Let's go back 15 months for a second and look at an idea that got some attention from the powers that be at Dell, for about a minute and a half.
Twitter, while experiencing phenomenal growth at the time, was also suffering from phenomenal growing pains. The company staff numbered about 5. And the servers… Well, let's just say in the good ol' days of Twitter, the Fail Whale wasn't funny at all. It was a real problem for Twitter that they could not keep their service up. For hours at a time, during the prime of the US work day, the Tweets would stop around the world. Not one tweep could be heard.
I had recently been shuffled on to my 2nd team within the Dell Global Online team and was leaping forward on a project for a visionary VP named Bob Pearson, no longer with Dell. Now what Bob did better than anyone I had ever seen at Dell, was take risks, put new ideas out to the executive team and then MOVE ON THEM. He was a force!
I had met with Bob several times during a project I had been assigned to and I recognized some familiar energies between us. So I told him I had an idea about Twitter that might be interesting. He was all ears. But he was also busy. So we didn't get the time to talk much about my Twitter plan.
About three weeks later I got an email from someone at Twitter who I had been emailing with regarding some form of partnership with Dell. What I had proposed was figuring out how Dell could help support the Twitter infrastructure, cloud, servers, support, whatever you want to call it, and try and get Twitter solid and stable.
What I thought I had was a coop.
What I got was a stiff phone call from Bob Pearson letting me know that his response to Twitter regarding the email that I had crafted and CC'd him on was not personal, but also that I was not to negotiate on behalf of Dell. What I also got was a friend for life. Rather than throw me under the bus, Pearson had reached out, in person, to let me know he was sending out the "slap on the wrist" email, but that he was not angry about it, and actually liked my idea. My other two VP relationships weren't quite so open.
Of course I was not negotiating. I was saying, hey you two companies, let's figure out a way to work together to get Twitter some better servers and services and to get Dell some street cred in the social media world.
The beauty was that he was happy about what I had thought up. He was not chastising me for my idea, he was saying, "Let me take it from here." And "Please don't use the word FREE in your emails."
Over the course of the next six months I did more work for Bob Pearson's group than I did for any of the other "clients" I had at Dell. Heck, we even got one of them launched. http://dell.ridesnearme.com. Pearson left Dell back in April and the writing on the wall seemed clear. Dell was heading back into the dark ages. The pre-innovation, pre-Pearson, pre-Javis era. A time when your project was only as good as it's projected ROI. And things like ride sharing and GREEN were "nice to haves", but not critical path projects.
permalink: http://bit.ly/dell-twitter
More fun with Dell Deals:
- Dell Has Gone Stark Raving Brand Crazy (Reviewing the Dell Studio XPS 16)
- Netbook Fun: DELL’s Inspiron 10v Reviewed and Pawned (perhaps check out this review if you’re really interested in the 10v)
- Dell Mini-9 or Vostro A90 or the Mac OS X Netbook
- Dell’s Adamo Is Cold Black Steel – 85% Still Say “So What!”
- Netbook Wars Heating Up or Melting Down – Where the Heck is Dell?
- Dell, Your Back to School Campaign on FaceBook is Broken and Sending Me to MySpace.com
Ah the revolution has begun. Twitter is getting off their heels and coming to the table with a new feature set in the form of a UI upgrade. And the "social" media (Mashable claims BREAKING) is all over it. Well, let's have a quick looksee. 
Oh whoa is all of us when Twitter goes down for the last time. When the spermy whale fails eternal. When the birds of a feather can no longer flock together. When Tweetdeck implodes.
