About Dell Refresh Proves to be as much About You as it is About Us

About Dell - Main Sections Ahhhhhh, the ubiquitous “About” section, where would we be without ye? How would we glean information on our favorite companies, organizations and individuals without the wonderful little “About” link on the header, footer or right/left nav of the site directing us to facts, stats and updates? Where would reporters and bloggers go to get the latest press releases; or investors to research financial information; or job hunters to see if the perfect opportunity awaits them? Well, thankfully, we’ll never have to find out, because nearly every site, page or blog you run across in 2010 a.d. has an about section – and Dell.com is no exception.

Except, that it kind of is an exception – an exception to the accepted standard for about sites.

If you click over (after reading the rest of this post, of course) to the newly refreshed About Dell section of Dell.com you’ll find that while the site still has all the sections one needs to find out about Dell, – Newsroom, Leadership, Investor Relations, Industry Analysts, Corporate Responsibility – it also contains a lot of ways to get to know our most valuable corporate resource – you, our customers.

Since everything we do is focused on helping our customers get the most out of their technology choices, the site was re-designed to marry  social media, customer stories and multi-media resources with the traditional “about” sections. This allows us to not only provide a visitor to the page with corporate information, but also tell the complete Dell story. The focus on social media is evident from the very first page with easy to access links to our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and LinkedIn pages as well as a (as close to as possible) real-time Twitter feed.

About Dell - Customer Stories

This project was a fun one to work on. Under the leadership of Kerri Sutey, a fabulous teammate of mine on our Corporate Reputation & Relations (CR&R) team, the team also redesigned the site to be easier to navigate and a better user experience. Take the Newsroom section for example: as Kerri liked to say when we began to tackle how we’d like to rework this section, “in the old site, you’d click on newsroom and get to see our press releases with a link to more press releases which took you to a page where you could access our press releases.” Well, that’s not the case anymore. Oh sure, you can still get our press releases in this section, but you’ll also find links to Dell events and webcasts, an image gallery stock full of products, people and lifestyle images, a Dell video library covering topics from product how to's to videos from Michael and other leaders, and much more. And coming in the next few days, look for a dynamic new company timeline which calls out the important milestones in our 26+ year history.

About Dell - Newsroom

I encourage you to visit Dell.com/aboutdell and check it out and then come back and tell us what you think? What do you like/love about the site? What would you change? Where do you see places for more interaction? What summer reading tips do you have (OK, that one’s just for me)?

About the Author: Vance Morton