The other night I was traveling back from WWPC with two girls from Microsoft that were heading to their MDX meeting. I did my best as a Floridian to give them an idea of what to do, where to go, how not to get robbed… but about the only thing they had planned to do was sleep for a few days and recoup from WWPC. Strange, I thought. Then I pulled two back-to-back 12+ hour sleep nights and am still adjusting to the time zone changes, maybe they had the right idea after all. Either way, I’m in bed with the LCD glare and I figured I’d offer you some perspective on what WPC did for me this year.

WPC Last Year (2006)

Whenever you do reviews of investments you always compare time periods. How did I do this quarter vs. last quarter? Met expectations? Exceeded growth? Failed miserably (like there is any other kind of a failure):

In the now infamous suicide note, last years event fundamentally changed how I do business, how I make my business a part of my life.. in a way, last years WPC marked the death of the old Vlad who seemed to be preoccupied with work, immediate surroundings and very little else. I’m quite glad I killed him because deep down I believe he would have killed me eventually. Before I sat at this lake with Susanne and Dave, both of whom have moved on since then as well, I had spent days in meetings with middle aged guys who seemed to have lost their technical edge, who seemed to be in a rut with their business and trying to outsource everything, some that had big dreams and were perhaps just begging for a landing in a sea of reality.

What was particularly sad was the WPC Attendee Party that year; I remember running around trying to meet up with someone and in my circles around that Boston square I saw those same guys, standing far away from the stage, by themselves, almost without a friend in the world.

I decided that was not going to be me in 20 years. They say the change begins when you decide; what they don’t say is that it can take some time till the change you decide upon gets planned, implemented, documented and finally executed in full effect.

So this year, towards the end of the concert at the WPC Attendee Party, I pulled back from my friends at the Coors Field and walked back to the distant left seats and sat there for a few minutes. Went through the videos, went through the photos, played for a minute in my cell phone. I took a moment to reflect back on the previous year: the good, the great, the bad, the ugly, the muddy…

… no regrets. Year to date, I like this Vlad much better than I did the old one. Perhaps thats about all you can expect from life, that each year you see yourself as having improved.. something.

A..B..C..

Always..Be..Closing; That in itself is Microsoft’s World Wide Partner Conference. Closing deals, closing opportunities, closing project resources, closing hopefully a successful year. WPC 2007, for me, was all about validation. Have most changes I’ve implemented made sense for me, for my company, for my family?

While I am sure you can understand that I cannot share the specifics of parties, discussions and details due to confidentiality…

This year was different, it was not about Microsoft anymore as an enemy or a friend, it was more about me and where I am heading, with Microsoft obviously being the 900lb gorilla. Every now and then people share with you some small tidbits of knowledge that really affect your perception of what is around you.

Little while back I was complaining to a friend about my inability to bring out people to my user group meetings en-masse. His response?

Maybe it’s really about the people that do show up, not those that don’t.

Which, extended to the Microsoft partnership, means: It’s not about the $800 trillion in the business I will never see but in the $XXX million in business I do see. Maybe it is all about my partners and customers, not about the future ones that aren’t coming, aren’t doing what we do now, aren’t interested or can’t afford us.

When you approach a professional conference in such a way, and do not give in to someone elses vision (ignore and reject banners)… when you only come to turn your vision into reality, pursue your agenda, further your goals and plans..  Things look a lot different.

WPC 2007: Validation

I established my agenda long before I got to Denver. I established my next years goals way before I went on the road to begin with. I know where I fit, I know who I am, and I am blessed (lucky) to be able to finally focus on what I am really good at.

So this year, I was determined not to sell a single CAL, a single copy, a single deal or a single lead.

This year, I was determined to say: Listen, I know we suck, how can we make this better?

And I did. Some, and to be honest, many didn’t think we suck at all. But I get that all day long. I wake up to a pile of orders. I go to bed with a pile in a processing queue. I get fanmail all day, far more so than trouble tickets. But I wanted to know what sucked.

Even though nobody would play with me and go as far to say that we suck, I really pushed my partners, coleagues and others to tell me their little annoyances. Give me some ideas. Tell me what you usually do with it. How do you deal with this situation. What about that. Have you considered xyz. Oh, you want it to do that. Ok. Hrm. Ok.

To me, this year was about validation of all the changes I had made last year, based on the vision Microsoft had for me (yeah, right) and based on what I saw my customers demanding from us. They are two very, very different things but our customers and partners pay us a heck of a lot more than v-Microsoft does.

Was I right in making the drastic changes I’ve made over the last year? You bet. Is Microsoft right with their direction, hopes and dreams? God I hope not, but its their perogative.

Did I learn anything new?

Yes, I did. What I specifically learned is that I am no longer a small business. Or perhaps, I no longer have the small business mentality. This was painfully obvious in a lot of conversations I had with Microsoft, partners, customers, vendors.

I had also, in no small part through Vladville, influenced a big change in the community, evidence of which I’ve seen over and over again.

I have also seen, first hand, how the Karma tends to work in your way when you don’t only look at yourself, at your company, at your wallet… but also at that of the others and take their best interest before your own. It’s not easy, but looking back over the past 3 years there are very few regrets and a lot of triumps.

I have also seen and heard the fundamental principle behind success of a community, business community. No, not from Susan Bradley, not from Steven Ballmer, not from the PAMs/PCMs/TS2 guys. I was sitting one day with a partner, who shall remain nameless, and a third partner who wanted us to develop a solution. We’ll call them Partner A and Partner B:

Partner A to Partner B: Ok, so where do you come in?

Partner B to Partner A: I am just here to make an introduction. We work together often, these things work in such a way that eventually everyone wins. I just wanted to get you together and see how you can make this happen, we’ll sort this out on the backend.

(not 40 seconds later)

Partner A to Vlad: Oh, and what about _____?

At which point I turned to Partner A and just pointed. Nuff said.

Oh, what about Microsoft?

Prior to the event I had written that anyone that thought WPC was about Microsoft was a fool. I stand by that, even more so now that it has ended. Whats even more interesting is that the partners I hung out with also seemed to come to the same conclusion – it’s not about Microsoft.

This of course is going to hurt the Microsoft marketing department a little bit but hey, everyone paid for their ticket and made out what they needed to. I think last years endless vision of unimportant things, as I like to think of it, told many of us in the audience that despite the numbers and the dreams there really isn’t much for us up there. Not if we wanted to grow, not if we wanted to continue in our roles and keep our existing relationship with our clients.

So this year the keynotes were largely ignored. As I’m figuring will be most of Microsoft’s future stack. Not to slant Microsoft in a big way over this, they are a public company with greedy investors and they have to do what they have to do to grow their market share, even if it means killing all of their ISV partners, marginalizing their consulting core, antagonizing their licensing sales force and patronizing the entire channel. Perhaps one day Microsoft will be able to stand on the stage with HP, Quest and Unisys and have a huge hug fest but that ceremony will not live to see any of us that are actively looking elsewhere. You wouldn’t run after a bus that just ran you over, would you?

Again, validation. This has been written on the wall for years and now its actually showing up. Those of us who have seen this have adjusted our approach, changed our direction, moved our marketing and accordingly our investment in the future of our companies. That is why business plans exist folks, so they can be reviewed, judged and adjusted.

If its not about Microsoft, what is it then?

The fact that we were all busy with our own agenda, not that of Microsoft Corp, meant that we could sit down and discuss our wins and losses. Our changes. Our developments. Our ideas. Key word: our.

I spent most of the week walking around with Karl, Dave and Erick and just comparing notes. Meeting other partners and seeing whats on their mind. But really, at the end of the day, what this was really all about was a huge board meeting with people I respect immensely, working and branstorming the new business plan. We went from presentation to booth to meeting to lounge to lunch… constantly throwing out ideas, suggestions, recommendations. At some point it stopped being a conference and it became a little summer CEO camp. I hate to put it in such an amateur way, given the maturity of the subject, but that is what the whole thing was about.

Even on Day 1, not 8 hours into the conference, Susanne knocked it out the park for me. One of the biggest issues for 2007/08 at OWN is the customer service angle. How do I take “Vlad’s Own Web Now” and make it stand on its own without destroying the satisfaction ratings we enjoy now? How do I gently go about changing the very core of what made this company successful? How do I tell my partners and customers just what we intend to do for them over the next 3–5 years without them looking at me and getting the feeling that we’ve completely lost it?

Susanne explained that to me (and maybe 50–60 others) in roughly under 50 minutes: “This is a circle. This is where you are, this is where your partners are, this is where your customers are. The world goes in this direction, now… push. Got it? Good, 5 is a good number on the evals, thank you, try the beef I’ll be here I’ll week.”

As I wrote before this, life is what you make it, your company is what you develop it into. WPC was all about me. And I think I did well.

What about the leads, the sales, the touches, the cont..

What about them? We’ve got a good product & service, we don’t need help selling it.

What we do need help with is making sure our partners and customers know we’ve got their back, so they remain our partners and customers for the long time to come. That means not screwing them for a 5% incremental revenue and a good quarter, that means not giving up the principles for immediate gratification, that means not being afraid of competition when you know you’re doing the right thing, that means not trying to close the doors that aren’t really open, that means not forcing.

Not… forcing. I see many people fail. I see many projects fail. Something they have in common is either a general lack of interest/effort or more commonly the outright disregard for anything but pure force being put into the item. Forcing in terms of pushing your partners, in pushing your clients, in pushing your employees, in pushing your external support staff.. Folks, I cannot say this enough… You cannot force things. On your best day you can present the things in the best possible light, offer the alternative or two, all the honesty and sincerity as you can put on the plate and hope the other party makes the right decision.

Consider the opposite. You’ve nagged someone into something. You’ve forced someone into a contract. You’ve overpaid/underpaid someone into a position they didn’t want or fit into. You’ve screwed a partner/vendor. You won. Yes, you won. Congratulations. Here is your medal. Just what do you think will happen to your victory party when the other side realizes just how badly you’ve screwed them?

Folks..  Life… business… success… loss… all of which I’ve had the pleasure to experience over the past 28 years is all about the balance and inner peace. If you can’t be at peace with what you do, if you can’t enjoy your victories and cry over your losses, if you can’t see why you do what you do in the greater scheme of things… then whats the point? But if you can, and if you live and put everything you do in a somewhat greater context.. then little blips and turns in the road don’t need to be more than what they really are, and more importantly, they won’t affect you any more than they should because there are bigger things to create and enjoy.

Is that realization worth $1,800? F yeah. I only wish I could have spent it when all I had was $1,800.

Over the past few years I’ve been fortunate enough to go to so many places and conferences.. and undeniably.. WWPC 2007 was easilly the most fun I’ve ever had out in the field. I wish every day could be like that, wake up at 8AM and work like crazy till 4PM and then party till 3 AM. Repeat.

Yes, I’ve told you all the wonderful ways that I’ve managed to pull off successful things at WWPC, business wise, but you can also be successful doing other things at WWPC. I think Dave said it the best: This is the best part of the business. When I’m back I can look at the awards and think of all these good times and say (I’m doing well)! That is why I always bring a video camera with me, it is so much richer than pictures alone and brings back so many great memories. Yes, a picture can take you back to what you think happened, but the video lets you live in that moment.

For example, here is how I got a % share of KP Enterprises. (2 Mb video); pwn3d

From the mailbag:

Subject: Where’s the beef Vlad?

Enjoyed the reports from WPC thank you for doing them. It looks like you had a great time.

Thank you for representing our interests to Microsoft. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I would like to know if you have considered writing more about the direction we should be taking in smallbiz based on all you have seen this week?

…. personal stuff here ….

Scott, thank you for the email. However, it is unlikely you will see that – for a considerable time; allow me to explain:

Giving direct business advice based on my experience borders on consulting and it would be quite dangerous for me to attempt that. Unless it is listed under articles, everything you see here is AS-IS with no warranty at all. You just see my thoughts, opinions and impressions and you are welcome to accept them, dismiss them or use them in whichever way you see fit that doesn’t violate the copyright.

But that’s all it is. I go through great trouble not to use the spell checker not to make this appear like a newspaper or a proper publication. I hope all of you following this understand that everything you see is just one mans opinion, not the gospel, not fully researched and backed paper or article. I don’t know how many times I have to write “truely” or “akward” to prove that;

Now……. Having said that. Microsoft TechEd and Microsoft WWPC are very expensive tickets. Ones that also come with a week of lost productivity, away from my family and fankly very long and exausting days for someone that has spent his professional lifetime in front of a monitor. Add to that the SMBTN, the SMB Nation, the Swing Migration conference, etc. Make no mistake, I have come to neither of those events with a press pass.

I came to learn and network and, as I wrote last night, talk to my peers about the changes I am making. Consider it a free business plan evaluation if you wish. I come to get product feedback and service ideas, partnership opportunities, etc. Its a pure business investment on my part. And frankly, its not something you get for free. I remember talking to Chris a long time back about the opportunity costs of new products and services. I told him that if I really needed that incremental revenue all I’d need to do is sit down and push a little on the things I’m already doing.

Thats why I do this, thats why I continue to come to these conferences, thats why I continue to invest time and effort into being here. It is a long term investment in the future of my business. Likewise, it is not an investment that I am willing to offer to the strangers for free, a book project I intend to use to bring in the money or anything I expect to use for anything but the long term success of Own Web Now. I had this very conversation with Susanne and Dave yesterday, that of my overall lack of motivation when it comes to doing more direct work to pursue indirect reputation in the community. I already run a very successful, respected and profitable business so any further investment into that, outside of the direct parter directed/beneficial in a restricted fashion, just seems like building a really large house and inviting people to live in it for free.

Update: .. and its not like I don’t already give enough via the VladCast, Vladfire, Vladville and all my many freebie projects. I have worked very hard to earn this reputation and will continue to put up the things I find interesting that I feel you ought to look at. But its just an incentive, a motivation… to do better and look higher. It is not a feeding bottle, a book, a guide, a blueprint or anything of the sort. At some point you just have to sit back and say – “I get it! Now I’m going to work for it.” That… is not something I can do for you, that is something you do for yourself.

Back in my hotel room, WWPC is done with and I have a folder full of notes, project ideas, business goals and improvement plans that will take years to implement.

As you head back home and are waiting for your delayed flight I offer this bit of advice: be patient. I know you are probably excited, exilirated, with what you have learned from Microsoft and from your partners and you want to move as fast as humanly possible. Microsoft is innovating, pages and pages of new products in 2008, so naturally you’ve got to move quick? Yes? Yes? No. Nope. Stop, hold on, wait a minute, throw out an anchor and step back. In the information and tip overload that WWPC is, its easy to take the lessons learned and rush to quickly implement them – after all, they seem so simple – you can do it next week! The trick is not getting it implemented, quickly, it’s making sure that the changes you do committ to your business stick with it for years to come. It’s something you take to another conference and ask other partners “Hey, thinking about doing XYZ, any ideas or suggestions?”

Some of the best decisions and implementations I’ve used to make my business successful were not quick fixes, tips or rushes to market. They were things that were planned, tested, evaluated, trialed and proven. They took a lot of work, a lot of careful planning and execution. So as you head back home bright eyed feeling like your life has fundamentally been changed remember that you’re not by yourself, that there is a lot of adoption that needs to happen internally and externally, that you have to prepare for it before you pull the trigger. Be patient, great things take time to happen, if they are happening seemingly overnight they are likely not thought through enough. Let go of the impulse and focus on what got you to this point to begin with.

On a personal and social side, I’m quite down and out today, on a number of fronts for a number of reasons.

On a professional and corporate side, however, I am excited, clueless and more driven than ever before. I used to tell my friends and coworkers, if you leave this meeting without feeling stupid you haven’t learned anything. This was one such four day meeting and prepares for a very interesting year. I’ll explain in more detail later, as things drop. Funny, I’ve grown up to the point that even I have to be secretive. I can’t divulge anything that happened prior to noon.

Today: MAPS

Today I had a long afternoon meeting with a lady that is in charge of the global Microsoft Action Pack Subscription and Strategy. For all intents and purposes you should assume that the following is a crackpot fantasy that I am making up. You’ve been warned, so now on with the fable:

I chatted with a lady about doing a video interview today. “What do you do”, Vlad asks. “I am in charge of the global strategy empowering Microsoft partners” she says. “What exactly does that entail?” wonders Vlad, tweaking his goatee. “I am the defender of the action pack” and with that she raised her sword and said “for the honor of Greyskull.”

Now that I have eliminated any possibility of this being taken seriously…

This is someone that runs one of the simultaneously most beneficial and most controversial of Microsoft programs. One that both empowers and infuriates Microsoft partners. One that brings out some special feelings for every Microsoft partner dealing with SMB infrastructure.

So the first request I had, aside from asking to video tape her, was to get her to dumb down the Action Pack business for me. How does it work? How do you decide which software to put in it? How do you accept feedback? What do you do with feedback? How do you select which software you add or drop from the Action Pack? How are you policing it? How are you distributing it? How are you fulfilling orders?

Your basic questions from a third grader curious about why the sky is blue…

But rather than to pass me off she humored me and explained all the little nuances, intricacies, bits, crumbs and pieces of decisions that make MAPS what it is. To sum it up, rather unscientifically:

When you design big programs you think of the whole world. What works in USA does not work in Russia, what fits in Australia does not fit in Germany and when your goal is to give all worldwide partners the same advantages there are some interesting things to consider.

Then I did a bit of show and tell. I pulled up my laptop and went straight from my blog to the smallbizit Yahoo group to the thread I started on Monday when changes to MAPS legitimacy were first announced. I told her that I sympathize with the tough position she is in and wanted to show her that even in the community we can’t come up with a decisive solution and we don’t know (or care about) all the facts.

She took her time to sit with me and go through all the 20+ responses on the subject. She explained in detail why things happen, how they work, how the decisions are made, etc. I can honestly say I understand and appreciate what Microsoft has to go through to keep things fair.. Tax stuff – nope, privacy issues. Proctor MCP Tests – nope, too complex for developing countries. Certifications – nope, partners would get locked out and get upset, etc.

Why this matters…

Indirectly speaking, this is very important.

All everyone wanted to talk about was my meeting with Ballmer. Strictly speaking, what we discussed would impact roughly 3 out of 40,000 of you that come to my site each day.

But the section above, about MAPS, impacts a good majority of you no matter where you are because this was a discussion with someone who sets up the worldwide strategy for Microsoft to establish, promote and grow the Microsoft Partner Program. And unless you work for Microsoft… you’ll never know how it all works or why it works the way it does.

So why is it important?

Because, as Microsoft Partners, even if we don’t like Microsoft decisions we are more willing to live with them if we are explained the cause, the constraints and the justification.

The best way Microsoft decision makers can reach us without fighting a lot of red tape is through blogs. Unlike David, I don’t write memorandums demanding change, I’ve worked with Microsoft long enough to know that doesn’t work. All I do is encourage them to keep the channel of communication open, to blog, to speak their mind. Pardon the expression, but I ask them to be my partner.

Consider the irony of this for a moment. 10–12,000 Microsoft Partners paid on the average $1,600 for just the ticket to get into the room to have a talk with Microsoft and Microsoft partners. Thats a big chunk of change just to have a conversation. Thats exactly what blogs are. They are free. They are open.

And dear Steve… Wondering how we could work better together? Imagine a partner conference where complaints and objections have been voiced online and the partners met annually not to complain but for the sole purpose of growing the business and providing higher end solutions. Imagine the partner ecosystem in which the top 10,000 companies are well informed by your senior management, as decisions are made, and we instead focus not on addressing the past business obstacles and missed opportunities but the future business growth potential. Now that is the kind of a partner program I would invest into, heavilly, because it would produce clear and immediate ROI.

Today (well, yesterday) was a big day for me. And although none of it applies directly to you and your needs as my treasured readers, I feel it is my responsibility as someone who told you to come to WWPC to see what can come from these social / networking events on a grand scale. So I’m the guy in the pink shirt and here is the big picture:

(sorry Katie, punt was neccessary)

Today I had meetings with my biggest clients and my biggest prospects. I had a meeting with Steven Ballmer yesterday, discussing the very thing I blogged about previously – the importance of ISV solution provider in the Microsoft partner system, as perhaps the only integrator of complex solutions available. I was in a panel with Robert Deshaies (and Paige Bosen and Eric Ligman and literally everyone below Robert Deshaies in the Microsoft Partner Program) discussing the past, present and future of Microsoft SBSC program and how it can further help us here in United States. I also had a very brief couch conversation with Eric Ligman about the SBSC as it pertains to retailers and their chosen approach. While I am sure you can understand the contents of these meetings are fairly confidential, I trust you also know that I have voiced your concerns. The particular value of this, really at any level, is clarity. That brief moment of brevity when someone explains to you the challenges, opportunities, tradeoffs an benefits – and you understand why they made the (at times difficult) decision they had to make. We all run businesses, and serve businesses, and this is why I go out of my way to understand how the best in the business operate, evaluate and decide.

Partners, Partners, Partners

The remainder of the conference went to the partnership meetings. I see these as the natural progression of my business and evolution as a part of something much bigger than Vlad or OwnWebNow. We’ve gone from consulting to ISP to ASP to vendor and now finally arriving and highly customized, personalized and cared for solutions. I often look at other businesses in my league and their attempts to cookie cutter everything and realize thats where we were several years ago.

Where we are today is at a unique role to be able to provide a global presence, expertise in Microsoft’s ever evolving stack, migration to and from Linux, high availability solutions and what I like to call “agile development” in terms of being able to deliver a proof-of-concept solution to customers on a whole new scale.

From conversations with fellow SBSers I can tell you that they all recognize the need to commoditize this business and grab as big of a pie as possible. How? By partnering and using economies of scale. Sure, there are exceptions to this (which is not even close to a rule) and then there is a very different mindset altogether – I am not putting either down for a change, I am just trying to explain mine.

Mine…. is that of staying ahead of Microsoft in service. Not in innovation, not in pricing, not in depth or breth. In service.

Step into the Social

This is the most fun I’ve had at a partner conference… ever. My business meetings wrapped by 5 PM and the remainder of the evening really went to hanging out with some dear friends whose company I truely enjoy. We first went to the vendor party at the CC followed up by the Red ROI Apple goofoff. I have no way to explain this to you in any way that you wouldn’t lose all respect for me, whatever little of it I have left out there, so I won’t even try.

Huge, huge…. just phenomenally huge thanks to Carlson Colomb of Level Platforms. Carlson got us into the infamous ISV Party where I spent some time hanging with Erick, Dave, Karl, Paul Fitzgerald, Nancy, Susan Levine and Mark. It is so nice to have friends on the road, they make such a difference when days get long. Not constantly talking about business, geek and other stuff really takes it to a whole new level. I really wish I could share more with you but I can’t. In brief, this beat last years UK party for me. Yes, really. Ok, maybe just a little peak: One of the club levels was water – so lots of beach toys. This girl got two little baloons, put them under her shirt and was so fascinated by them that she couldn’t stop shaking around; welcome to my league of public embarrasment, I just had to take a pic:

I texted Dean and Susanne about 20 minutes after we got to the party and just told them they had to be at the ISV party. Susanne “you are not to blog about anything I just told you” Dansey.. <censored> Long story short, Dean, Susanne and I ended the day with a nice quiet bar on the 16th street mall in Denver. They taught me about Australia, UK history, nuances, language, states. It was a perfect way to wrap a phenomenal day.

Last year, fundamentally, changed my business, my personal life and the way I work. Will this one live up to it?

You could have guessed what I’ve been up to from yesterdays live pictures and social events. Of course, there is far more than meets the eye when it comes to business meetings – while its perfectly fine to grab someone people ought to see at a party, its not quite the same taking pictures with people you’re trying to close big deals with.

Yesterday, meetings were the core value of the day. What is particularly interesting is that none of my meetings were direct, they were all partner to partner to partner meetings where a number of us were getting together to provide a solution. That, by itself, is the reason you come to the big meetings and come to the WWPC. I know some of you guys look at me (someone called me a TITAN in their blog) but at the end of the day, I am here to copy Microsoft. Open business model, honest service, straight forward pricing and focus on a partner model (again, if you were an OWN partner you’d know my concept, why I do what I do and more specifically why I say what I say, even if you scratch your head about some things)

Keynotes

Ok. Frankly, it was all about “innovation” but thats a Microsoft term for “here are all these ideas we’ve stolen or bought from our partners and are now calling it Microsoft *.*” – and next year we’re going to steal twice as much!!! Have to hand it to them, they were quite energizing about the whole prospect and the solution stack and tried to dance as hard as they could away from the core (Client/Server) and towards dynamics, services, hosting, presence, entertainment, mobility, portability. Frankly, it puts up a huge stamp on the fact that Microsoft is going for the capex because those solutions came with a hefty price tag. A very hefty one. The quote of the day?

We’re not a 503(c) charity, we’re here to make money and win business.

SBSC hat on: Whether the majority of the world will become IT basic / esential or strategic is the largest bet this multibillion dollar company will ever make. They are betting that bigger is better and in my heart I believe a majority of my customer base is IT basic that only uses IT as a part of the business, it does not build a business on technology.

Vlad: What should Microsoft be afraid of? Well, thats between me and Steve but here is a little tip for the borgs in the reading audience: You got here with the ISVs and service shops. You continue to go against us, squeeze us out of our markets, solution portfolios and…. well… it just might become more lucrative and reasonable for an ISV to focus on those IT essential / basic platforms like MacOS and Linux and develop for the emerging markets where software can be sold for years without the threat of Microsoft squeezing you out before you’ve covered your R&D. Just food for thought folks…

Tweetie Bird Lounge

Absolutely awesome. There was a nice cocktail reception last night and literally everyone was there, packed in a tiny yellow room. Again, Lynnette saved the day and really pulled off a great event though I can’t blog that in detail. Let’s just say that we all had a great time thanks to her efforts.

I spent perhaps an hour or so working in the lounge and got a chance to talk to the people in SMB about the things we find relevant, who is meeting with who, whats the roadmap, where are the opportunities, who do you need to see. This is the value of the community at its finest, you paid $1800 to be in this hall, now how do you optimize that time and make sure you get every pennys worth? By asking for advice.

Parties, Parties, Parties

Went to the US party first, at the Invesco Field. Had an awesome reception at the club house and got to talk to some of the Microsoft folks that I really respect and am waiting patiently to get sick of Microsoft  What can I say, its a hiring trip.

Microsoft spent quite a chunk of change on the party. After Dave Sobel of EvolveTech won the customer service award we went to the field to watch the concert. I’m much younger than most of the crowd here and the name of the geezer they dug up to play escapes me at the moment… “I want a new drug” or something was this guys hit.

More Parties

After the concert about 8 of us got into an SUV and took off to the UK party. During the first hour I really had a great time. I met so many UK partners, talked shop, geek stuff, played pool, shot a bandit, danced with her majesty. What happened after that is a bit blurry to say the least, I am sure I will receive incriminating photos shortly. When will I learn that I just can’t go out drinking with the British folks?

Today: Big client meetings. Tomorrow: Vlad free-for-all, if you want to talk shop, community, etc I have kept the day clear because meetings always get rescheduled at the last moment, cancelled, moved, running late, have to go off early, etc. Things happen, thats business. And thats why I always keep the last day of the week clear on my schedule so anyone that wants to meet me can just give me a call and we hook up where-ever we can find the nearest table.

Alright world, and particularly UK and Florida…. who OWNS your segment? I wrote at length about why WWPC matters, who the big players are and how you can learn from the people at the top of your game. No Susan Bradley, but look closely:

If you don’t know more than one of these people (aside from me) you are not doing as well as you could be! Top to bottom: The Smartest Cookie, The Closer, The PAL, The Seller, Robbie++, The Hookup, The Pitch. You need a little bit of each to be immensely successful so if you don’t know who these people are….. you really ought to listen to me.

What an awesome day. I am going back to do the parties in a few minutes but here are a few shots to let you feel like you were here. Welcome!

Forefont chokes aliens with some white text on the side. Brilliant. Microsoft Marketing dollars at work.

Big place, lots of people. They definitely made meals better this year.

KeynoZzzZzzzZzzzZzzz… Actually, they were pretty good. No lamers on guitars.

Tweeetie bird lounge, SBSC central.

Molson?

And the biggest, most important, this is why you pay $1,800 for the ticket slide of WWPC:

Click on the image to download the bigger version if you can’t make out the text. I’ll give you my take on it after WWPC has closed up and I still have the same feelings but the above is essentially where Microsoft is going with their computer strategy. Look at that long and hard, I often get these “told you so” moments years after the announcements were made, usually from people with the inability to see the roadmap more than a year down the road.

Microsoft made the announcement today. 1–3 years out, when this becomes reality… I dunno.

Preday is in the books and I have to say it was better than I expected it would be. Compared to last year the keynotes were disappointing, but I’m not the keynote kind of a guy so you can take that with a grain of salt; I just found the content last year far more interesting, valuable and meaningful and Warrilow keynote was easilly the best. The only bright spot to break up meaningless keynotes were hilarious infomercial introductions for the speakers, sort of poking fun back at the keynote idea all together. Anyone taking bets to see if Eric Ligman was behind the production of these?

Click to watch the SMB Symposium Infomercial Videos (17mb, wmv only)

(don’t get me wrong, I understand the keynote concept and I appreciate why they do it – this is a showcase event and there are always those 20% of people that have been under a rock. They came to this event to catch up because they haven’t had the time or interest to keep up with the technology or Microsoft isn’t a big enough of a partner to warrant the focus. However, and specifically for the SMB sector, I feel its ones professional duty to stay on top of the technology news, training, etc…. and for 80% of us that made the trek and took a week off from our duties I would rather have spent all day in the side sessions)

Lunch was pretty cool as well. Each table had a specific discussion subject so you could sit with your peers that were interested in the same subject you are. Dave Sobel and I sat at the Giving Good Customer Service table simply for the irony showcase but I will admit that in the discussions between him, Susanne, Robbie, Tim and a few others I did pick up some things that we will be implementing soon at OWN – nothing earth shattering or life changing, but service is about the details and the more you can pick up and bounce off your peers the better off your stuff comes out.

Speaking of Side Sessions

Even better than last year and there was an official networking lounge. I hopped back and forth between a few of them because I didn’t want to miss as many as I did. I watched the presentation on the ResponsePoint VoIP solution from Microsoft, I went to the Exchange 2007 one, I sat through the entire presentation Susanne Dansey did and went back and forth through a few others all of which were spectacular and I wish I could have been in all of them at the same time. But what can you do.

Skip this part if you’re not into Susanne Fan Club stuff. With as many conferences as I’ve been to there is always that one person, that one presentation or that one conversation that basically pays for your trip. Susanne’s presentation on customer service was easilly it. I can go home now. It was funny, it was on the point but more importantly it really helped me put into perpective how to deal with difficult people. Thankfully, most of our business is with partners and I have to admit that they are all pretty much wonderful and understanding… but customers. Ever look at the phone and think to yourself – “Do I feel like having my day ruined by this person, again?” – Susanne’s presentation gave me some insight to how to fix that and how to do a little bit better with this particular pain point. Just like Warrilow’s presentation, it addressed the current pain point and gave me something I never got from my business books.

(sneak peak: it’s ok if you don’t believe me; I recorded the entire presentation and will make it available to Susanne to do with what she wishes. For now you’ll have to take my word for it, this was about as good as it gets)

Local Representation

All my local Microsoft people are here. All except The Greg Boyd, best sales person on the face of the earth. I wrote about this earlier, but Jessica Emmons, James Cuomo, Rene Alamo, JJ Antequino… everyone seems to be here. Why is this relevant? Because I do business with these folks year round and I rarely get to see them, once a quarter if I’m lucky and the calendar matches up. But while I am here I get to hear what their plans for the year are, what they will and wont likely have the chance to do – and I can plan my local market engagements based on that as well as the community aspect. For most SMB partners whose engagement is 100% local I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t show up for at least one day.

Networking

Aside from the brief moments of Susanneshine, these conferences are far more about networking, exchanging ideas and partnering than they are about presentation content and keynotes. This year the SMB Symposium dedicated a cool room just for this. Tables, couches, drinks, etc. This is incredibly valuable for me because I partner with a lot of these folks and we generally don’t get to sit down and talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. The ugly is what I really need to know because the products and services we deliver are selling like crazy so addressing the problems and issues we are not aware of is critical. Also finding out how to make those products and services work better for our clients is incredibly important because it drives the feature set based on the actual users needs. It also helps to show some… uhm… pride… in what you do and really try to find the best solution or at least a good compromise. Kudos to the Symposium folks for arranging this.

Thats not the Opportunity I smell…

Overall, the venue was better, the organization was awesome, the discussions, presentations, networking opportunities and everything else was just executed perfectly. And if you wanted to talk to a vendor, you could. Nearly all the partner/customer facing people from the companies most of us do business with were present at this event and I even got to chat with Augie Gonzales from Citrix. There was no push, there was no stunt, there was no cattle driving – just networking with other respected professional in this business, regardless of the segment that they were in. I hope other conference organizers pick up on this suttle thing – vendor participation shouldn’t be about booth babes and big bright signs because SMB ITPRO folks are savvy and most of the time sales oriented as well. The little gimmics that get pulled at trade shows don’t really work up here – I mean thanks for the tshirt and all but I’m looking for something to help me serve my customers so lets talk about how we do that.

In the end, thats what SMB Symposium did (at least for me) and thats why I urged you folks to give it a chance.