Vlad Mazek – Vladville Blog

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.