Are you experienced?

The most recent Fortune Mag joins the dog-pile on DELL, chiding the company for being "in the penalty box". Somehow, I'd bet money that it'll be back on the ice soon enough, but that's beside the point. The point is that Michael Dell is concerned about the "experience" that his company and his flammable products are creating for customers. And this gets me back to my comments yesterday about branding vs. logo-ing. I first heard the "E" word used years ago in Cupertino, California at pre-Macintosh AAPL . In the years afterward, product designers like Frog, IDEO and Smart Design jumped on it. It's a good way to think about your brand. What experience do you promise your user will get in exchange for purchase? Great service? Top-notch technology? An object of desire? Break your promise, like Dell inadvertently did by focusing on the wrong metrics in its call centers, and your reputation suffers. Brand equals promise equals reputation. Simple math.