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190 points posted to Dell Community, Dell Web Site by jervis961 10/21/07

I finally got a chance to watch Michael Dell's interview with Jeff Jarvis and also the interview of Jeff Jarvis by Lionel on Direct2Dell today.
Both can be found here. http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/10/18/31956.aspx

The interview with Michael Dell was interesting to watch as he talked about IdeaStorm, Direct2Dell and how they are helping change the way the customer interacts with the company. I did though think that the interview with Jeff Jarvis by Lionel was much more interesting. Jeff talked more about what the next step could be and they discussed consolidating the community sites like we have discussed here. They agreed that more needed to be done to gel the sites together and make it easier for the customer to interact. For some reason it sparked an idea in my head about a new search engine (maybe because they kept mentioning Google but who knows).

Currently you can do a search on any of the Dell Websites but they don't really give the complete picture of everything across the board. The main site links to support articles, products, forum posts and such as they are all on the main site. Direct2Dell gives blog posts and StudioDell gives videos based on your search.

Dell should create a universal search that lists results from all the sites to give the customer the most complete information and options available from Dell. Show the customer links for products, support, reviews, blog posts, press releases, recalls, forums threads, video and ideas from ideastorm. Let the customer see a preview of the link or open it in a picture in picture mode so they can explore without losing the search and get a better idea of all that Dell has to offer. I think people would be surprised with some of the things Dell has done, is doing or could impliment. I also think Dell could be surprised with the reaction of the customer as they are introduced to the whole Dell community.

Maybe the customer will post a new idea on IdeaStorm, ask for advice on the forums, read the customer reviews and maybe even buy a product feeling that not only does Dell offer a wealth of information but that they support their customer's wants and needs after teh sale as well.

dell_admin1
10/21/07		 This is a great idea, jervis961... and one that we've already started working on. It's a pretty big undertaking, and I don't expect overnight miracles, but search, and cross-site participation and information flow, is a big priority. You've outlined some interesting specifics here, and I know the online team will be interested in seeing it. Let's see what the community suggests, and I bet we'll see richard_m or sean_m weigh in on here later this week. Thanks!
jervis961
10/21/07		 No problem, you can thank Jeff Jarvis. The video just got me thinking about ways to bring the sites together.

We already had ideas about combining them but nobody had mentioned the search yet. Sure you can use Google to look for stuff but to narrow the search across the Dell sites is difficult as Google doesn't have that kind of function at this time. I thought Microsoft's tafiti site was interesting with the tree view but people might get confused. It might end up that they have to do something like subsections on the search.

When you search XPS now you get all the different hits but there isn't much reason behind the order. Perhaps give them options like x number of matches on IdeaStorm, x number of matches in reviews etc. Then let the customer choose their own path but leave the initial search there so they can back track and look around at other things as well.

This isn't a good analogy but windows explorer with the folders you can go in and out of and backtrack is kind of the concept that I'm thinking. It will be interesting to see what others will think of.
jorge
10/22/07		 Aghm.. just buy a stinking Google search 1U server appliance and its done... they've had that for like forever! You buy it so you can put your logo stamp on it, and its for your sites so it can be rather fast as well.

Please don't go and try to create your own, its done already, don't waste resources on what is already done for you and offered as a service, save that for Dell v 3.0 or something.
jervis961
10/22/07		 Do you mean http://dell.myway.com/
jorge
10/22/07		 No, I'll find it later.
richard_m
10/22/07		 We are actively integrating the search of our community across properties. For instance, do a search on 'virtualization' and you'll see results from our Tech Center wiki and Direct2Dell blogs under the About Dell search results.

We know there is a lot of work needed on the search domains, results and UI. You will be seeing more changes over the next few months as we attempt to create a first class search experience for the community.
jervis961
10/22/07		 Great to hear richard_m. jorge made a comment above about using Google that you may want to check out.
jorge
10/22/07		 Here's a start : http://www.google.com/enterprise/products.html#utm_medium=
jervis961
10/22/07		 Interesting jorge, I wonder if Dell has already looked into this? SalesForce and Google are partners so who knows.
jorge
10/22/07		 I'm sure they're contracting a 3rd party to come up with something like that and go and re-invent the wheel once again, guess they might need to spend some money, they're not losing enough money yet.
jorge
11/06/07		 Look what I found! Dell are you really that bad a company that you can't even use a partner to help you out? Totally sad!

Google is a Dell Partner
jorge
11/06/07		 Another link to a PDF

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/casestudies/2007_google.pdf
jervis961
11/06/07		 Doh!
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