I spent much of last week in Austin, Texas at Dell World 2014, the company’s annual convention/party for thousands of customers and partners. Dell World has many of the same features as other vendor conferences – executive keynotes, customer panels, technical sessions, a show floor crowded with vendor booths. But after 3 days I came to believe that Dell and Dell World are tapping into something essentially unique. (Disclosure: Pund-IT has consulting relationship with Dell.)

That’s partly due to the location itself. For anyone who hasn’t visited, Austin is a singular community deep in the heart of Texas—radically more liberal and progressive than the rest of the state, which is odd since it’s also the state capital. But when you consider that no Democrat has won a statewide Texas office in the past 24 years, a local wag’s description of Austin as “a blueberry in a tomato patch” seems entirely apropos.

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