["Edges 5". Part of "The Edges" Series. Click on image to enlarge etc.]

Reading this piece about Dell's new mini-computer, halfway through the PR schpiel I YET AGAIN came across them using the term, "Digital Nomad".With a starting weight of 2.28 lbs.[i], digital nomads will value the Inspiron Mini’s durable design, with sealed keyboard and reliable solid state drive (SSD) memory storage. A bright 8.9‑inch glossy LED display (1024x600) presents most web pages with no left-right scrolling, and the keypads are large and easy to navigate.About the same time that I first started seeing this term being used a lot from them, their Digital Nomads blog appeared on the scene. So I guessed something was up. I figured the blog is not just some crazy side project from some renegade Dell employees, this fits in to a much larger corporate strategy. Like I said in a recent blog post:The Digital Nomads blog is what I call "indirect marketing". People aren't supposed to read it and go, "My, what a lovely blog. I think I'll go out and buy me a couple of brand new Dell laptops". This is more of an "Alignment" play. In other words, by "aligning" themselves more with the digital-nomad crowd, they hope it'll help them in time to create products that are more compelling and relevant to them. If you were in the computer business, you'd want to have the same alignment. "The Porous Membrane" etc. The good news is, Alignment plays can be extremely effective. The bad news is, they take FOREVER to gather momentum.

So the last time I was in Round Rock visiting their bright & shiny offices, I asked around. My hunch seems to have been proved correct. This is the alignment they're going after. I was also delightfully surprised to learn that they have no intention of trademarking, or attempting to trademark the phrase, "Digital Nomad". They want to be aligned with it; they don't want to "own" it. A small distinction, but a noteworthy one. To try to own it would rob the idea of all its meaning and power.

Yeah, I know, "Digital Nomad" is not the only term one can use to describe a web-enabled worker. There are others. There are also differences of opinion as to what "Digital Nomad" actually means. Are we talking mere tele-commuters, or is there some even bigger sociological trend going on? Depends who you ask. I've been a blogger and a digital nomad long enough to know how blurry the edges get sometimes. Rather than worry about THE definitive semantics, frankly, I'd rather worry about how to use this brave new world in order to make money, more quickly and easily than the generation before me.

In conclusion: Dell wants to align itself with the "Digital Nomad" crowd. Groovy. If I were them I'd do the same.

OK, fine. So now the next question is, what needs to happen to make all this more likely? Do they carry on doing what they've always done, or is there some FUNDAMENTAL change in their culture going to be required? And if so, how costly and painful will that be for their people, their customers and their shareholders? I'm not saying they're necessarily doing anything wrong so far, I'm just curious, that's all. Change is the only constant etc.

[ON A MORE PERSONAL NOTE:] Over the last few weeks I've been having a grand ol' time getting to know the company better. So far it's been an interesting experience. I've met some really smart, passionate people. The only problem for me initially has been, they're a big company; it's hard for somebody new on the scene to know where to look to find the interesting stories going on. Design? Tech? Marketing? Operations? Finance? Who's making the secret sauce?

But then again, I've been a digital nomad for most of the last decade. So suddenly, with their Digital-Nomad-Alignment schtick, I see a glaringly obvious fit between my interests and theirs. Problem solved. Easy. Rock on.

["Edges 4". Part of "The Edges" Series. Click on image to enlarge etc. Yes, I was thinking about Microsoft when I drew that etc etc.]

Out here in West Texas, we have a certain type of individual, who are affectionately referred to as "Desert Rats".

Desert Rats are basically people who choose to live a spartan, alternative, self-sufficient existence out in the desert. Probably the most famous cluster of them around these parts can be found down in Terlingua Ghost Town, in the Chiquaqua Desert, about 100 miles South of where I live, close to Big Bend National Park and the Mexican border. Somebody just made documentary about them.

Terlingua Ghost Town used to be a small mercury mining town of about 2,000 people. Then in the 1940s the ore ran out, and the work dried up overnight. So people left. It became a ghost town, just like hundreds of other former mining towns here in the Southwest. A few decades later people looking to escape the rat-race in the most extreme way possible started moving down there. The utter harshness of the landscape somehow inspired them.

When talking about Terlingua, you never go very long without someone mentioning "The Porch". They'd be talking about the porch of the Terlingua General Store, the place where people gather daily at sunset to drink beer, play guitar and tell stories. I've hung out there a few times. Got chatting to Doctor Doug, one of the local characters. Nice guy. He's been living in a rusty, yellow, dilapidated school bus for 20 years or so [He gets a mention in the documentary, so click on the link above to see more].

But not all Desert Rats live just in Terlingua- they're pretty much everywhere round these parts. I've met lots of them here in Alpine, for instance.

What you notice is that, their unconventional lifestyle notwithstanding, they're quite different to the usual alternative Woodstock-college-student-hippie-drippie stereotype. They own guns and hunting knives, and will use them if they have to. Try trespassing on their land with bad intent one day, if you don't believe me.

The other thing you notice is JUST HOW LITTLE MONEY some of them live on. Heck, I thought I was cutting back when I moved out here, but some of these people are off the scale. It's not uncommon to see them living on $5-10 thousand per year. Lord knows how they do it; except that barter is a huge part of the equation.

Sure, by mainstream American standards you could argue the Desert Rats are an eccentric, "out there" bunch. But there's something compelling about them, too. That great American ideal, "Rugged Individualism" is clear to see in their faces. Their lives somehow seem a lot closer to the 19th-Century Western pioneers, than to say, the present-day, Blackberry-addicted commuters of New York and San Francisco.

And you always ask yourself, Why? What makes them take this particular path?

Short Answer: Because they can. They wanted to do it, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad. And so they did, for better or for worse. And yes, though parts of their lives seem incredibly rewarding- especially from a distance- they've also paid an equally incredibly high price for the privilege, which isn't always so obvious at first glance . This incredibly high price is no different than anywhere else, whether we're talking here in West Texas, or we're talking a big tech company in Silicon Valley, a startup in Chicago, a Wall Street bank. "Living on The Edges" is invariably a damn expensive business.

["Edges 3". Part of "The Edges" Series. Click on image to enlarge etc.]

Alpine, Texas. A lot of my friends in this town work in the construction business; a lot of former big-city people are moving into the area these days, mostly trying to get away from the urban sprawl. So that's where a lot of the local well-paid jobs are. As a result, knowing what I know, a lot of my friends end up picking my brains for marketing advice, which I'm happy to give them.

What I usually do is start out by telling them about the local Alpine farmer's market, which happens here every Saturday.

Our farmer's market has one main problem: This isn't farming country. This is high mountain desert. This is ranching country. People harvest cattle and oil round these parts; they don't do so well with legumes.

The people selling the produce for the most part are local amateur gardeners, who primarily grow what they need for themselves, then sell on whatever surplus they have to folk like me, for a little extra cash.

What does this mean? It means you have to get there early, because the market opens at 8.30 in the morning and is COMPLETELY sold out within 45 minutes.

Whole Foods? Forget it. You really have to drive to Midland, 150 miles away to get anything closely resembling what you're used to in the big cities. The local supermarkets do what they can, I'm told they're a hell of a lot better than they used to be, but... there's still a long way to go.

There's something so interesting to me, that in this modern, over-supplied world, the supply for something most of us educated, blog-reading types take for granted- high quality food- falls so short of actual demand. There's plenty of people in this town who'd gladly spend more money on quality food if some enterprising person would set them up, so why isn't it happening?

I'm optimistic. I believe it's just matter of time before the aforementioned enterprising person spots the glaringly obvious gap in the market, and actually does something about it. This is Texas, after all. Sitting on your ass doesn't get you too far in these parts. Stuff tends to happen if there's enough people willing to pay for it.

So I tell my construction friends, well, what's true in the local food market is also true in the construction market. There's a lot of people from the big cities moving in with a lot of money in their pockets, compared to what the locals are used to making. And they're used to a certain level of service which a lot of the time, THEY ARE SIMPLY NOT GETTING. The construction person who can ACTUALLY understand and ACTUALLY cater to their ACTUAL needs will win. The construction person who still wants to do it same-old-same-old will have a much harder time of things.

Then knowing this, the only question that remains is, which construction person are you going to be? The Trailblazer, or the Same-Old-Same-Old? Only you can answer that.

["Edges 2". Part of "The Edges" series. Click on image to enlarge...]

OK, so this weekend I did another "Live On The Edges" cartoon. I've been playing around with the idea A LOT in my head these last few days. More thoughts:

1. I prefer "Live On The Edges" more than "Live On The Edge". Like I said in my last post, there are lots of "edges" out there. "The Edge" just sounds too "rock n' roll lifestyle" for my taste. "The Edges", at least to me, connote more of a feeling "Exploration" somehow.

2. Whether you prefer "The Edge" or "The Edges", actually, I really don't care. I really don't think it matters either way. That being said, the blogosphere is chock full of semantic micro-managers, so I must be careful.

3. I was driving around town this morning, running errands, when suddenly it occurred to me: I have actually reached a fairly high state of what I would call "Cartoon-Enabled Personal Sovereignty". In other words, I simply couldn't do what I do without the cartoons. I'd have to go get a job somewhere. Ugh. My advice? Personal Sovereignty is an edgy business. Not for everyone.

4. Yes, of course, the Internet DOES make it FAR easier to be an "Edgeling". I've been talking about that for years now...

5. I read somewhere that the average American today has a higher standard of living than Louis XIV, yet we're all unhappy. Yeah, having read his history, I'm not sure King Louis was that happy, either. But hey, at least he wasn't a 17th-Century French peasant. Count your blessings where you find them etc.

6. I'm agnostic. I see both "The Edges" and "The Middle" two sides of the same coin. Like the circle's center and circumference, both need the other.

7. TV shows start out seeming kinda edgy, then after a while they seem mainstream and boring. This happens even when the writing's quality stays high. We get used to stuff. We assimilate new forms of language, and then we move on. My cartoons are no different. Ashes-to-Ashes etc.

8. "Living on the Edges" for its own sake is a complete waste of time. "Mommy! Mommy! Look at Me! I'm living on the Edges! Can I have a cookie?" What's more interesting, of course, is the idea of "Constant Renewal", "Constant Re-invention". Edges are a good place to go out and find it. You either have an appetite for it, or you don't. You either have a talent for it, or you don't. Life is unfair.

9. I remember when blogging was considered "edgy". It was actually not that long ago. Now it seems rather mainstream. Like Point Number 7, we assimilate media as a new form of language, and then, again, we move on.

10. You get older and you start noticing how there's a lot of people out there doing really interesting, crazy stuff, but then they go home and live these very ordinary, middle class, suburban lives. Hanging out with the family, cooking barbecue in the back lawn, movies and going out for Chinese food, playing frisbee in the park, it's all good. Imagine the trouble these folk would get into if they didn't have that kind of balance in their lives. By most standards, I would say I have a pretty "edgy" career. It's why I live in West Texas in a quiet, sleepy town. It allows me push the edges internally without getting ripped apart externally. Living in Manhattan would kill me inside twelve months.

11. People often ask me, "How do you stay inspired over the long haul?" My answer: "By working hard". Bliss through Toil, Baby. It's all good.

12. "Edges" is not a lifestyle choice. It's just something you do. It just happens. No, you have no real control over it.

13. All is Vanity.

["Edges 1". Part of "The Edges" series. Click on image to enlarge...]

Over the weekend while I was working on the above drawing, from out of nowhere the phrase, "Live on the edges or not at all" suddenly popped into my head. So I used that line for the drawing's title etc.

Since then the line has stayed with me. I've been giving it a lot of thought. What exactly do I mean by it? Here are some notes, in no particular order.

1. There are lots of edges. The phrase, "Living on The Edge" often connotes something negative. Think of Jimi Hendrix, dying young from drug and alcohol abuse. Or William Blake, whose visionary art and poetry was never properly understood in his lifetime. Or William S. Burroughs, and his crazy years of lonely exile. All living on the edges of Society. All paying a heavy price for the privilege. You get the idea.

But there are other edges out there. Plenty of them. Apple obsessing about industrial design. Dell obsessing about their customers. Microsoft obsessing about software problems that may not even exist yet. Though their business models are all quite different, they're quite edgy about what they do as individual companies. And this is PRECISELY what made them so successful- the edge part, not the middle part.

2. And we're not just talking about computers. While most people are happy to sell business suits for a couple of hundred dollars, here's Thomas selling them for $5000. He's selling at the very extreme, high-end "edge" of the suit market. Or Max Brenner and his incredibly expensive chocolate. Price-wise, he's also "on the edge", and people can't get enough.

3. "Edgelings". This term was coined by a friend of mine, Stowe Boyd to describe people who gravitate towards the edges. So far I've heard nothing better.

4. The Herd. When sheep flock together, in order to protect the collective, the strong end up in the middle of the flock; the old, infirm and weak end up on the outside of the flock, leaving them easy pickin's for any predators who may be nearby. If you read Mark Earl's fabulous book, "Herd", you soon realize that human beings aren't that different. For all the heroic individualism Western society likes to idealize [almost to the point of fetishism], humans are surprisingly "Herd-like" in their behavior.

Just as sheep move to the center of the flock for purely survival reasons, so do human beings. It's why we wear khakis and join tennis clubs. But some of us move to "the edges" for the exact same reason- Survival. "If we stay in the middle, we're just going to get creamed like everybody else, once the market moves on." I don't think "Edgelings" consciously choose to be this way- like every other mammal out there, they just want to get on with their business without being eaten by wolves. Declarations like "Live on the edges or not at all" come after the fact- as Mark Earls would say, it's more about justifying past behavior, rather than ensuring future behavior.

5. What's true in life, is also true in marketing. The great advertising and marketing thinker, Russell Davies says that a brand's Number One job is to be "Interesting". I agree. And I also seriously, seriously believe that if you're on the hunt for "Interesting", you're going to find it far more easily on the edges, not in the middle.

As my friend and mentor, Seth Godin told me over dinner a couple of years ago, while I was picking his brains for marketing advice, "The edges. Always keep pushing on the edges".

Exactly.

It's been almost two years since my "Global Microbrand Rant":Frankly, it beats the hell out of commuting every morning to the corporate glass box in the big city, something I did for many years. Just so I could make enough money to help me forget that I have to commute every morning to the corporate glass box in the big city.

There are thousands of reasons why people write blogs. But it seems to me the biggest reason that drives the bloggers I read the most is, we're all looking for our own personal global microbrand. That is the prize. That is the ticket off the treadmill. And I don't think it's a bad one to aim for.Though a lot of the personal details have changed since then, it still holds up pretty well.

That's one of the main reasons I started this website, back in the day. I saw it as a ticket off the treadmill. Not exactly sure how it all happened, but for the most part, my evil plan worked.

I've noticed that building a Global Microbrand, whether you're a tech consultant or a maker of hand-built guitars, is a lot like learning how to teach oneself to be a cartoonist i.e. you need the same three basic ingredients: Talent, stamina and discipline.

Like any good Kung Fu master will tell you- There are no secrets. There is no magic formula. Just a lot of hard work.

[The lithograph I did for last month's Techcrunch party in Menlo Park, sponsored by Stormhoek. Click on image to enlarge etc.]

I'm going to be hanging out my shingle more in the cartooning department. I think it's time.

I'm looking at lots of ideas, but here are the four that currently interest me the most:

1. Lithograph Commissions. Like the lithograph I did for Techcrunch above, or the Blue Monster one I did for Microsoft, I'll be taking on corporate commissions. If you have a company that you think could use a high-end "social object", please feel free to send me an e-mail, thanks.

[This is a cartoon I designed for Jerry Colonna's business card, about 2 years ago, which he still uses.]

2. Business Card Commissions. Sure, getting one of my cartoons onto your business card is easy enough via my Streetcards site, but if you fancy something a bit more personal, a it more unique, again, feel free to email me.

3. Cartoon Commissions. People want cartoons for all sorts of reasons. One of my favorite gigs this year was a series of cartoons I did for Sun Microsystems. I'm open to discussing all sorts of ideas here. Let me know.

4. Events. Every now and then people will sponsor me to come to their events, draw cartoons live and hand them out to attendees. Here's a link to one I did a few months ago. I'm in the market to do more of these. Again, feel free to send me an e-mail.

My one caveat is: I'm not as inexpensive as I used to be. Basically, I charge corporate rates. Just letting you know...

Looking forward to seeing where this goes. I'll keep you posted. Rock on.

I'm writing this from an outside table at Jo's Cafe on South Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas.

I spent part of the morning having a good look at Digital Nomads, the new Dell blog. It seems Lionel Menchaka, one of my pals over at Dell is helping to run it. Also, I find to my delight that my old buddy, the uber-smart, uber-creative Phil Torrone, is also a contributor. So yeah, I'm hoping to see great things come out of the enterprise.

A "Digital Nomad" is roughly defined as someone who, thanks to the internet, can and does work anywhere he or she likes. Thanks to the internet, last February I was able to move from London, England to Alpine, Texas without changing jobs, so I guess it's not surprising that this new Dell blog caught my attention. Here are some random thoughts, in no particular order:

1. Though the blog was created by Dell, it seems they don't want the blog to be all "about" Dell. I think that's a smart move. As I'm fond of saying, if you want to be boring, talk about yourself, if you want to be interesting, talk about something other than yourself. Of course, in the comments there were a few "This is just a cynical marketing ploy by Dell to sell more laptops" remarks. This is to be expected, I suppose. If Dell tries to have a conversation online, some bloggers are going to have a problem with it. If Dell says nothing, some of the very same bloggers are going to have a problem with it. I call this, "Having Your Cake And Eating It 2.0". I find this phenomenon increasingly common in the blogosphere. Maybe it was always thus, maybe once I was better at not noticing it.

2. I remember when I had a god-awful office job I had to commute to every day, how appealing the idea of being "digitally nomadic" appealed to me. You mean I can hang out in cafes all day and still get paid? No more commuting? No more paying high, big-city rents? How cool is that?!! But being a digital nomad has a dark side. There's something unhealthily addictive about being "Always on", "Always online", "Always connected". Reading Clay Shirky, it seems than whenever Society takes huge cultural shifts, mass addiction sets in as a coping mechanism. Clay pointed out that in 19th Century England, the addiction of choice was drinking gin. In postwar United States, the addiction of choice was long hours vegged out in front of the TV. In today's world, I'm guessing our new mass addiction of choice- the Internet- means not even being able to go to the bathroom without bringing along your laptop. They call it "Crackberry" for a reason.

3. Yes, the Digital Nomads blog is "marketing". Then again, so is the sentence preceding this one.

4. The Digital Nomads blog is what I call "indirect marketing". People aren't supposed to read it and go, "My, what a lovely blog. I think I'll go out and buy me a couple of brand new Dell laptops". This is more of an "Alignment" play. In other words, by "aligning" themselves more with the digital-nomad crowd, they hope it'll help them in time to create products that are more compelling and relevant to them. If you were in the computer business, you'd want to have the same alignment. "The Porous Membrane" etc. The good news is, Alignment plays can be extremely effective. The bad news is, they take FOREVER to gather momentum.

5. The blog is still in its early days. I can see it still struggling, like all new blogs do, to "find its voice" [Hey, if a blog can find its voice in under twelve months, I consider that good going]. Of course, it's going to have the same problem that ALL corporate blogs do i.e the problem of balancing BOTH the needs of the perennially kvetchy, perennially skeptical, perennially dissatisfied blog-reading public, and the commercial interests of the company. Harder than it looks. The fact that they are giving it a go AT ALL I find encouraging.

6. As someone who has been lucky enough to actually become a professional digital nomad, not just dream about it just happening one day, I can honestly say that yeah, it's a tremendous privilege. Big-city wages with small-town overheads is a damn good business model, and I simply could not do it without an internet connection. I also believe that yes, there's a lot of people out there who are not really digital mavericks, though they would very much like to be some day. With these folk in mind, I guess my advice to Dell would be, forget about trying to get the digital mavericks to read your blog. If your stuff is any good, they will happily come of their own accord. Instead, ask yourselves what can YOU do to help MORE people become digital mavericks, themselves. If you play a tangible part in shaping this part of their lives, they will love you and your products forever. And recruit their friends to your cause. It's all good. Rock on.

I've worked with a lot of companies over the years, big and small.

I have found that even small companies are remarkably complex organisms. But of course, anywhere that ambition is allowed to focus usually is. Human beings are messy creatures.

It seems to me that in any company, large or small, you can divide the people into three broad categories.1. The "Changers". These are the people who use their work as a platform to "Change The World". They go into a market and try to change it, in order to create something better, both for themselves and for the market at large. They can be the CEO or work in the mail room. Theirs is not a social position, it's a psychological condition.

2. The "Contributors". These are people who want to do their jobs, do it well, and get handsomely rewarded for it. They don't necessarily see the need for "change" per se, they just want to see what works, and get it done. They want to find out who's on the winning team, and get themselves a place on it.

3. The "Coasters". They just want to turn up and get paid. Their lives and identities are outside their work- families, friends, hobbies etc- their job is just a means to an end; a way to pay for their "real lives" elsewhere.None of the three is necessarily better or worse than the others- we all have different needs, different agendas, different temperaments. We've all made different decisions about what kind of life we want to lead, what kind of compromises we're willing to make, what kind of adventures we want to have. All roads exact their own unique toll. All choices come with a price.

I suppose I've always ended up in the "Changer" camp, somehow. It was never deliberate. It was just about how I relate to the world. Sometimes it was a definite advantage. Other times it was career suicide.

So in the last couple of weeks I've been having a lot of conversations with people at Dell. The subject of the need to "Change Dell" has come up a bit. Actually, no. It has come up A LOT. A WHOLE LOT.

As a "Changer", the word "Change" really doesn't frighten me. To talk about "Change", doesn't necessarily imply that there's anything abnormal or wrong going on. As I'm fond of saying, all business models are wrong. Whatever system you've got in place, it's yesterday's model. Whatever process you've got installed, the world has since moved on- all you can do is try to play catch-up, to greater or lesser degrees of success. Hence the cartoon posted above.

So in a meeting in Round Rock, I ask this one Dell person, "So why are you guys interested in talking to me? I'm no Peter Drucker, I'm just a cartoonist." The person answers, "Because we like your very atypical point of view. We think it could perhaps be useful to us." Fair enough. If I had been that person, I'd probably have said much the same.

So these last few weeks, I've been mulling over the word, "Change", and how it applies to Dell. Or to put it more simply, what ACTUALLY needs to change? Sure, they've had their fair share of trials and tribulations over the last few years. But there's a lot that they've gotten right, as well. Sure, you might prefer Apple over Dell for your personal choice of computer, but guess what? The consumer sector represents only 15% of their total business. In the other 85% of the business, B2B, they've not been doing too shabby. The company still makes a profit. Their biggest customers still return their phone calls. Sure, they have their issues, but hey, who doesn't? As I'm fond of saying, this stuff is HARD. Get over yourselves.

i.e. "Change". What does it REALLY mean for Dell? I'm just asking... Yes. I really, really want to know.

I've also been mulling over how this experience differs from the work I've done with Microsoft.

One thing I have noticed so far inside the company, is how often the word "Dell" is used interchangeably with "Michael". Sometimes we're talking about the man, sometimes the company. The lines seem very blurry. I don't recall "Microsoft" and "Bill" being so interchangeable, I really don't.

Michael Dell seems to cast a huge presence over the company, even more so than Bill Gates casts a presence over Microsoft. This is no bad thing. It just is what it is.

Actually, I find this quite an endearing aspect to the company. Michael is certainly no absentee landlord CEO, from what I can make out. Every day, I'm told he sends a lot of emails to people to lots of different levels in the company. He's very hands-on, he doesn't just hold court with the people reporting directly to him. Dell might be a Fortune 50 company, but there's something about it that is STILL just this crazy college kid from Austin, building made-to-order computers in his dorm room for his friends. These humble roots still hold strong. Walk around the offices, and you can still smell them around you.

So one evening last week, after a long but interesting day over at the Round Rock offices, I'm having dinner with an old friend in South Austin. A nice little Mexican joint I've become very fond of. Avocado margaritas. Smoked pork tacos that melt in your mouth. It's all good.

My friend asks me how I'm getting on with this new Dell project. I tell her, "Well, I'm finding it pretty darn interesting so far. But at the end of the day, if Michael Dell doesn't grok it, there's not much I can do. From what my gut tells me, it seems like it's very much 'his' company, even more so than Bill Gates and Microsoft. I could be wrong, but there it is... Of course, if he does end up grokking it, then it'll get pretty intense, pretty quickly. But in a good way."

My friend and I are sitting there, enjoying the evening, talking about the good old days, back when we both attended university in Austin. Suddenly in the back of mind, I'm thinking about the "Changers" inside Dell. These, I decide, are the people I need to speak to. All roads ANYWHERE worthwhile begin with these good folk. The rest can look after themselves. The rest won't quite understand me, and there's simply no point pretending that they will.

It is true. I don't know EXACTLY what I'm looking from them quite yet. It's still early days. Then again, a jazz musician never knows EXACTLY what notes he's going to play, before the gig actually starts...

We live in interesting times...

Funny how Dell is so heavily tied into the GAMING industry, yet as a company it could use a much greater sense of "PLAY". "Playfulness" etc. Just had this thought over on Twitter. Thought I'd share it over here as well...

[UPDATE:] Frank Pendergrast made the following comment:If Iron Man had used an Apple, I bet you'd have known, it would have been all over the blogosphere... but the fact that IronMan used Dell servers just seemed to produce a minor level of outrage that he'd use something so uncool - and as for the fact he seemed to be using an XPS M2010? Nobody even noticed.

A symptom of the brand image Dell have?I dunno, Frank. What's the ROI on coolness? ;-)