X-ing out of it instead of saving it. I had a really hard time just finding this place, too, for several days. The links on every Dell page I tried gave me an error message that the page did not exist, could not be found, or had gone to Cleveland for the weekend. Even the link I had very carefully saved to here from the old forums didn't work. I was beginning to wonder if it was just me… maybe nobody wanted me here, like the time I went to summer camp and my parents moved away while I was gone. Or maybe I got locked out for being too whiny. I guess the main thing that I will NEVER understand is... Why mess around with something that is working? Why do you have to change it? It's not just Dell, but it seems like everyone, all companies have to do this kind of stuff, as if you need to look like you're doing something. Like taking a soap that smells good and does a good job, changing the scent to something not nearly as pleasant, then crowing about it being NEW and IMPROVED. Why?

I loved the old forum, I used it daily it was so easy to find what you were looking for. This one is a disaster I don't think any tweaking will fix it. Please please give us back our old one. This one is impossible to use.

The new forum format is not user friendly and I believe many will no longer participate, myself included. This was a great place to hang out and help others, now it is completely broken.

Robin24k has it right on target!!! The new Community is a poor substitute for the previous Community Blogs and Forum. Keeping them separte was smart. The only thing missing was a direct link from one to the other. The old Community Forum has much information that was not carried forward to the new forum. The best solution for Dell at this point is to reimpliment to old Forum and add the necessary links. The old Forum was simple to navigate and get the information you needed. Posting was also intuitively obvious to accomplish. None of ol Fourm's avitars, signatures, and other information was carried into the new Forum. Delete the new Forum and modify the old Forum to improve it. Shades of the old Dell screw-ups. Dell can learn from an method developed in the '70's and '80s called "Zero Defects". This was developed by Phillip Crosby in his book titled "QUALITY IS FREE". Basically the method is that if you do things right to begin with, there is no additional cost. With equipment this is obvious since the product works out of the box with no additional support. If there are quality problems then costs are encountered to fix those problems. Consider the XPX700 where Dell had to provide a new motherboard and its installation at no cost to the customer. That was a substantial cost to Dell. So to with the Dell Community Forum. You have made changes that were not tested properly and DO NOT meet the "QUALITY IS FREE" mantra. Fixing the new forum will no doubt be more costly than making the few modifications needed to the old forum. Dell has not learned one thing from the XPS700 debacle.

Sean, apparently you and Dell still do not understand the severity of the situation. This new site is COMPLETELY flawed. Yes, it is bad PR to implement changes and then roll back to before, but seriously, which is worse? Going back to before or this new community?

I have to agree .. the old forum was well done and easy to navigate thru. It was also relatively fast, even on a slow 1.7MBS download DSL line .. Time to cut your losses on this "New & Improved (sic)" forum. Go back to what worked before you lose it and credibility.

I agree with Robin24K, any more effort exerted on the enhancement of this new forum is not necessary, please just simple bring the old forum back to us, that solve all issues. Then, Dell can fire the project manager who propose or in charge of this new community forum. or organize a new team and spend one more year to design a new forum. but now, please give up this flawed version of community. just come back to 1 month before forum. By the way, the old forum still can not be accessible for me. Whenever I clicked the subforum of "xps laptops", which takes me to the new commnunity forum.

OK I have a new avitar but how do I do my old Macro?...I mean Where I listed all the info on in/on comments like I use : Dimension E310 and Kodak CX7330 and my printer info etc? And how do I recieve a notice to my mail box when I comment or post something please? thanks amusicfan

Between Ideastorm and the rest of the community site's poor software "upgrade" Dell has a lot of work to do. Doesn't anyone at Dell know about using beta testing BEFORE a launch instead of having the community do the beta testing? I would have thought Dell was learning from the mistakes made by launching IdeaStorm using beta software.

With a 70% disapproval rating, do you seriously think that some "more enhancements" will do you any good? The issues with this new design aren't small...the whole basic design is flawed. No amount of enhancing and tweaking will do any good.