Lightning Rod: What Business Advice Do You Want from Michael Dell?

Last week we asked you to tell us what kind of business advice you would want from Michael Dell, and we got several great responses. We've narrowed the questions down to 10, which now you have a chance to vote on via IdeaStorm. The top five questions – as voted by the IdeaStorm community – will be answered by Michael Dell in a vlog here on the Small Business Blog.
Below are all the questions up for the vote and a link to where you can vote on each question on IdeaStorm. If you are not a member of IdeaStorm, you just need to register with a username and password (which can be found in the top right column of the linked page).

SB Questions for Michael: Suggestion Boxes – At what point in a small business would you advise the owner to allow your employees to have a suggestion box?

SB Questions for Michael: IT without a Department – If your business isn`t large enough for an IT department, what would you suggest for the best way to maintain your business?

SB Questions for Michael: What Hardware Do You Really Need – When setting up a business network with around 200 computers, what types of hardware do you suggest to use?

SB Questions for Michael: Best Way to Buy – When buying systems from Dell for a business, do you suggest they do it online or over the phone?

SB Questions for Michael: IT for Healthcare – When building a new medical office (13,000 sq ft medical office with 13 exam rooms and 30 computer stations using electronic medical records) what would be the most streamline desktop system to use?

SB Questions for Michael: Mobile Business – As a Realtor, I am curious about your advice on laptops vs. PDAs for use when I am in the car all the time.

SB Questions for Michael: Integrated System Sets – As Microsoft and system retailers/builders like Dell develop more integrated system sets (i.e. Exchange 2008 Integrated Messaging, VOIP, SharePoint Servers) when do you think it's appropriate to add these components to a small business environment?

SB Questions for Michael: IT Training – We have found that this level of integration offers a lot of advantages to us but the training resources for methods of deployment are few.  Who offers the best quality training for small business IT employees?

SB Questions for Michael: Organizing IT – What core resources or methods do you feel should be employed to keep an IT staff organized?  Web based help-desk, in-house IT wiki, etc. 

SB Questions for Michael: Web site Creation – What is the best way and the best software to create my own site? Buy big bucks, or save a little?

You have until the end of this week to vote on the questions. Also, if you have any suggestions for how Dell can better serve the small business community through product, service and operation enhancements — please share your ideas with us in the Small Business category on IdeaStorm.

Update 8-28-08: Due to the earning announcement today, the post on this is delayed. Stay tuned next week for the update.

About the Author: Kara Krautter