December 2008 - Direct2Dell

Thanks in large part to our customers, employees and suppliers, we’re making significant progress against our goal of becoming the ‘greenest’ technology company on the planet. We offer the industry’s only free and worldwide recycling program for consumers. We’ve incorporated energy efficiency throughout our products and business, and encourage our suppliers to do the same. We’re inviting our customers to share their thoughts and ideas on how together we can create a green future. Several customer ideas have already been implemented, and our work is only getting started.

In September 2007, we set a transparent, three-tiered goal to neutralize and account for the carbon-emissions impact of our worldwide operations by: 1) increasing energy-efficiency 2) maximizing purchases of green power and 3) responsibly offsetting remaining effects. In typical Dell fashion, we committed to measuring our progress against the most rigorous industry-sanctioned practices and pledged to share results with our customers and stakeholders around the world.  We were pleased to announce in August that we met our carbon-neutral goal several months ahead of schedule.

A story in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal raises some interesting points about how companies like ours size their carbon footprint and account for reducing their impact on the environment.

We are not the first company to meet a carbon-neutral goal, and we obviously hope many, many more will follow. Yahoo, Google and HSBC have also taken leadership roles in this regard. HarperCollins UK, which, along with the Wall Street Journal, is a News Corporation company, announced in December 2007 that they had met their carbon-neutral goal by pursuing a strategy very much like our own.

At Dell, we welcome and encourage discussion on climate issues. What we do collectively today factors into the health and future our planet and our global economy.  Every company should participate in the dialogue and solutions. The Journal story is a reminder that we're at the dawn of an essential and exciting new era of environmental responsibility, one that we're committed to helping lead.

Keep the thoughts, ideas and comments coming. Visit Direct2Dell, IdeaStorm and DellEarth. Tell or show us how we can build on our partnerships for a cleaner environment. The more heads devoted to this cause, the better for all of us.  We've already made tremendous progress in 2008 and, with your help, 2009 promises to be our greenest year yet.

Small businesses, just like big business, struggle with accommodating the work personality of GenY. With numerous social networks and other online communication tools, it can be difficult to determine if your employees are working or just socializing on the clock. Many companies, large and small, are beginning to embrace the social media culture at work, but many are still hesitant to jump on the bandwagon believing that full access to the Internet will be too distracting.

Last week Mike Elgan wrote about the death of hard work and cited that "control of attention is the ultimate individual power," from Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, Outliers (which I got for Christmas and will be reading soon). Elgan's commentary and Seth Godin's take on Gladwell's concept of stardom from 10,000 hours of hard work really got me thinking.

As a community manager, I spend a lot of my work day on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Reader. For quite some time, I've believed that I'm at my best when juggling several things at once. The demands of numerous activities force me to schedule everything I do and stay organized to make sure everything gets done. I can see that multi-tasking isn't the best option for everyone, especially if you tend to already be unorganized or a procrastinator. But, for those of us anal-retentive types, it's a great way to make sure you're balancing work-life and personal-life demands.

Instead of suggesting that undivided attention is the new work ethic, my vote is for prioritization. Attention is critical to prioritizing since you have to evaluate everything on your plate and decide how much time and attention something needs for the day, week, etc. So, I don't completely agree or disagree with what Elgan wrote. But, with all the things being asked of us for our jobs and lives, I think the true "individual power" lies within our ability to prioritize our to-do lists.

What do you think the new work ethic is?

I recently caught up with Richard Jalichandra, CEO of Technorati, the world’s largest blog search engine during his visit to Austin.

With over 900,000 blog posts every day and more than 200 million blogs in the world today, there is an amazing amount of evolution occurring in the blogosphere.  Richard does an excellent job of telling the story of the blogosphere’s growth, which you will hear on our vlog.  Here are a few key points that really struck me as important:

#1) 75% of the U.S. internet population is reading blogs today.  In other words, it’s mainstream to read blogs if you are online. 

#2) Technorati’s reach is over six continents and more than 77 countries.  Blogs are rapidly growing everywhere.

#3) 90% of bloggers say they write about products and brands and 80% say they write about retail and customer service experience.  If you work at a company, I hope you heard this point. 

#4) Bloggers are more influenced by what other bloggers say than publications like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal.

Enjoy the interview and don’t forget to read the 2008 State of the Blogosphere report if you have not done so already.  

To all Direct2Dell readers out there, I wanted to take a minute to wish you all the best during the holiday season. Over the next couple of days, several members from the Dell Community team will be spending time with our friends and family. If you need assistance during this time, please send an e-mail to customer_advocate@dell.com.  

I wanted to leave you with a few words from the Dell Community team, compliments of Dell-Richard B. Thanks to all of you who actively participate in our community. We know we couldn't do this without you. See you soon.

I've never thought I fit neatly into any particular one of Malcom Gladwell's Tipping Point categories, but it was great fun the play the part of connector recently when we hosted a virtual kaffeeklatsch at the coffee shop on Dell's main island in Second Life.

It started with a simple, public tweet -- an open call to see if anyone was interested in a casual get-together to chat about virtual worlds. I'd been doing a bit of the typical end-of-year reflection on the industry and thought it would be great to hear what some others were thinking, as well. Initial response to the tweet was good, and a virtual tweetup was born.

I'd prepared a few conversation starters, but there was no need to stimulate discussion with the group that assembled:

• Csven Concord, C. Sven Johnson of reBang weblog
• Ninoramai Hax, Jeff Lowe of the OU Center for Public Management
• Kim Anubis, Kimberly Rufer-Bach of The Magicians 
• Poinky Malaprop, Poinky Malaprop of Xerox
• Erica Burns, Erica Driver of ThinkBalm
• Maccus McCullough, the US Navy's Virtual Naval Undersea Warfare Center
• AaronHunt Xerox, Aaron Hunt of Xerox
• epredator Potato, Ian Hughes of IBM and eightbar
• Macker Shakkyo, Reverend Macker of IBM
• PrinterBrian Dowd, Brian Regan, Owner of Semper International
• Boliver Oddfellow, Drew Stein of Involve
• Burhop Piccard, Mark Burhop of Siemens

The day before our salon assembled, Worlds.com had announced its intent to enforce a couple of patents related to virtual world systems, so that was top-of-mind for many. Someone had already skimmed through the patents themselves and noted that while one was very specific the other seemed rather broad. Which led to an expression of concern it might hold back the development of the immersive Internet. And someone pointed out the curious timing of the announcement on the same day Sony announced Home for Playstation 3. This will certainly be an interesting one to watch in the coming year.

Another topic of much discussion was 3D printing. Some questioned the quality of it, while epredator encouraged a long-term view and noted that today:

[7:36]  epredator Potato: could I fix a cog on a water pump ?
[7:36]  epredator Potato: yes
[7:36]  epredator Potato: could I make a faberge egg no :)

 

When it was noted that the technology would allow you to print 3D models in a variety of materials ranging from paper to plastic or ceramic and even sugar, someone noted that there is already a chef who prints edible food! Imagine the possibilities of a machine creating from raw materials with a virtual world delivery mechanism across the entire planet. Could 3D printing be the key to the rise of the prosumer (a new word for me)?

Indeed, I learned more than just one new word at this meeting of great minds. Other interesting topics that came up included the Japanese researcher who successfully displayed image on a screen from a brain sensor, Nortel's possible bankruptcy and impact that might have on their Web.Alive product, a good-looking GSLIS Continuing Education class on virtual worlds offered by Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science starting January 5, 2009.

I look forward to having more of these "coffee talks" in the coming year. It's something that wouldn't really be possible without virtual world technology - the ability for all of these people to come together in one place from all across the globe at little more than a moments notice. And, I still believe that therein lies one of the greatest opportunities for virtual worlds.