P.S. (skip this part) Yes, I went to college. No, I’m not illiterate. Sometimes as I write I think of another great point and go back and forth to edit stuff as I’m writing it – so sometimes you’ll see misplaced punctuation, verb tense mistakes, plural misuse and in general sentences that look like they were written by two different people. Sometimes my hand slips on my Macbook air and I notice later that I’ve been writing in the wrong paragraph. The only time I’m actually in my perfect and real form is when you see a gigantic runon sentence because that’s how I speak in real life – until all the room in the air is sucked out and everyone drops to the floor unconscious.

First, Thank you so much for reading my blog. I’m floored by the number of you that not just read it but have an opinion that you share with me through Facebook, twitter, email and so on. Folks, if you consider social media important and you have your Facebook chat turned off… you’re missing out.

Second, The conference situation is clearly much worse than I laid it out to be. Not that all conferences are bad, but that so many of you want to have a better experience at them – be it as a vendor looking for ROI or as an attendee looking for content and engagement. Unfortunately, I’m not the guy to fix this as I’m not the guy running conferences, I just pay to sponsor them.

Finally… Some of you misread my post as a conviction that all conferences are horrible and shouldn’t be attended or sponsored. That is not what I said. I just laid out the many problems that I saw with many of the conferences that we’ve sponsored and explained why we needed to step back from pursuing diminishing returns and focus our money and attention elsewhere. I am pestered each day by event sales people to sponsor stuff and since that was not my job anymore.. and more importantly because I don’t believe in just walking away from business relationships without explaining why we are changing our focus, I decided to lump it up into one blog post because I don’t have the time to have a 1 hour exit interview with every conference organizer and every new sales staffer they hire for the next 5 years.

Many of you agreed. Some of you disagreed. One of you (and it had to be the nicest guy in the bunch) actually got offended.

I think having these opinions out in the open is worthwhile because this is the way things end up improving.

If you stay quiet, things only get worse. If you don’t stand up and say that there is something wrong, it won’t get fixed. I’ve always championed this for us through this blog and that’s why we have such awesome products – because our partners have always openly and at times harshly beat us up over stuff that was wrong. I’m not going to lie, it’s hard as hell to look at and have people tell you that you suck. But once you fix it, there is no greater satisfaction and there is no other product/company I’d rather be the CEO of (well at least in Software. If Playboy or Hustler are hiring I’m one.)

So that’s what I have to say. However, since many of you don’t read comments I wanted to pick out a few here for your enjoyment and consideration.

Folks, if you don’t like the content and what you’re spending your money on, just stop. Otherwise the situation gets even worse. We live and work in an opportunistic environment with a bunch of entrepreneurs. So long as people get away misrepresenting the audience there will be vendors willing to roll the dice and sponsor an event because everyone is trying to make money. But.. don’t talk to me, I don’t run a conference. Talk to the conference organizers you like and tell them what it takes for you to attend/sponsor again.

Now, on to your comments.

Jeannine Edwards, ConnectWise. Interesting feedback because she’s not only in charge of one of the largest conferences out there but also one of the largest show marketing budgets as well:

I think this is an interesting post…I actually appreciated it. I needed to rethink my event spend in 2011, while at the same time work hard to plan an event that brought the best ROI possible to participating sponsors. So I had a razor sharp focus on where I felt real ROI was to be had… and also made sure I baked those deliverables into IT Nation.

I also appreciated the importance of the unbiased perspective. I think it’s important to remember why we’re spending the money we’re spending – to spend time with partners and potential customers, not our friends – that’s a nice to have when the opportunity presents itself, not a must have.

Net net, I do still find the face to face community the best place to engage with our partners, and potential partners, so I’ll spend the money – maybe less of it, but I do see value in the conduit.

Bold and interesting post pal.

Matt Makowicz from VARTrek blogged at length about this. His point is interesting because he was with SMB Nation until recently.

When I turned on my PC this morning, I logged on to Facebook and saw something different.  My friend, Vald Mazek, with his sometimes controversial and always “in your face” vladville blog, expressed concern that he was about to offend some folks out there.  Well, that’s not news, although the concern may be.

After reading Vlad’s blog (www.vladville.com) I found it thorough, informative, insightful, and a wee bit of “what no one else is saying.”  Great blog, Vlad – as usual.

I have a bit of a unique perspective on the subject of the industry events and particular the vendor side of conferences having worked for clients on both sides of that fence.  In fact, I chuckled at some of the “value statements” Vlad cited as I know I have uttered some of them myself and some to Vlad’s marketing team.

Vlad was wrong about one thing:

Where Vlad got it wrong, in my opinion, is that the attendees don’t see the vendors as a “vital component of the event.”  Attendees I have spoken with have consistently responded that a given event’s expo hall, or an introduction to a vendor is in the top 3 reasons they either chose to attend the conference or found value from doing so.

Especially, with the change(s) that are sweeping the IT industry, and in particular with the SMB focused Partners, integrating vendor solutions is the only way to stay in business much less be or remain competitive.

My own $0.02

I have “seen” behind the curtain of the conference business in chatting with several conference organizers as well as my own work experience.  I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the bullshit.  And for the most part, Vlad is right – it ain’t pretty out there.

In fact, the entire reason I am building a consultancy around helping vendors with their Channel Partner programs is I see tremendous opportunity for improvement.  I’m amazed at the Channel Marketing budgets of some vendors.  Of the 100 plus vendor Channel marketing programs I’ve been closely involved with in one way or another, I am shocked at how few really focus upon ROI on an event by event basis.

Of course, there IS something to the goodwill, community, or the impact of “not being there.”  While real, these intangibles should be used to sway “on the fence” decisions, not be at the core of decisions that involve precious marketing dollars.

Regarding attendees and their “quality” as it matches (or doesn’t) to any particular vendor I suggest a few old, but solid techniques for flushing this out.  I suggest the following:  1) Simply attend the conference the first time you hear of it and use that “scouting trip” to help in determining if the event should be sponsored next year.  Do this for the events seriously being considered but aren’t absolute certainties.  2) Share with the event sales rep what your “A” Partner and “B” Partner look like and get a number of each that will be in attendance.  3) Most importantly, question that number.  Typically, as it was in my case, the sales rep believes what he/she is saying.  Look at the history of the event.  Ask about what marketing activities the event organization is doing to generate the promised number.  Look for or negotiate a guarantee.  Find a bottom number that the sales rep sees as worst-case scenario and base an ROI calculation on that.  4) Finally, strategize on how your firm can stand out at the event.  Approach the buying decision like buying a boat or bigger house.  There is a lot more than the purchase price involved to “do it right.”

Last thought:

I disagree with my friend Vlad on another point as well.  It’s not necessarily true that there are too many events in the industry.  If attending these various events has taught me anything, it’s that each has its own ”community” following and unique audience.  Vendors, however, seem to limit their scope and marketing budget to the event’s they know of or their competitors are sponsoring.  I know of an event that only two vendors “in the circuit” have ever sponsored and it’s a goldmine.  But beware, it’s a different event that requires a different strategy.  Email me and I’ll share, plus it’s more fun than my looking at “view” statistics. 

Happy Hunting!

The following is courtesy of an exchange between Kate Hunt (who works for us at Looks Cloudy) and Ryan Morrison formerly of IPED and perennial keynote eyecandy for the 3 ladies at an IT conference:

Kate:

the real problem, in my estimation, is that an event that actually serves both the solution provider and the vendor, and justifies the time away for both parties, is an impossibility. why? because in order to do so would require the event hosts to accomplish something that’s impossible: serving two masters.

Ryan:

Perhaps two masters, but one purpose: creating profitable business partnerships. I mean, no one is naive enough to think that vendors are there to do anything other than recruit, but solution providers also need to refresh the portfolio. If you dispense with the pretense that the vendor is just happy to sponsor lunch because they care about the community, is there a way to bring people together on a logical basis that serves the basic purpose of business development?

Amy Babinchak, who is often the main content at the technical conferences and currently on the SBS MVP tour with Microsoft/HP. Show stuff aside, Amy is the CEO of Harbor Computer Services and the kind of person folks like me pay to meet at these events:

I like small conferences, the smaller the better. I’m there to connect with vendors not to be sold to. If you want to sell to me send an email. If you want my feedback and input and to hear how the market perceives your product be present in the vendor hall and the hallway of a small conference. Vendors should not see these events as sales opportunites but rather as product development events where you can really reach out and get real information.

Update: Here is another from Arlin Sorensen who runs HTG peer groups:

Very thought provoking and solid post. As someone who tries very hard to put on two solid vendor events each year, you have nailed some of the realities in the marketplace. There are too many shows, at least from the vendor perspective, because you are expected to be at all of them.

Solution providers and MSPs belong to a variety of communities and groups and aren’t faced with the literally hundreds of shows that are available to the vendor community. I agree, even though most SPs and MSPs have a more limited menu of options than a vendor does, they should not attend any event just for the sake of something to do. If it doesn’t drive their business they should stay home and be working on it.

We at HTG are completely focused on driving ROI to our sponsors and supporters. And equally important, providing real tangible value to our members. If those two aren’t in alignment we have to make changes to make it so. Our goal is a quality set of vendors and members who are willing to build relationships and have conversations. That is what we focus on – creating an atmosphere where people can succeed on both sides.

Running trade shows is a challenge to be sure we stay fresh and continue to add value. We are evaluating ideas and will be piloting some ways to increase the interaction, and relationships, in 2012 and beyond.

Thanks for the thoughtful and very insightful post. Great food for thought as we make plans for next year.

My advice to solutions providers and MSPs – know why you are going to any event – have an agenda ahead of time and a list of people you want to connect with. Spend your time doing that. Relationships are the real value of these events. You can get content lots of places. The face to face opportunity is the real value.

- Arlin

If you’d like to read more there are additional comments on the blog post as well as my responses, or you can check out the few threads on my Facebook wall at www.facebook.com/vladmmd – my only suggestion is to get involved.

It’s clear that this is not worthwhile for many of you, vendors and VARs alike. There are many great events out there and they only happen with the participation of vendors (like us) and we only spend money if great attendees show up willing to work. This community is what we make of it and sometimes we have problems that aren’t pretty but we work and we work and we make things better and almost everyone benefits. Finally, I am truly sorry that I have offended folks. But give me a break – if these problems apply to you – I’m not the one you should blame. And I would never publicly disparage you, your brand or your company – but it’s better you hear it from me now than from further decline of what could be something great. Love it or hate it,

The beauty of small business and entrepreneurism is that we are the masters of what we create – and none of us wake up to create garbage. So if this is a wakeup call for some of you, take your attendees and sponsors feedback – the real feedback, not the polite non-confrontational crap.

Update: Just an update on the potential conflict of interest some of you asked for. Some of the names listed here are in fact shows that my company, Own Web Now Corp sponsors – SMB Nation, Connectwise, HTG and the HP/Microsoft show all contain/feature OWN as a product or we’re a sponsor. However, much like I said in the first post, I will not take anyone down by name and the opinion is just mine about the problems out there in general.

Problems (Law of large numbers and diminishing returns)

There are way too many trade shows aimed at the IT Solution Provider, VAR, MSP. Everyone with an audience has an event – and more of them – with seemingly no purpose other than to bill vendors.

Content at most of these shows is pedestrian at best – expert panels made up of sales guys masquerading as content. Some shamelessly hold a bucket of cash up just to keep the audience in their seats until the end of the day.

Audience is unqualified. At some events you’ll meet college students attending the event for extra credit, at others you’ll meet end users while at some you’ll just stand there and be pitched by other vendors who didn’t spring for a booth.

There is seemingly no point for vendors to be there. At some events even the show floor layout reinforces the vendor carival boardwalk games as the attendees go from the entrance to the main location. “Step over here ma’am, I can guess your weight or you get a free tshirt!”

Engagement is difficult. Most shows never tell you who will actually be in attendance. Some tell you a day or even a week ahead of time giving you little time to get in touch with anyone.

There are way too many vendors. It’s quite clear what the objective is when you see 40 vendor logos with a show that promises 300 people to be there (which is likely including the 120+ vendor staff, show staff and the valet out front)

Biggest problem: Vendors are an accessory – that pays for lunch, venue, maybe a party, parting gifts and whatnot. They are not seen as a vital component of the event (“Hey, connect XYZ from the booths and charge $X for it”)

Our Story

I don’t want to sit here and lie to you by saying that the show circuit is useless. Far from it. We’ve managed to build an extremely successful company that had the shows at the core of our marketing.

The return on investment over the years has been heading south and it nearly fell off the cliff recently.

I had two options: double down or walk away. In 2011, we walked away from tier 2 and tier 3 shows. There are several reasons:

1. I kept on seeing the same people everywhere. I know some small shops have a demented illusion that the CEO’s job is to deal with strategy, not to build a business – but when you’ve got less than 10 employees you’re spending more time with me than your clients it’s pretty clear where you business is going.

2. I got the wrong sales guy. When I’m told “But we’re the best, all your competitors will be there” that only tells me I’m about to burn a lot of money on a lot of leads that won’t go anywhere. No thanks.

3. I asked my biggest partners where they were going. I sponsored their answers. If you can’t tell me why you are going to an event (or if the answer is to play golf, party, got a free hotel room, etc) then I see no reason to interrupt your vacation with my spam.

4. Lower ROI. I don’t run a business for the sake of sustaining the employment of my marketing department. “But people will think you’re dead” is not a valid reason to spend marketing dollars. When we pulled 40-50 shows a year we were barely breaking even on some.

5. Lower purpose. I’m “connected” to 1,300 of my partners and their staff in realtime, every day. I can touch base with the rest of them through email, newsletters, our portal, support services and so on. So why should I go to an event?

The result? Higher ROI on marketing investment, more focused marketing and sales staff, better mood around the office.. I can go on but reducing the travel schedule helped us out a lot – and we have more partners now than when we started 2011, with better revenue/profit.

I don’t really have many encouraging words to share regarding the problem however – If I were an IT Solution Provider I don’t know which trips I would spend $ on or even if I’d take a half day at work to attend one of the local ones. It’s gotten so bad that you can learn more useful stuff from blogs and your vendors marketing collateral than you can at the average industry event. The only downside is that you won’t get any swag and beer will be exponentially more expensive.

2012

I don’t know the exact layout of 2012 yet but I’ve heard that we’re even taking a razor to our tier 1 sponsorships. We’re only going to events where we’ve got a strategic relationship with the event and can squeeze something else out of it (video, case study, etc). It’s strictly business.

To my vendor brotherin that are facing the same issues I’ve outlined here, do what I’ve done and shift the entire responsibility to an unbiased person. I have many friends, alliances, etc, etc and we’ve in the past sponsored stuff just because the folks were nice or we did really well at the show in the past or I knew they were doing something good for the community even if it didn’t directly benefit me. Let someone deal with the numbers, returns and the investment objectively. The downside to that is that your mommy and daddy may decide that the party you want to go to or a playground where all your friends will be at is a ginormous waste of company resources and your time.

To everyone else: Don’t let this discourage you from creating great events and attending great events. This is by no means a conviction of the channel or the showmanship – all I’m offering is the reason why we’re going to stay off the road in 2012 and focus on our partners more instead.

Frankly, I think this is something our partners deserve more than tshirts and I’ve seen firsthand how much the content we’re now generating is being used by our partners and how they are transforming their business with it. If I can pull a large 6 figure budget from the road and apply it to more of what we’ve done this year, I think all of my partners will be happier – and hopefully recommend us to those that haven’t heard of us before that I’ll miss on the road.

As far as I can tell (and this is a separate blog post) the IT business is getting much better in 2011 but it’s certainly not a tide that’s lifting all boats – the good are getting better and the poor are getting jobs. Every day you wake up you have an opportunity to either slide by or do something great – it’s really all up to you.

P.S. Every year around this time folks call me to ask what I’ll be sponsoring next year (as we all seem to have more options and all wonder if the ROI is as bad elsewhere) and I also get calls asking for money. Hopefully this post explains it in some context – Yes, the ROI is terrible with a few exceptions and if we want to sponsor your event we’ll get in touch with you.

Today/Tomorrow: CompTIA EMEA/UK
Friday/Saturday: SMB Nation, Las Vegas
November 1-2: HTG ALL Conference
November 3: CharTec Unherd Conference
November 4-5: ConnectWise
November 15: Company A Launch
December 1: Company B Launch

More on Company A and Company B at a later date, as my team often likes to remind me: “Vlad has never met a dollar he didn’t like” and we now have the resources and level of success that is making it possible for us to work with our partners and help almost everyone get to that next level.

I’ll be present for the events in bold. I am also going to be around the ConnectWise conference which we are sponsoring, however, due to the proximity of the event to my wife’s due date, I will not be in the booth. If you’d like to meet, please contact Anthony @ OwnWebNow and let’s set something up that week.

Work, work, work.. and the luckiest person in the world to have so much of it!

Now outside of work.. wow. I’m in London. The last time I was here I didn’t quite appreciate the history nor did I understand the significance of the stuff around me. On Monday evening I went down for a stroll around Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and in what should probably trademark as “Look! It’s right there!!! I can walk to it!” – Big Ben, London Bridge, London Eye and the palace. Let’s just say that I noticed the difference in temperature between an afternoon in Florida and 2AM in London the next day.

London at night is something to see. Leicester Square as well.

Yesterday I went sight seeing with a friend from our long time UK business partner ReadyCrest, Ltd, Paul Bonathan. London Eye, “Proper British Breakfast” (it’s like an American breakfast, just deep fried), Tower of London, British Museum, walking from the British Museum to St. Pancras station, trip to a “proper” pub in Kent and my first Indian dinner, ever. Also my first 14% alcohol beer ever. Those of you that know me and my alcohol tolerance can probably imagine the mood I was in.

The British Museum and Tower Hill are honestly day trips at best. I wish I had an entire week to spend around London but it’s back to work today. I’m sponsoring/speaking at the CompTIA EMEA event and they seem to have put together a great show. I look forward to meeting so many of my UK friends that I’ve worked with for years but never had a chance to meet in person. If you’re here, or expect to be around, drop me an email – we’re likely going out tonight and we can always use more company.

As much fun as it is to make so much money in this business / industry, it’s far more fun to spend it on good times. Which I’m extremely happy to report, London seems a great place to do it.

Here are a few things I wish I knew before going in there that would have made our experience a lot better. Kudos to UCF for putting the candidates names, degrees and expected graduation dates on the badge, that was a great start. From there:

Start with the qualifier questions.

1) Are you looking for a full or part time job or an internship? If the answer is anything less than full time, ask how many hours a week and when. This will tell you if their schedule is based on their class load or work-time preference or if they are looking for a career or job.

2) What are you looking for as far as compensation is concerned? Notice that I didn’t say salary. Folks that worked in professional organizations know the difference between a salary and compensation. Subway Sandwich Artists (SSA) do not. It will tell you who you’re talking to right away. It will also show you whether they have a realistic expectations of what the real world is like.

3) When are you looking to start? Unless the answer is immediately, just cross their name off.

4) What are you good at? Open ended question. People that are not good at anything will not have a solid answer to this question. Ever. “I’m good at lot’s of things” is crap a handyman will tell you when he’s trying to fix all that’s broken in your house.

Ask for Collateral.

Prospects that have nothing to show but their resume don’t have any job experience you can count on. Trust me on this one.

Everyone that has ever worked with anyone either reputable or organized has at least a reference sheet, a portfolio of clients they have worked with, samples of their work in a way of either screenshots or finished product marketing/advertising, etc.

Creative people take an immense level of pride in their work so the odds that they were significantly involved in something but have nothing to show for it are very slim.

Explain what you need and listen to the response.

Our Orlando office is where the creative stuff happens. So we’re typically looking for people that can take an idea or a concept or whatever comes out of my mouth after Nyquil/MountainDew mixes and create a product or service from it.

I am not an HR expert, but I can tell when I’m talking to someone that is creative as opposed to someone that wants 9-5 packed with rules and policies. Nothing wrong with that, someone has to work at DMV and Social Security, they just wouldn’t like working here at the pace that we work at.

Here are some questions:

1) Here is something we’re working on now. ____. How could you help?
2) I see you have experience with C#. What did you write with it?
3) We’re based in Downtown Orlando. What schedule will work for you?

Note that these are very specific questions. Every job interview these folks have been to has been the same at the core: Check where they worked and what they did. Problem is that the questions related to more details about what is on the resume to begin with has already been asked a dozen times and they have rehearsed the answers ahead of time. They have probably had their resume audited by the University staff, gone through “Getting Employed for Dummies” or worse, took advice from people who are not employable (University professors).

Open ended questions allow you to see how they think. How they confront problems. What level of comfort they have speaking their mind. For example, if the person is very sociable when they approach you but get extremely uneasy when you ask them the question they were not anticipating, it’s probably not a person that is going to work out well in an unstructured environment. They may be great employees if you have a very rigid definition of the job, but creativity… It’s a double edged sword.

What I wish I knew…

Rookie mistake on my part. Or lapse of common sense. There were over 100 companies there. Don’t chat, get right to the point. We at times had a line 3-4 people deep, if we were more prepared for that we probably would have handed out forms and brochures instead of just talking to prospects.

Likewise, have some sort of collateral to sell them on the job. Virtually every big company looking for slave labor had some sort of a dream they were selling because it takes a lot of courage and shamelessness to stand in front of a college graduate and offer them $7 to be a secretary.

Finally, we definitely should have printed banners that explained better what we do. We used our general purpose banner set that focuses on our product.

In the end, the expo was a great success for us. We found several people that were exactly what we were looking for and we found a few surprises that we might be able to fit in. Much like employers have different needs, college students have different needs. Some want money, some want experience, some want to be a part of a product some just want a recommendation. As we grow and become a bigger part of the local business community, it’s our responsibility to help students transition into the real world and as much as we would all love full time professionals with experience, our needs have changed as we’ve grown and we’ve become more flexible. Thanks UCF for all you do for the local businesses.

P.S. I’m turning off the comments and trackbacks on this post because every time I write about jobs and employment I get a thousand SPAM trackbacks from sites and services that prey on the unemployed. If you have a comment, feel free to email me and I’ll post it.

At 12:30 PM EST today, I’m talking with Frank Gurnee of CharTec – live.

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/254848952

This is the first of the two-part event (you can register for the second one here).

The first one is about technology. The second one is about business. They go hand in hand. But the reality for most of us is that if we have a hole in understanding how both play a part in delivering a solution.

Honestly, there is a reason why some people consistently win. And there are so many reasons why people get better the more they work on the problem – you learn from mistakes and experience. The problem with technology that continuously evolves and the customer taste for technology that changes with the flood of alternative solutions is that being “just-something” doesn’t cut it anymore.

Tune in today for the tech side – of how to implement this. There won’t be a recording posted on Vladville so if you have to miss it, email me (vlad@vladville.com).

Few years ago when we were having issues I turned to my friends/clients and asked why they worked with us. Two comments from my buddies Wayne Small and Dean Calvert stick with me to the present day:

“This isn’t a date, this is a marriage.”

Getting everyone in an organization to understand the level of dependence that clients have on us, the level of trust they extend, and in bad times – the level of personal stake they have on the product choice they use to solve problems – is incredible. How do you build that? My personal answer to this is under a press embargo and NDA for a little while, but I can offer you some insight

Autotask ________ Conference

Last week we were invited to Autotask HQ for a ______ conference. As you can guess, literally everything is NDA at this point and in the event that even the company name is NDA, consider this a lovely event I had behind a dumpster doing heroin with my imaginary friends.

First thing they did at 9 AM was to let the CEO lay out the next 2 years worth of the roadmap, with the first year of it clearly spelled out – from vision to agenda to the end game.

The next 6-7 hours was basically spending time with some of the smartest people around and the key executives, developers, support, etc going over the details, suggestions, ideas and implementations.

The final hour was the CEO again, basically saying “Here is a list of places where you make money.”

Note to Self

First of all, I don’t know anyone that does this. The closest thing I’ve seen to this type of event is what Microsoft used to put on back when they had a partner program – back before the CEO would stroll into a keynote looking like he just left a BBQ and the program itself looked less like a time share sales training seminar.

Second, shame on me for not doing this for our partners. I talk to thousands of people each year, I’ve got a bunch of people in my company that talk to far more and we talk to each other every Thursday and Friday. Why we’re not sharing this collective knowledge (that most of you probably get on Vladville in between profanities) is embarrassing.

Third, shame on you for not doing the same for your community.

On To The Next One

I’ve made no secret over what I’ve been doing for the past year.

After we damn near rewrote our process, support, billing and half the products I dedicated myself to a new job – that of the PSA strategy. About a month ago I took a leave of absence to take care of some other business projects that just needed to become rock solid before I took the helm of OWN again.

In about a week or so, I am coming back to the helm of ExchangeDefender. And my first goal is to make sure we let our partners benefit from everything we know about where the money is.

I don’t think I’ve been this excited about what we do in at least 4 years.

Once again, I find my mortality at the hands of the New Orleans Hurricane. I am not sure when I will learn that whenever Europeans and Australians agree on a drinking game, it is not safe to participate. Good god. Anyhow, here is the final sequence in my evening:

Now as foolish as that looks…. Try to imagine what prompted the following video closing sequence, which in all good taste, I can’t post in its entirety.

Best… conference… ever. And when people with funny accents approach you and propose shots while swirling poprocks.. Don’t do it.

P.S. In case you’re wondering where pictures and detailed videos of Aussies, Dave Sobel, Mark Crall, Nancy Williams, Jeff Middleton, Andy, Frank, Karl, etc are – keep in mind that I am showing you the only clean/non-incriminating stuff. Use your imagination. Hint: Pat O’Briens, fan, bachelorette party, girl friend getting a hot girl to pose with your “gay” friends and the reaction when she finds out they aren’t gay, just old + drunk + deaf… I don’t think I’ve had this much  fun in a long, long time. Thank you NOLA.

What I was really curious about was the keynote. Bob Godgard is not on Facebook or Twitter, he doesn’t blog and I think I see him once a year in a booth where he looks more like an inconspicuous swag hunter than the CEO of the whole thing. It’s hard to figure out what’s on his mind and outside of meticulous press releases and scripted speeches, sometimes it’s hard to feel the emotion and the drive behind where the company is heading.

This is extremely important. I remember a few years ago blogging from the Microsoft conference when the mood on the podium turned very anti-Partner. It was clear then and there that Microsoft was about to annihilate it’s partner channel and everyone who stood in it’s way.

So what did Bob talk about?

Platform.

That’s it. There were no elaborate service pitches, even though they got VARStreet there was no long talk about how this service is going to change the way everyone worked: just about how it’s going to strengthen the platform. The entire presentation was about broadening the reach of the platform, making it OS/Browser independent, moving onto touch screen devices, adding more back office stuff.

For integrators and developers like OWN, this was very welcome news. It was similar to Ballmer’s “Developers, Developers, Developers” pitch at PDC a few years ago. It established a clear focus that Autotask is spending it’s money on improving it’s platform and by proxy our ability to continue to help our partners realize additional value by using it.

To me, this is key. Things like Windows, Autotask, etc are platforms. The second they lose the focus on their core (see Microsoft Windows Vista) product and get distracted the entire ecosystem around them suffers. Autotask, in my opinion, is going in the right direction for it’s users and it’s partners.

At the event, we released two products based on the Autotask/ExchangeDefender platform. One is a ticket-to-email gateway, which is free and open to everyone using ExchangeDefender. The other one is Orangutime, a desktop gadget that helps you track time and update tickets (offline) without launching a browser.

I have to say, I am very impressed with what Autotask is doing and I look forward to bringing more and more solutions into that ecosystem. A huge part of our partner base relies on Autotask, and one way we contribute back to our community (aside from t-shirts) is by helping make you more efficient between the two platforms with the software we’ve already developed in-house.

So I’m hitting the road in December to talk about what’s made us so successful in 2009, hopefully get some more folks onboard, and what we intend to do in 2010. Having spent better part of 2009 on the road we’ve built what you’ve asked for – so in 2010 we’re taking that momentum even further. So..

Tomorrow (Wednesday, December 2nd)

My buddy Karl Palachuk is sunsetting the SMB Conference Call podcast. It’s a true pleasure to be among the last few folks to be a guest on his podcast and while my buddy Erick will be doing Bette Midler song on the table, I will be talking about ExchangeDefender 5. As usual, the swag will be plentiful, join us live. Click here to register, it starts at 9 AM Pacific, Noon Easter.

Note: I have lost my voice and while I can talk for about 10-20 seconds, about a minute in I sound like an 11 year old girl with a smoking problem. Just a heads up.

If you are near Grand Rapids, Michigan, I will be presenting ExchangeDefender 5 to the West Michigan Small Business Technology User Group. Specifically, I’ll be talking about the business of managed security with ExchangeDefender 5, showing off a few screenshots and basically trying to explain a few things about consistency in UI design and end user expectations. It won’t be the same thing that Karl and I will be talking about so you’re quite welcome to check it out via LiveMeeting starting at 6:30 PM EST.

Next Week (Tuesday, December 8th)

Two (or three), depending on when my Aussie friends decide is a good time for an Australia podcast, we’re covering the launch of ExchangeDefender. Stay tuned to www.ownwebnow.com/blog for details.

Week after Next (Going back to Cali…)

Pimp tour bus starts in San Diego and goes to San Francisco for Chinese. If you are anywhere along the way by all means stop by, say hi, pick up a tshirt and let me introduce you to some of my biggest friends in this business.

Monday, December 14th: www.mspu.us – I will be in Orange Grove (near Santa Ana) at MSPU HQ hanging out with the staff and talking about our strategic partnership for 2010. MSPU and OWN have a pretty tight relationship so we’re trying to figure out ways to keep on pushing one another forward. If you’ve never heard of or seen any of MSPU webinars, books, presentations… you must live under a rock. But if you’d like to come and help hang the lights off Castle Simpson, give me a ring.

Tuesday, December 15th: SMBTN Los Angeles – My buddy Dave Siebert has invited me to talk to the SMBTN Orange County from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM in Los Angeles. If you’re in Pasadena though.. I’ll see you on Thursday (see below). Since it will be a longer show I’m open to long form abuse, talking about anything you want to know about. Would love to see some of our LA partners come out for a dinner afterwards, on OWN’s bill.

Wednesday, December 16th: www.chartec.net – I will be in Bakersfield visiting my good friends at CharTec. Own Web Now recently developed CharTec’s new MSP service configurator and Alex (AARC & CharTec founder) and I are trying to figure out how to leverage this technology to help MSPs grow more aggressively by removing the burden of quoting and proposal writing from MSPs. If you’d like to know more about that, or CharTec or anything about HaaS, these guys are the ones.

Later that night, I will be visiting SMBTN Fresno, virtually, and Ma’am Susan Bradley will be opening the doors internationally for a brief demo of ExchangeDefender 5 and discussing the value of providing the managed security service that isn’t based on nickel and diming your customers to death (hint: money is not in the addons, it’s in the service and reporting you provide on top of it). I will be on at 7:30 PM!

Thursday, December 17th: www.autotask.net: Autotask is a cloud based PSA solution that helps MSPs automate their service, support and billing every single day of the week (including Monday, Tuesday AND Wednesday!) – but more importantly, they are the ExchangeDefender/OWN preferred PSA platform and all of our business support and automation hooks work on their solution to help our partners spend less time managing support and billing of our services. If you’re not familiar, by all means check them out – $29/seat. But even more importantly, they hired a good friend of mine to help manage the MSP community interaction (so his job is making me and you happy) and his first shot comes on December 17th. I’ll be presenting our integration and business model at lunch but you should really check this show out. It’s on Thursday, between 10 AM and 3 PM. Click here to register. Live in Pasadena (University Club of Pasadena). 

How do I keep track of Vlad….

Facebook: vlad@vladville.com or Twitter: @vladmazek

Corporate-side: www.ownwebnow.com/blog

Now, I also have an office but in 2009 I’ve spent more than a quarter of the year on the road. So it has become painfully obvious that in order to interact with people I really need to get a cell phone to share with everyone. I’m working on that, should have one very shortly – but in the meantime, get in my virtual world to track the physical Vlad around the world. I’m like Swag Santa this season. Hope you wished for some mindcrack and tshirts.

Inside, I’m depressed and frustrated by what I hear and witness because it’s so hard watching people who know what they need to do ignore it because change is too scary. So they sit, look for comfort and try to avoid stuff that becomes more real with each passing day.

Over the past few days I’ve had a chance to talk to so many people that my voice has completely given away. Shot. In that time, I’ve discussed things with people that are growing and that are slowing. Let me sum it up:

The era of nickel and diming, tiering, layering and stacking is over. Really, I am happy you’re making a living at it now, I really am. But we all know that the money next year won’t come from the basics. So either give it up now and grow your share/client base, or watch your empire erode.

And as many of you have seen & heard in Orlando, and will soon be reading in the press, these aren’t just words my friends.

There is a reason janitors, door greeters and security guards with flashlights make minimum wage. Be IT innovators. Not IT janitors.