Dell shares some of their story and others who are leading the competition

It's the last session of the Social Media and Stakeholder Engagement Series - and this is my 6th post. The room is tired, but still tweeting away. And most of the people are still here- a good sign.Stuart Handley, EMEA Communications Director from Dell is talking about Dell and social media. It's a great example of engaging with customers that makes a difference.

Using crowd sourcing and encouraging ideas, feedback and innovation/dialogue, they've had some impressive results. Over 12,000 ideas generated by the community; about 700,000 promotions of ideas and over 87,000 comments. Of those, 400 ideas have been implemented by Dell. They do something called 'storm sessions' - deeper feedback They post ideas from fb, and pay attention to a site that has hundereds and thousands of comments about their products. They pay attention to the conversations that are happening outside of their own website, going out to the blogosphere and the fbs and other social networking space. Especially, they are true to the feedback and then return to the communities they come from and tell them how those ideas have made an impact. These days, being competitive means being engaged.

I'm not surprised that this new R&D approach has such a great response. People want to be engaged - and love giving feedback. I certainly do. Especially when it is appreciated and taken seriously. We all yearn to make a difference.

Then James Farrar from SAP spoke. They are working to influence - and even lead - the sustainability development debate. They've found familiar important things: collaboration, accountability, honesty, inclusive, responsive and flexible. This means new interactive, collaborative software throughout the company. Their targets: to reduce carbon foot print by 50%. I think he'd agree with my last post - that this work is fundamentally about transformation. And its not just about self-transformation - its about transforming one's sector and beyond. Sustainable Development needs that kind of leadership.

And I've got to highlight the fascinating work being done by Reuters Market Lite in India. They've gone from selling information to bankers to farmers. In doing so, they've had to create a new sector: the micro-information sector which is transforming India's rural farming community by giving them access to market prices via their mobiles with remarkable results. Investment for farmers can be as much as 1000 times. It's a new type of social media/social entrepreneurship/innovation for sustainable development - and its great to see such a large organisation like Reuters pay attention to the 'micro needs' of rural Indian farmers.