Inspiration from unexpected places

Happy New Year!

Finding the right topic for my New Year’s Day post was more difficult than I thought. Sure, I have hundreds of things bookmarked and find new things every day. And this time of year, there are plenty of worthy “2007 Marketing Year in Review,” “2008 Marketing Forecast,” and “Marketing Top 10 List for 2008” articles out there — but none of that felt quite right for this posting (but I will share a few in the coming days).

I wanted the January blog posting to be, well…at least a little inspirational. Then I happened upon the video below:

It’s from Michael Dell’s keynote, “When Complexity Is Out of Control: Dell’s Drive Toward Simplicity” at Oracle OpenWorld in November and it was a real eye opener for me in a couple of ways.

First, I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if every company had the ability and the will to pull out all the stops like this.

And second, frankly this wasn’t the Dell I knew (and that’s a good thing).

Dell’s goal is to produce the greenest PC and be the greenest technology company on the planet. Learn about their commitment here.

Dell appears to be walking the talk:

• Most energy efficient desktops in the world
• World’s first energy smart servers
• First and only company to offer free PC recycling worldwide
• First technology company to be carbon neutral by the end of 2008
• Heck, they’ll even plant a tree for you!And while their forums have been around for years, the company has expanded the level of customer engagement on their Dell Community site. At StudioDell customers can view and rate videos about technology and anyone can suggest and discuss technology ideas on the Ideastorm blog.They expanded the discussion at the Eco-Innovation Gallery at the OpenWorld, where Dell asked attendees,”what does green mean to you?”

  Ambitious? Yes. But Dell’s stock has been flat for some time now, and I was curious what they were going to do about it.

  Is this their answer? If it is, I hope hope it pays big dividends.

  Whatever happens, stay tuned. I’ll be checking back in on Dell (and their stock) soon.

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