I published this blog post over on Direct2Dell.com, Dell’s corporate blog:

Today, we’re pumped to be a part of Twitter’s new “Enhanced Profile Pages” (EPP), a new feature Twitter is launching today with a select handful of partners, including Dell.

Key features of Twitter’s *new* Enhanced Profile Pages:

• “Pinned Tweet”: Ability to choose what Tweet appears at the top of your timeline. (think sticky tweet – great way to feature content!)
• Expandable Media: If the pinned Tweet contains a photo or video, it will auto-expand [as shown below]… rich, in-line media really adds punch to your twitter profile, and
• More branding: via banner @ top of page.

Exclusive partners like Dell will have early access to upcoming product enhancements, features, custom Twitter-produced events and marketing programs. Additionally, Twitter will provide custom 2012 analytics roadmap including online behavior impact studies, sentiment analysis and value of a follower.

Wow, that’s a ton of new, great features! For businesses, these improvements are fantastic. Now we can highlight featured content with rich media clearly displayed at the top of the stream.

For Dell, you’ll see these improvements across the following Dell twitter accounts, starting today:

• @Dell
• @DellOutlet
• @DellEnterprise
• @DellSmbUS
• @DellHomeUS

Here’s a sample mock-up of how our @Dell page could look with these new twitter features (once the page is live, I’ll update this post with a screenshot of it):

Notice how the pinned tweet at top includes an embedded YouTube video, which is playable right on your business profile (great way to keep traffic on your page and drive up engagement).

Be sure to check out Twitter’s blog post announcement today . Twitter will slowly roll out enhanced profile pages to a wide audience of brands in the coming months. Check out http://fly.twitter.com/

I think these enhanced profile page features really up the game when it comes to publishing social business content. No longer do we just see a stream of tweets, now we see vibrant content that is much more engaging!

What do you think of these new features? How do you anticipate businesses will put these new features to work?

More importantly, what do you want to see from Dell for the pinned tweet (featured content)? Do you want to see videos? photos? slideshare decks? whitepapers?

Let us know, we’re listening!! As always, your comments and feedback are welcome here.

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Yes, absolutely.

A startup is a business. As a business, you need to know how much money you are actually making in order to make effective decisions.

Additionally, you must present your company "financials" to a bank for funding; same is true for VC cash. Begin owning and operating your company as a "real" company from the start so you don't have to play catch up later to justify your financial needs. Furthermore, if you don't have a firm grasp of your operations you won't have the information YOU need to plan your company's future growth.

Is there any point in tracking expenses in starting up a startup?

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Dell, Inc., in an effort to pro-actively listen and solicit valued feedback, hosted their inaugural DellCAP event at company headquarters this past week.

What is DellCAP?
What is DellCAP you ask? “DellCAP” stands for Dell’s “Consumer Advisory Panel.”  Dell, over the course of two days, sat down with two separate groups to engage in rich dialog about how the company is doing and soliciting consumer input on remedies to hot button issues.

The two groups  were comprised of consumers from opposite ends of the experience spectrum, i.e. folks that have had a bad experience with Dell (sometimes referred to in the industry as a “brand detractors”) and also folks that have been happy consumers, bloggers, social media enthusiasts, i.e. “brand evangelists” with good experiences working with Dell.  So, as you can see these groups are indeed polar opposites!  Dell conducted multiple sessions with the two groups this week.  The two distinct groups met separately; bad news first, then then the good.

Dell welcomed us to their world-wide headquarters located in Round Rock, TX, with gracious southern hospitality, to provide an open forum of discussion to understand our perspectives and to solicit our feedback and suggestions.  Dell is clearly looking to listen, engage and learn from this event and take what they’ve learned and develop actionable plans with recommended “corrective actions” to remedy the surfaced issues.

Mack Collier, the DellCAP Moderator, wrote a blog post two weeks prior to the DellCAP event and provided great details and insights about it  (read his blog post here).  @MackCollier did a fabulous job moderating our session.

As could be expected, Dell executives and employees received an ear full of richly detailed feedback delivered with a passionate fervor.  The feedback received was both positive and negative.  Conversations and creative ideas flowed from the passionate and lively discussions.   I can certainly say that Dell really came prepared to listen and engage both groups in order to understand and learn from the Panelists’ varied perspectives. Dell demonstrated their commitment to consumers and really convinced me that they are truly serious about change.

Distinct stove-pipe issues certainly popped up on both days… yet there were some key similarities, repeated patterns and issues that surfaced on both days. (Note: While I was only present for Day 2 I did review feedback obtained from Day 1 and observed similarities in feedback messaging).

Throughout the day, Panelists shared their stories (good and bad), along with their perspectives on needed solutions to remedy such issues; thus, if successful executed, could really place Dell at the top of the tech industry in terms on not only superior products, which they  are already well known for, but also return them to their former glory as the world-wide leader in client support.

Panelists enjoyed various sessions consisting of facility tours, panel discussions, executive briefings, upcoming product demonstrations (under NDA), and briefings on key initiatives such as their global IT Asset Recovery program (think Recycling and Re-Use) , which are arguably the best in the world for the tech industry – very impressive to say the least.  I wish I could share all the details on the great product demos, but we all signed NDAs… just know that there is some really great stuff coming soon from Dell. When those products are released, I will let you all know and share my insights on those innovative products.

Hopefully, Dell will do this again next year!  Companies large and small really do benefit from outside viewpoints and creativity beyond their own four walls.

So what is your take?  Do you have ideas that can improve Dell in your eyes?  What do you think is working? or not working right? What are the most important changes Dell should make?  What should Dell keep doing that you like?  I want your feedback too!  I’ll take your comments and capture them in a follow-up post and share with Dell.  So, don’t be shy… (and keep it classy ok!)

See what others are saying online, check out the twitter search feed for #DellCAP.

Related Posts (Day 2 content):

• Dell Community @JVMatDell: CAPturing the Moment
• Mack Collier @MackCollier: The next evolution for social media business is …
• Liz Strauss @LizStrauss: #DellCAP DAYS: How DELL Builds Trust Long Before a Meeting
• Fast Company @Gardener_Dave:  Dell Customer Advisory Executive Summary
• Shawn Collins @AffiliateTip: I’M ON TEAM DELL
• Susan Payton @EggMarketing:  Amazing day at Dell
• VIDEO – by @GuyNamedNathan: Day 2 – Watch @SusanBeebe on Dell Streak VS. iPad.
• VIDEO – by @GuyNamedNathan: Day 2 – Watch @cbenson on educating customers.
• VIDEO – by @Moon: Day 2 – Watch Dell’s Ed Boyd (VP User Experience) from Experience Design Group talk about how design has changed the company.
• VIDEO – by @Moon: Day 2 – Watch Dell’s Matt Parretta (Mobile) - Dell Streak First Sight
• Sarah Kimmel @Tech4Moms: Dell shows other companies how to listen DellCAP
• Liz Strauss @LizStrauss: #DellCAP: From Behind the Curtain to Next Steps
• Mack Collier @MackCollier: Teaching a Brontosaurus to run; My review of #DellCAP
• Sarah Kimmel @Tech4Moms: How Tech Brands Create Raving Fans

• – Did you write a blog post regarding #DellCAP?  If so, leave me a note in the comments and I’ll be sure to link to it, thanks!

Here are my photographs taking during the #DellCAP events … go take a peek!

#DellCAP

Disclosure: Dell paid for event costs, food, transportation, etc.  Since, I live here in Austin, TX area no hotel costs were incurred for my attendance.  Each panelist on Day 2 received a high-quality embossed, leather-bound journal and executive pen, both bearing Dell’s logo (very classy, love it!!).  I was not compensated in any other way.

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The first ever RIT48 competition kicked off this weekend at RIT University where students from various majors came together and were challenged to do the following:  form a team, plan, design, develop and launch a new web startup in less than 48 hours!  There were 10 teams competing for cash prizes, awards and recognition for their efforts.

I was honored to be selected as a Judge and Mentor throughout the weekend of March 19-20, 2010 for the first ever RIT48 event.  The teams all did a fantastic job of preparing Business Plans and Demoing their websites.  This was quite a treat for  me as I love to mentor and provide assistance to young startups.

“RIT48 aims to bring together RIT students from various disciplines to pitch, plan, develop and launch a startup in one weekend — or, as the name suggests, 48 hours.”   – RIT48

I will be uploading more event pictures later, but in the meanwhile I thought I’d provide a link to the Ustream live feed Video that was taped during our final judging of the RIT48 competition.

See next page for video…

At the Judges’ table (seated left to right):  Aaron Newman, Liz Lawley, Susan Beebe, Lee Drake and Jon Schull.

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Earlier today, I was inspired by Tris Hussey to provide a comprehensive list of Google Chrome “power extensions.”  So, here is my exhaustive list of forty “must have” Extensions for the Google Chrome browser.  But first, to get started you’ll need to download the Dev version of Chrome (it works great on my new Windows 7 PC laptop).  Mac users can get the mac Dev version here.   Google Chrome is by far the best performing browser ever released to the web.  It will liberate you from the frustration so common with other browsers.

There are hundreds of Google’s extensions, so if you’re looking for something not on my list, then go here and search for it!  Please do let me know if have any feedback to share.  Feel free to recommend different extensions, or perhaps you know of a better version, than I have listed here:

AdBlock
Aviary Screen Capture
Better Gmail

Facebook for Google Chrome

Feedly

FriendFeed
OpenID AutoFill

Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer (by Google)
FlashBlock
Fittr Flickr
Google Apps Shortcuts

Google Tasks

Google Voice Notifier (by Google)

Ok, phew you installed all these great extensions!  Ok, now go tweak the “Options” for each extension here –> chrome://extensions/ You can also disable or uninstall extensions.  (I had to disable the “Cool Iris” one as it was crashing too much).

Subscribe to this blog (RSS or email) and follow me on twitter.

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What Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know

My CEO always told me that to be a good project manager, you must be an entrepreneur.

I took that seriously and started my own part-time business.

And I discovered that to be a good entrepreneur requires a lot of project management experience.

For instance, project management skills help me efficiently manage and track my resources. I don't spend more than one or two hours a day on my business, but I have clear visibility about the inventory, orders and payments. the salespeople input their data in a custom-made Excel tool and I get a daily summary report.

I also rely on my project management skills for handling vendors and suppliers. They do not over-commit, but rather rely on a well-defined scope of work and regular follow-ups for tracking. As a result, the vendors feel more pressure because if there's a delay, they know I will notice and get in touch with their superiors.

Even a small business requires project management skills and if the entrepreneur is a Project Management Professional (PMP)® he or she will rock the market.

Have you started your own business? Please share your experience.

via What Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know – Voices on Project Management.
Follow blogs.PMI.org on twitter @PMVoices

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