Dell’s Blog: Authentic or Lame?

Dell has caught the attention of several marketing thought leaders following the recent launch of one2one, its first blog.

It’s a group effort with bloggers from Dell’s engineering, support, design, e-commerce and product teams. So far, entries have focused on new product features, support processes and the evolution of dell.com. The blog’s doctrine – which outlines expectations, rules and commitments for readers and bloggers – is plain-spoken, well-thought-out and doesn’t leave the impression it was written by Dell’s legal department.

Sounds good so far, right? Not so fast. Despite the blog’s infancy, several marketing types are already weighing in:

• From Jeff Jarvis: “Dell continues to believe that it can control the conversation. That horse is out of the barn, over the horizon, dead, and buried.” (Jarvis has some well-documented frustrations with Dell, by the way.)
• Steve Rubel feels the blog “reads like a corporate brochure…Dell could still turn it around if they hurry, but I fear this lack of candor will really set them back.”
• Kevin Dugan goes easier on Dell: “Let’s give Dell some time as it tries to change its ways,” he writes. “Of course, that doesn’t make for very catchy blog posts.”

I’m inclined to agree with Shel Holtz, who advocates a wait-and-see approach and notes that it probably took considerable effort to launch a blog within such a large organization. Shel writes:

“The blog’s authors are real people serving as human touch points for customers, and given a bit of time to find its footing, one2one could very well be exactly what Jarvis, Rubel and the other critics believe it should be.”

A good first step is to acknowledge the detractors and continue the conversation – something Dell did in Tuesday’s post.