Note from Lionel: The power of technology grows as more users have access to it. Dell is helping the city of San Francisco provide some of its residents a connection to the digital world.

It's an example of one of Dell's key goals behind the concept of the Connected Era—ensuring that the benefits of IT can be accessed in every part of the world. Connecting is one of four priorities—along with regenerating, simplifying and listening—that Dell believes will define the next stage of technology.

City of San Francisco officials recently announced the launch of the TechConnect PC Purchase Program for Working Families.

Here is a guest post from Chris Vein, Chief Information Officer, City and County of San Francisco:

The TechConnect PC Purchase Program is a partnership that offers low-income working families in San Francisco the opportunity to buy a discounted Dell computer for a low monthly cost. This program is sponsored by Dell, Intel Corporation and Patelco Credit Union.

The City is committed to working with its corporate partners such as Dell to address San Francisco’s digital divide. Computer and Internet access have become essential to education, employment and civic participation. Mayor Gavin Newsom and I announced this program as part of a comprehensive citywide Digital Inclusion initiative to bring technology access to the City’s most disadvantaged residents.

The TechConnect program enables low-income families to more easily afford a computer and to use this access to improve their lives. In order to qualify, families must have received the Working Families Credit, a tax credit available to San Francisco households who earn less than $39,000 and have at least one child. The City provides free computer training at its public libraries and recreation centers.

To add to Fara’s post about the Dell.com redesign, I wanted to take the opportunity to explain how we design for the online user experience here at Dell and provide further insight into ways that Dell is continuing to foster a design-centric environment to benefit our customers.

Note: Click on any of the images in this post to see larger versions of all of them.

My team, an internal group of user experience designers, began our redesign efforts back in March with a lot of planning and strategy exploration. During this time we worked closely with internal business partners to define the objectives, requirements, and establish what success looked like to everyone. To build our strategy, we used current-state customer feedback and metrics as well as research and results from our previous design tests. This discovery process illustrated that there were a myriad of design options that we needed to consider.

Exploring these approaches took a lot of people, time and creative reviews. The initial round of designs included 24 different concepts and over 14 ways to navigate the page. After aligning on the goals for the page, our mission was clear: Beautiful imagery, more targeted navigation, space for fresh content, and more deep links into the site.

As we narrowed down the options, we tested the direction with users from our three main customer audiences (Consumer, Small & Medium Business, and Large Business) to ensure that we effectively captured each group’s needs. The feedback from this research informed some important design changes and reaffirmed the final design direction.

We know that a positive user experience has a direct correlation to a strong brand experience by allowing users to accomplish their goals easily. The end result of our efforts, which now live in the US with a 50% filter, accomplishes this with a clean and simple way to address the needs of our users by getting you where you want to go quicker.

Like Fara mentioned, we need your help to evolve the online experience at Dell.com. If you have thoughts to share about how to improve, respond to this post, go to the Dell Web Site area of IdeaStorm or weigh in at the Community Pulse page for Dell.com

After months of customer research, planning, and design, we are ready to share the new home page for Dell.com. A well-designed home page sets the tone for the entire site experience. When we do our job well, you can easily find a product or information that’s important to you. We worked with this goal in mind.

Getting the home page right is critically important, and that’s why we started our design process with feedback from the community. In her post last year, Laura Thomas discussed findability, load time and customer input. We focused our efforts on all three. When we spoke with customers this spring about the new home page, 100% of people found the ideal path to products. We learned that the imagery resonated with both our corporate, small business and consumer customers. We also focused on load time by building a page that will enable you to experience our products, and not to have to wait to enter the site.

Through the collective work of many folks on the Dell team, we’ve worked to create a home page that is easy to navigate and that shows off our products. Hopefully, there are a few key things you’ll notice when you experience the new home page on Dell.com (click on the screen shot below to view a larger image):

1) Clear navigation: With “For Home, For Office and For Data Center” present at the top of the page, it’s easy for you to find the products that are perfect for your needs.

2) Focus on products: Technology is a huge part of our life, so we should be buying, carrying and using products that we’re proud to own. The new Dell.com home page highlights our products in a more visual way while clearly calling out the functional benefits that are important to you.

3) It’s more than just shopping: At Dell, we introduce award-winning products at an rapid pace so we’ve allotted space on our site to tell you about them. We are also bringing technology headlines and Dell Deals to you as you start your dell.com experience.

We started our launch yesterday in Canada, China, Mexico, Brazil and Spain. The US will started with a limited launch yesterday as well (so all of you won’t see it yet; but you will soon!). Over the course of this month, the design will roll out to other regions.

We hope that the new Dell.com will be a great experience, starting from your first click. Thank you for all of your feedback—we’re always looking for more. So if you got some ideas on how we can continue to improve, you have several options:

• Respond to this post
• Submit an idea at the Dell Web Site area of IdeaStorm or
• Weigh in at the Community Pulse page for Dell.com

Last year, we experimented with a new type of service. Lionel blogged about it back in April It was provided to about 30,000 customers in the New York City area. The idea was to provide a more personalized support experience to them by designating a team of highly skilled technicians they could call anytime. It was very successful, running about 90% customer satisfaction, as the technicians are more familiar with their circumstances, require fewer explanations and are able to solve a broad-range of issues beyond just the basic warranty.

This week we are launching the new premium warranty service called “Your Tech Team” modeled on our experiment. The new service will be an option for customers in the United States who purchase a system directly from Dell—it’s not available to customers who buy from retail. The service will cover all Dell-branded devices under warranty in your house-hold, gets you rapid access to specialists, allows you to schedule calls with your favorite technicians, and if you desire, can provide technical support options well-beyond what is covered under your warranty without needing to transfer you to a different group.

Your Tech Team costs $99 and provides hardware warranty support for your new system and all other systems in your household (that are still under warranty). Other technical support options, like performance tuning, wireless network set-up and anti-virus support are available for a fee but can be purchased while you are on the call with your favorite technician.

At this point, households are determined by billing address. This means if your daughter is away at college, but you bought her an Inspiron and it is still under warranty, she can call Your Tech Team  directly. If her system is out of warranty, you would need to purchase an extended warranty for her system before she is covered

Finally, there is one other piece of information you’ll want to know about Your Tech Team—the agents are based in North America. Now, I know this can be controversial for some people but we have 2 critical customer needs to meet that are in direct conflict with each other. First and foremost, customers want low prices. We see time and time again, that when we increase prices to cover certain costs we drop in sales. We also have a great deal of research that corroborates that PC decision making is largely influenced by price and customers expect low prices from Dell. On the other hand, we must balance that with many suggestions that we provide North American support. Dell’s philosophy is all about providing customer choice and this service is no exception, rather than adding cost to every system for something that many people aren’t interested in, we will make it optional.

Your Tech Team is not just about North American support, it is a different offering focused on your relationship with our technicians and ultimately it is about giving our customers the choice to prioritize what matters most to them.

When we launched IdeaStorm in January 2007, it was well-received by our customers. Since then, the community has submitted over 9,000 ideas and shared more than 70,000 comments. Up to this point, besides talking about it from a social media perspective, we haven't advertised IdeaStorm to a wide audience.

Today, we're starting to do that by working with comedian and successful talk show host Steve Harvey. His radio show, The Steve Harvey Morning Show attracts millions of listeners every day. He's someone who built a career on a big idea. Take a look at this video to hear more about that from him.

You'll be hearing from more people like Steve in the future on this topic. Dell understands the importance of your ideas and want to encourage you to keep sending them to IdeaStorm so we can continue to improve our products and services. There are a lot of you who do that on a regular basis, and we appreciate your participation. If you are new to IdeaStorm, we invite you to spend a few minutes there to share your thoughts on the next big idea.

Recently, I testified in Pennsylvania on the issue of computer recycling.  In my remarks, I urged the Senate Committee on Environmental Resources and Energy to consider adopting legislation adhering to Dell's producer responsibility policy.  Our company's recycling policy focuses on consumer-friendly, efficient and effective means for recycling and reuse of electronic equipment. This marks the 11^th time Dell has testified on this issue around the country.

 Across the U.S., state legislatures are grappling with what to do with unwanted computers.  As a leader in computer recycling programs, Dell is working with states to develop comprehensive, environmentally-positive legislation that is free for consumers and efficiently addresses the question, "What do I do with my computer at the end of its life?"

Last year, Texas became the first state to pass the so-called "Consensus Model" legislation.  This legislation was passed unanimously by the legislature. It was supported by a broad group of environmentalists, consumer groups, trade associations, cities, counties and of course, computer manufacturers.

The Commonwealth of Virginia followed quickly by passing the Computer Recycling and Recovery Act. The photo below shows Virginia Governor Tim Kaine  (D) singing the bill into law.  I was proud to represent Dell at the signing ceremony with Governor Kaine (D), State Delegate Ken Plum, the bill's sponsor, and my colleagues from Goodwill, Fairfax County and the Northern Virginia Technology Council.

Steam has picked up considerably this year and three other states have passed the "Texas" legislation.  West Virginia, Oklahoma and Missouri passed almost identical legislation.  And several other states, including Massachusetts, Michigan, Tennessee, and South Carolina, have bills pending that are based on the Texas law.

Of course, this is not the only approach to e-cycling legislation.  California passed the first recycling law at the state level.  However, that law, which mandates that computer sellers charge a "recycling fee" that is then remitted to the state, is controversial.  No other state has passed such a system.  Other state laws are a mix of producer responsibility with government mandates, government fees and excessive regulation.

Dell's goal has always been to ensure that any regulation or legislation is flexible and efficient.  And as we continue to provide consumers across the globe free recycling for used Dell products, we will work with elected officials to help bring free computer recycling to as many U.S. consumers as possible.

Jay Pinkert published a post about the new line of Consumer systems we unveiled earlier today. Beyond the blog post, you can also see information on the new line at www.dell.com/studio. 

Click on the image below to see a larger version of it, or click here to see more images in Flickr.

Cybergirrl Oh, aka Aliza Sherman, recently put me on the proverbial hot seat with her "Five Questions in Five Minutes" on the Real Biz in SL Internet television show. It's an SLCN.tv show entirely filmed in Second Life (machinima) that bills itself as part talk show, part tour.

Past guests have included Millions of Us, an agency specializing in virtual worlds, Cisco and IBM. Watching the IBM interview, one observer found it quite entertaining to see a television anchor and her guest flying super-hero style throughout the tour. Cybergirrl and I did quite a bit of flying ourselves before teleporting to the SLCN studios for those five tough questions:

• What kind of investment is your company making in Second Life?
• What kind of return on your investment are you seeing?
• What are the metrics you are using to evaluate your Second Life initiative?
• Is it worth being in Second Life?
• How much longer do you plan to be in SL?

One blogger watched it live and then mused on the variety of new media - "odd sequences from pownce [stet] to Second Life" - that combined to bring him into the audience.

You can see the entire replay over in the Real Biz in SL archives, or you can check out the YouTube video below.

Today, the Dell ReGeneration team is celebrating a new and important milestone in our commitment to become the ‘greenest' technology company on the planet. A few minutes ago, Dell became the first in the industry to achieve 80 PLUS Gold-certification for a server power supply, a testament to our commitment to achieve environmental savings for the planet, drive unprecedented cost savings for customers and challenge our competition to join us in reaching for the highest possible standards. Energy efficiency, free recycling for consumers, carbon neutrality and customer partnerships are a few of the core fundamentals that every green company must embrace as we all work toward a low-carbon economy.

The 80 PLUS certification enables our customers to compare and contrast power supplies based on criteria from Energy Star and the Climate Savers Computing initiative. Our new 80 PLUS Gold power supply meets July 2009 Climate Savers targets for servers more than a year ahead of schedule, which require 92 percent minimum efficiency for the power supply unit at 50 percent of rated output. Earlier this month, we became the first Tier-1 computer manufacturer to achieve 80 PLUS Silver-certification for our client desktops. The 80 PLUS Silver certification is up to 8 percent more efficient than what is required to meet Energy Star 4.0, up to 3 percent more efficient than the Energy Star 5.0 draft and also meets the July 2009 PC requirements outlined by Climate Savers.

 Stay tuned for more updates on our commitment to become the greenest technology company on the planet.  Share your thoughts and ideas and join the conversation on how we can all save the planet together. We're working hard with our suppliers, partners and employees to become carbon neutral by the end of 2008 and will be sure to keep you posted. If the frequent ‘green' updates on the pages of this blog are any indication, we have a number of projects in the works that will continue to drive savings for customers, encourage our competitors to make similar improvements and bring us all closer to achieving a green future. Our customers and shared environment deserve no less.

Yesterday, I was in Chicago to speak at the Electronics Recycling Conference hosted by Recycling Today.  It was a good gathering of professionals and influencers there to discuss and learn about the latest electronics recycling efforts.

My panel was looking at approaches by some of the large OEMs to implement customer recycling programs for electronics and I was joined by representatives from Sony, Panasonic and Waste Management.

Any gathering like this is a good chance to talk about Dell’s commitment to offer recycling services for the products we make.  We’re want to remind customers and industry alike, that we will recycle anything with the Dell brand on it for free at any time, other brands of equipment for free with purchase of new Dell. Our home pick-up program will come to consumer’s homes to pick up the used equipment.  In short, we’re making it free and convenient for consumers to do the right thing.  The results are showing, a few weeks ago we announced that we recovered 102 million pounds of used products from customers globally in 2007 for responsible recycling.

I also had a chance to speak on our work with Goodwill on the Reconnect program.  This unique partnership is bringing free recycling to more U.S. consumers every day and helping support Goodwill’s job training and community building missions at the same time.  Just last week Reconnect expanded to cover Western New York State and you’ll be seeing this program expand more this year.

We know it’s critical to make recycling free and convenient for consumers to take part. And we’ll continue to find ways to partner with stakeholders and policy makers, as well as with customers, to help raise consumer awareness about the importance of recycling used electronics.