Dell Goes Niche with Ideastorm for Healthcare

In the “you’ve gotta take a look at this department,” check out Ideastorm for Healthcare from DELL. Their original Ideastorm project was about giving voice to a community to better improve Dell products and services. Ideastorm for Healthcare gives a specific community a place to come and talk about things from their perspective.

Take note of this idea. They’ve given voice to a segment of their community that matters to them. It’s obviously the sign of things to come, and not a bad way to show that you’re listening. It’s also great for your product marketing teams as well as better customer service.

It’s a win, provided your community rushes in to respond and do their part. Remember, it’s not exactly sexy for customers to talk about you and your product unless they come away with the feeling that they’re being equipped for further success. Meaning, people love when you listen by giving them exactly the product they want/need/crave.

Tricky, eh?

Watch this space. I look forward to seeing what Dell reports about this, and glad that the gang are still delivering innovations in the space of social tools for human interaction. Now, the interesting question is, “what comes next?”

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Tagged as: community, dell, ideastorm, innovation, nml, nms, socialnetworks

ChrisBrogan.com runs on the Thesis Theme for WordPress

Thesis is the search engine optimized WordPress theme of choice for serious online publishers. If you’re a blogger who doesn’t understand a lot of PHP, Thesis will give a ton of functionality without having to alter any code. For the advanced, Thesis has incredible customization possibilities via Thesis hooks.

With so many design options, you can use the template over and over and never have it look like the same site. The theme is robust and flexible enough not only to accommodate a site like ChrisBrogan.com, but also to enable the site to run far more efficiently than it ever has before.

Go on a guided video tour of Thesis and see the amazing things you can do with this theme! Seriously, you’ll love it.
Check out the Thesis demo site
See more Thesis-based sites in the gallery showcase

Mack Collier

"It’s a win, provided your community rushes in to respond and do their part. Remember, it’s not exactly sexy for customers to talk about you and your product unless they come away with the feeling that they’re being equipped for further success. Meaning, people love when you listen by giving them exactly the product they want/need/crave. "

Agree and I think that Dell has build up enough equity with their customers from how they act on suggestions from Ideastorm, to get the community's attention. I think the issue will be, will they attract enough people around an area that's a bit outside of Dell's perceived business comfort zone?

Either way, it shows Dell is continuing to experiment with the idea of crowd/customer sourcing to improve their business. That's a good thing.

Vida Killian

Thanks Chris and Mack! As the IdeaStorm(s) Manager at Dell, I am excited to take this "idea" into new businesses and communities. It shows the dedication of the different businesses within Dell to listening and collaborating with customers.

As for "what comes next"?? Stay tuned!
:-)

Stephen - Rat Race Trap

Very interesting. I too am curious as to where this will end up.

Daniel Ritzenthaler

I've been getting creepy feelings of history repeating the last few months...

These questions/requests/ideas sorted and promoted based on popularity type of applications seem insanely close to when forums were the big thing 5-10 years ago.

They're someone from the "outside" of the organization posting an idea that people can discuss, only there's a "vote" of coolness as the measurement instead of number of comments.

Which was just like the board systems or whatever they were called before forums... That's getting before my time. :)

Does that creep anyone else out?

Barry Wheeler

I'm wondering if this will improve the IT offering to healthcare organizations or if it will lower it. The quality of what Dell offers now in its computer / electronics offering definitely shows signs that it is not what it was some time ago. Can we afford this in Healthcare?

Christina Viering

We need working IT products in healthcare.

VJ - Martial Artist

Niche always works long term

Dell Goes Niche with Ideastorm for Healthcare

ChrisBrogan.com runs on the Thesis Theme for WordPress

A New York Times Bestseller

Recent Entries

Upcoming Events

About Chris