Well said Lionel.  Caroline had a tough job launching the site and did well with limited resources.  The added help is much appreciated and hopefully will produce the experience that users expected from the site.  I look forward to the increased cooperation between the Dell Community sites.

 Now that the holidays are over and we are talking about changes here are a few suggestions.

1.  Can you please disable the automatic buffering of videos on Direct2Dell as it is a waste of energy.

2.  Speaking of the videos can you add the fuction to embed them like toutube does.  I've wanted to use some of them on IdeaStorm but the function isn't there.   

3.  Make the Dell sites cell phone friendly.  People are using cell phones more and more to surf the internet and Dell should make it easier for these people to do so. 

4.  I still think you should add links to Direct2Dell when bloggers post videos of Dell employees discussing the company.

5.  Maybe add a better log in and other functions to Direct2Dell.  Maybe a universal log in for all the Dell sites.

6.  Start using a universal search engine on the Dell Community sites.

7.  Make better use of your sites by having focus groups for upcoming products.

8.  If you are really feeling bold how about allowing some of your more active community members add blog posts?

9.  Create a new IdeaStorm home page that lists a mixture of ideas and other information.

10.  Hold a Dell community conference for discussion of the sites and as a reward for your more active participants.

11.  How about adding areas on the Dell Forums discussion section for different Dell products like Inspiron, XPS, Latitude and others.  This will give users a place to have general discussion about their products seperate from the support section of the site.

I won't even start talking about the main Dell site as it would take all day.  :)  

Keep up the good work.

"It all adds up to more conversations between Dell and our customers... and in my mind, there's nothing more important than that."

 I see no conversation here, I've been talking to myself for 5 days.  :D

jervis961: Believe it or not, I flagged your orginal comment when I saw it. Sorry for not getting to it until Saturday. Thanks for a robust list. Maybe you can ask for responses in smaller robust chunks. Just kiddiing. :)

The real answer is that several of these things you mention are not so easy in implementation. The auto-load portion of the Flash video is one of those things. And speaking of embedding video, I've been in support of making YouTube our standard video player for D2D but it's not so easy either. Biggest obstacle... YouTube.com is blocked for Dell employees. Another one is that it has a small file size limitation, then we'd have to add the functionality to our blog platform, Community Server.

And I agree on the registration point you raise 100%. Folks like Caroline me, Dawn L. and many others on the Forum side  have been pushing for what's called single sign on. It's in the works, but it's not easy.

Monday morning, I'm flying to Orlando for the first Blog Council meeting. I'll be talking a lot about some of these same issues you raise.

It probably makes sense for me to blog more about future direction of Direct2Dell. I just started that on this post about the IdeaStorm changes. I'll blog more about Direct2Dell changes as we get more of the pieces in place.

Thanks again.

Report abuse.  I know you've been busy Lionel. ;) I like your plan, thanks for responding. I do have one complaint about Direct2Dell though since I have your attention...

Why doesn't anyone from Dell respond to direct questions since they have to read them and approve them before they get posted to the site. I'm not talking about just you but the ideastorm section as well. here are some links to 2 posts with questions waiting for

http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/12/24/39585.aspx#comments

http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/11/30/36937.aspx

Have fun in Orlando (hey I'm only 2 hours away, don't worry I won't hunt you down.  :D )

jervis961: The report abuse link you included was broken. Can you send me the link you wanted me to look at?

As far as responses, we have a few different folks who help out with moderation, so it's possible that someone else may be reading it before it's published.

Regardless, I've asked Dawn, Kara, and Jackie C. to re-visit this comment thread on this post to get that discussion moving again.

I'll re-visit the other comment thread and have already responded to a couple of additional comments there.

And for the record, embedding pictures into a comment is a pretty good way to make sure I it in the future... Love your sense of humor, even when you may only be half-kidding.

Single sign on would be easy enough to implement if you'd scrap the current disjointed approach to the Dell community sites and produce a single forum with sub-divisions. I appreciate a lot of time and effort and money has gone into to creating the current set up. But it just doesn't work the way it should.

This is one scenario where I'd advocate a sledge hammer approach. Scrap it and start over.
 

aikewolfie: Many folks within Dell (myself included) agree with you. When we were getting Direct2Dell (and later StudioDell and IdeaStorm) off the ground, they were fragmented approaches—partly because we chose speed over a fully integrated in-house rollout plan and partly because the apps themselves required it. Back at the the time the platform that IdeaStorm runs on was the only one of its kind.

If we do it right, single sign-on is bigger than Dell's Community properties—it should tie into the My Account section for Dell.com and support.dell.com

We are looking at the sledgehammer approach. We're also thinking about what tool(s) bring the best level of functionality and ease of use across forums, blogs, and idea management overall. Maybe the right answer is best-in-class apps with data integration across those platforms. I can say from experience that those are not easy conversations to have, and they're even more difficult to reach consensus on.

The relevant point is that we are working to move forward. It's a slow process, but we've got lots of folks thinking through many of the points you raise here.

OOPS!  The report abuse link is from me cheating by using the cut and paste functions.  Disreguard that link.  :)

 As for my half jokes...  I understand how it feels to get yelled at so I try and do things a little nicer.  I wasn't mad when I posted the picture but figured it would get me an answer.  I also figure if it didn't get me an answer I would at least get a laugh every time I go back to check.  :D

 Speaking of checking for updates, make sure whatever you do that in the future we have some kind of new comment notification for Direct2Dell.  I know we can do the email for new postings but I hate having to keep finding and checking things I post on to see if someone responded. 

I do like the single log in for all dell sites concept but there will be some problems.  With so many different users there are bound to be different users with the same ID on different sites

"It all adds up to more conversations between Dell and our customers... and in my mind, there's nothing more important than that."

I've got an IdeaStorm for you!! Fire the overseas "Customer Service" team, stop lying to your customers, and start delivering your products. I've been on the phone for hours on end for the past 2 months trying to get my order shipped, but because for some reason you can't get a battery which I can walk up the street and buy off the shelf at Best Buy, I am waiting for my order....and waiting....and waiting....and getting no answer but TONS of lies and sitting on perpetual hold only to be transferred to another person who cannot answer my question. If I can get the battery off the shelf, why can you not get the battery or at least ship my product to me and I'll buy the battery!?

IdeaStorm that one! I'll give you a teenie tiny clue: None of your customers want to speak to a person in India or the Philippeans, or anywhere else where the person is speaking from a script and has no real answer or solutions to our problems. You aren't saving any money by employing people who have no real way of answering questions or solving problems. You are basically just paying them to answer the phone and make up a story. Pretty stupid. Pretty huge waste of time.

Here's the solution I keep getting from your "award-winning customer service team": Cancel the original order and reorder without the battery.

Guess what! You can't do that! I am given this solution every single time I call, and so far I have never cancelled my order because I KNOW IT IS A LIE and will not work. I am also told every single time I call that "looking at the order, I do not see a delay in your shipment", which also every single time turns out to be a lie, and I know it is a lie, because I can go to see if I can order the battery and is says that it is backordered 1 to 2 weeks (which has been 2+ months now). So....if I can figure this out but your "award winning customer service" cannot, I'm sure you can see the problem.

What did they win an award for? Worst customer service??

This really needs to be addressed because it is beyond ridiculous. And this isn't a specific product customer support issue, this is across the board, widespread incompetence. I have encountered this incompetence from the placing of my order to now every department that I could possibly encounter. You made the comment above: "It all adds up to more conversations between Dell and our customers... and in my mind, there's nothing more important than that." And this is my response/challenge to that comment.

It is past time for Dell to deliver on their end of the conversation!