Zoom Zoom II

Details are starting to trickle in regarding the SBSC racing promotion. You may recall that Microsoft is sponsoring some opportunities around the #49 car on teh NASCAR circuit. As SBSC members we can participate in that. Here is the URL for the sign up page, including a link on it to view more details on all of the items included in this package: https://www.49team.com/sbscorder. On that page, be sure to enter the Microsoft Promo code which will be sent to you in the SBSC newsletter so watch for that.

Looks like a fun promotion and a lot of creative ideas to incorporate into our own marketing. I encourage you to take a look and see if it fits your plan. If you haven't been marketing to prospects and customers, this may be just the entry point you need.

Having been blessed with the opportunity to attend an event with Erik Thorsell and the SCC team last year, I saw first hand just how crazy committed these NASCAR fans are to the sport. There are lots of them and they pay attention to the details. So I think it is a great opportunity to have some fun and touch a crowd that may be outside your normal customer base.

2008 Microsoft Partner Award Opportunities

Microsoft recognizes a broad spectrum of partner innovation and contribution. From competency excellence to supporting nonprofit technology access, apply for awards that highlight your organization’s strengths.

You have two great opportunities for recognition – one local and one worldwide. Deadlines for submissions:
Local Area Awards: Due May 17, 2008
Worldwide Partner Conference Awards: Due April 4, 2008 UPDATE: April 8, 2008 (the deadline has been slightly extended)

Local Awards
Nominate Your Solution For A Local Award! Open Now!
Each semester, your local Microsoft team recognizes partners who have excelled in sales, marketing, growth, competing to win, partnering, and customer experience. Each winner will receive a custom-engraved plaque, a framed letter from the Area General Manager, and you’ll be included in a partner award press release. You can view full details on the award categories and self-nominate using our new web-based submision tool. Nominations for this award period are open from February 12 to May 17, 2008.

Worldwide Partner Conference Awards
Nominate Your Solution For A Microsoft Global Award! Open Now!
Each year, via its Worldwide Partner Conference Awards program, Microsoft recognizes partners who have delivered exemplary solutions built on Microsoft technologies. Awards are presented to winning partners at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, this year in Houston, Texas, USA July 7-10, 2008. This is a unique opportunity for you to showcase your solutions. Award winners and finalists benefit from increased press coverage, and market recognition that may drive new business opportunities. Award categories are aligned with Microsoft Competencies and specializations. Make sure your Competency enrollment is active, then nominate your solution using a web-based tool, between February 4 and April 4, 2008 April 8, 2008. The entry tool and detailed information about the Awards program can be found here.

What is your experience with T-PAM’s?

One area Microsoft has been working to improve has been the partner touch aspect of the program. They have field based PAM’s (partner account managers) for those who are large enough or do enough business to justify that investment. For most of us SMB partners though, the touch is done through T-PAM’s, which are a telephone based account manager that is assigned to a number of SMB accounts in a given geography. These folks are our lifeline to Microsoft and we need to provide some solid feedback as they evaluate how to make them more effective. I encourage you to submit comments to me about the T-PAM program:
1. What works / doesn’t work?
2. What specific, simple changes could Microsoft make to how T-PAMs work with us in the next 90-days that would improve T-PAM value to us?
3. What are the two or three most valuable services that T-PAMs provide to partners?
4. If you could change one thing about the T-PAM program, what would that be?
5. Have they hit any homeruns for you? Share the details.

I will be consolidating this feedback and sending it off to Microsoft. This is your chance to help mold the program for the next year and beyond, so don’t be shy. I know you aren’t!

Zoom Zoom Zoom

Eric Ligman has posted the details about the new SBSC promotion opportunity for us with NASCAR. This is a very cool opportunity for us as partners to co-brand with Microsoft and SBSC and have a lot of fun at the same time. Check out details on his blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/mssmallbiz/. The cost is $3995 for the season, but it is more about the fun and other opportunities for marketing that can spring from this that excites me. My only disappointment is that it is with the #49 car rather than Robbie Gordon's team. The SCC team out of Minneapolis has been working with Robbie through the SBS2008 TAP program and actually have them running their racing team on that platform. We have been blessed to be along for that ride with Erik and crew. So it would have been super cool to have SBSC sponsor Robbie's car, but this is far better than nothing. SO I encourage you to go check out the details on Eric's blog and then get involved. These kind of opportunities only get repeated if we step up as partners and support them. It is up to us to make it happen from this point forward. Participate and then share what happens. It is the results that all of us want to achieve that matter.

Help Define the New EBS Product

In an effort to improve end-to-end deployment of Windows Essential Business Server the product team has a proposed design for a wizard that will perform a pre-requisite check of midsize businesses deployment environments to ensure the environment is properly prepared to deploy Windows Essential Business Server. Before we actually begin development efforts on the wizard we are seeking to get some customer feedback on the proposed design to ensure the wizard provides optimal experience.

The product team has asked an independent researcher, Tammy Snow, to conduct phone interviews with customers to solicit this feedback. We would like to invite you to participate in a one hour structured phone interview to walkthrough a PowerPoint prototype with Tammy so she can identify design issues to be addressed by the product team. Interviews will be conducted between this Thursday, 3/20 and end of next week, 3/28.

If you are interested in participating contact Tammy by replying to this email or emailing her directly at tamsnow@comcast.net indicating when you would be available to participate. Participants will be compensated with a Microsoft Software product of your choosing.

MS Deployment Toolkit and BDD 2007 Released!

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and BDD 2007 are now Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008-Ready! Microsoft® Deployment Toolkit 2008-Unified Tools and Guidance for Desktop and Server Deployment Automation. Download it today!
We are pleased to announce that Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008 has been released! This is an update to Microsoft Deployment, released in November 2007.
MDT 2008 extends existing functionality to deploy Windows Vista® SP1 and Windows Server® 2008 for both Lite Touch and Zero Touch deployments using Systems Management Server 2003* and Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007. This release of MDT supports Windows AIK 1.1 and configuration of Active Directory® directory service, DNS, and DHCP server roles. To learn more and download the latest content, go to http://www.microsoft.com/deployment.
* ZTI with SMS 2003 does not support deployment of server operating systems

Business Desktop Deployment 2007 Update 2-Automate Deployment of Windows Vista SP1. Download it today!
This update to Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007 adds support to deploy Windows Vista SP1 for both Lite Touch Installation and Zero Touch Installation using Systems Management Server 2003. This release requires Windows AIK 1.1. To learn more and download the latest content, go to Microsoft Download Center.

Are You Ready

I think one of the major areas many of us need to address is getting our companies ready for transition. There are a lot of things that can require a transition:
1. Get hit by the bus and die
2. Get hit by the bus and live – disability
3. Get divorced or lose a spouse
4. Get wise and retire

There are lots of things that can change the circumstances so quickly. Life is very fragile and many of us are not planned or prepared for things that may happen. Of course, we all believe it will never happen to us. But I can tell you it does happen to many, and in fact, several of these items will definitely happen to you. It is all about timing. So the real question is – are you ready today?

Here are some things that I believe all of us need to really address and take action on:
1. Will – there is really no excuse not to have one. If you have kids there is absolutely NO excuse. If you have a partner or other stockholders there is NO excuse. If you are a hermit and live by yourself with no living relatives and no relationships with any other living human – maybe I would consider discussion – but probably there is NO excuse then either. It does not cost much but it can save you plenty. More importantly it is critical for the benefit of those you would leave behind.
2. Living will and power of medical attorney – lots of things that need to be considered here. Some legal, some moral, some spiritual. But don’t leave those decisions to a stress filled emotional decision at time of tragedy. Figure out your wishes now so it is clear and make it known to those who will carry it out for you. Make sure your t’s are crossed and I’s dotted so there is no doubt if it is needed.
3. Insurance – this is a tool that has to be evaluated and planned. I am not an insurance expert so will not give you any advice on how much or which kind but I will tell you to find an expert and listen to them. There are so many types and kinds of insurance that can do so many things. You will need some unless you are independently wealthy and again can impact no one else if you die or are disabled. That leaves most of us out and we need some.
4. Buy/Sell agreements. If you have any partners, stockholders or other people that will be affected by a change in your status – this is a must. It is much easier to have this determined ahead of time than trying to work it out later. Make sure it has valuation formulas included. This is so critical for your spouse so they are not burdened with trying to deal with the situation and transition the business at the same time. You owe it to those you love.
5. Exit plan. It might be retirement, maybe a sale, ESOP or any number of ways you will leave your business. Again you need to hire expertise to help evaluate and make sure your final wishes get achieved. To be a great business person, you need to know how you will exit your company and have a well defined plan in place. Again it does not do much good to get to the point of needing it before you start. It is too late then.
6. Execution team. You need to have someone or a group of trusted people who are in the know and can execute your plans and wishes. This could be family, but in the case of business assets, it may be wise to have other business people you know and trust serve on a team for you. What a great thing for a group of peers that know your business and you because of being in a peer group together. I think this is a great way for peers to serve each other and provide the ultimate value for each other.
There are many other things you may need to consider – find an expert to help you – probably a CPA, lawyer, insurance broker and banker at a minimum. Build a team and sit them down together to help you identify the things you need to do. Make plans, document them, and share them with the people you are asking to execute on your behalf. Do it now – before you need it. It is way too late after something happens. Hopefully you will never need it but if you do, it will be the best time you have ever spent!

Host Your Own Free Small Business Summit

The Microsoft Small Business Summit is a Free online event that is designed to help small business owners who want to start, run and grow their own business more effectively in today's competitive business environment. Hear from small business leading experts like:
• Rieva Lesonsky, small business expert at Entrepreneur.com
• John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing
• Steven Rogers, award winning Kellogg Professor

Take advantage of this opportunity to connect with your Small Business customer and help guide their solutions. You can participate in this Free online event in three easy steps:
1) Register for the event at the Small Business Summit website https://www.sbsummit.com/Default.aspx
2) Access customizable, Ready-To-Go materials to help promote the Small Business Summit to your customers. Sign in to the Microsoft Partner Program Website with your Windows Live ID. http://www.mspartnerdirect.com/action/microsoft/site/catalog/campaign/CampaignView?campaignID=424&tracker=sbsummit,sbsummit,,,424/
3) Host the event in your location or on your website - easy to follow directions at the web address above.

Microsoft has made it easy for us to connect our customers to some great speakers - great content and help make our relationship stickier with little work. Check it out.

The Ultimate Source for Sales Tools

Microsoft has put together a landing page that shows all the sales tools available for us to use in managing our companies and customer relationships. Check it out at http://www.partnersalesresources.com/. This site pulls together literally dozens and dozens of assessments, case studies, demos, implementation resources and other valuable tools. You can select by customer size, sales stage, campaign and several other methods. A very nice way for you to find things that are all buried somewhere on the Microsoft site but that you will never find on your own. Check this one out.

Hello from Redmond

I am in Seattle this week for some meetings with the IPAC (infrastructure partner advisory council). We spent the day talking about identity management, virtualization, system management and the future of the partner program. I continue to be amazed at all the opportunity that lies ahead for us in 2008 around the Microsoft stack. A total refresh filled with lots of service options. It is a great year to be a partner. Change is in the air also in the partner program. Things need to change there, and the team at MS understands that and is working hard to make it more valuable to everyone involved. Sometimes as partners we lose track of what the program is really about. It isn't about us. Not really - it is about serving customers. We lose sight of that some days. It is also not about Microsoft. Everything has to revolve around the customer. Microsoft needs to drive more understanding of the program among end users, but we need to do that too. They don't owe it to us. We have to educate those we serve. We expect Microsoft to hand things to us on a platter. That is not how it works. I want to draw your attention to a recent blog posting by Vlad - a well known and outspoken champion of small business IT. Vlad shares some strong views about SMB partners and in a nutshell it comes down to execution and the "sense of entitlement" that exists today. Microsoft owes us nothing folks. None of our vendors do. I preach all the time about how to create strong vendor relationships. It actually is pretty simple - you treat them the way you would like to be treated. Far too many of us believe we are entitled to things from our vendor partners. That is a bunch of balony. We have to be partners to be treated like one. Get off dead center and make things happen for them. Vlad nailed this one. Read Vlad's posting here - http://www.vladville.com/2008/03/ouch-the-death-of-sbsc.html.

Zoom It

My good buddy Stuart Crawford sent a note about a new free downloadable tool from Microsoft. Check it out at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx

It allows you to Zoom in on your screen when doing presentations or demos...pretty cool. Here is a brief explanation of its purpose: ZoomIt is screen zoom and annotation tool for technical presentations that include application demonstrations. ZoomIt runs unobtrusively in the tray and activates with customizable hotkeys to zoom in on an area of the screen, move around while zoomed, and draw on the zoomed image. ZoomIt works on all versions of Windows and you can use pen input for ZoomIt drawing on tablet PCs.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Stengthfinder

I am in the Caribbean leading HTG2 this week and had some time on a plane so read the book "Strengthfinder 2.0". This book is one that we are using at HTS among our management team to help us learn about each others strengths and to help us relate better as we go through the leading of our company. There are 34 different key strengths that are identified. Part of the purchase of the book is a key you can use to go online and take an assessment test which will then identify your top five strengths. It is 170+ questions and takes about 30 minutes max. It is a timed test because they don' t want you being too analytical - they want first responses. My top five came out pretty much as I see myself:
1. Activator
2. Futuristic
3. Belief
4. Maximizer
5. Arranger
Once identified, there is a profile created that explains what these areas entail. Mine were spot on. To give you an idea - here is what the profile says about my main strenght.

“When can we start?” This is a recurring question in your life. You are impatient for action. You may concede that analysis has its uses or that debate and discussion can occasionally yield some valuable insights, but deep down you know that only action is real. Only action can make things happen. Only action leads to performance. Once a decision is made, you cannot not act. Others may worry that “there are still some things we don’t know,” but this doesn’t seem to slow you. If the decision has been made to go across town, you know that the fastest way to get there is to go stoplight to stoplight. You are not going to sit around waiting until all the lights have turned green. Besides, in your view, action and thinking are not opposites. In fact, guided by your Activator theme, you believe that action is the best device for learning. You make a decision, you take action, you look at the result, and you learn. This learning informs your next action and your next. How can you grow if you have nothing to react to? Well, you believe you can’t. You must put yourself out there. You must take the next step. It is the only way to keep your thinking fresh and informed. The bottom line is this: You know you will be judged not by what you say, not by what you think, but by what you get done. This does not frighten you. It pleases you.

If you know me then you understand just how accurate this is. My focus is about making things happen and getting them done. The feedback is personalized with a lot of other resources that show how to manage the different areas, how to motivate people etc. It creates a list of action items that are suggested based on your strengths. The book has lots of good info as well. The original book was called "Now discover your strengths" by Marcus Buckingham. The research is based on Gallup's work on hundreds of thousands of surveys. It is good stuff. If you are looking for a way to understand your people (or wife or kids although I am not saying this will help you understand women) - then check this book out. I believe it can be a great tool to help develop leadership and collaboration in any team - or just better understand yourself and what makes you tick.

More Windows Server 2008 resources

Have you seen the new page for WS2008 at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/serverunleashed/default.html?

You’ll want your speakers working for this. Some way cool graphics.......

Also make sure you check out the Core IO assessment found at http://www.microsoft.com/business/peopleready/coreinfra/assessment/default.mspx

Core IO is a great methodology to use with clients both large and small. You may need to adjust how you deliver it based on the size and scope of your client, but it is a great way to approach any situation and gives some fantastic ideas and feedback.

Windows Server 2008 Resources

Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides for Windows Server 2008 Windows Deployment Services, Terminal Services, and Active Directory Domain Services

Are you evaluating server technologies in your quest toward a dynamic IT infrastructure? Use the Infrastructure Planning and Design Series guides to make the right decisions about planning infrastructure architecture.

Planning the next generation of technical infrastructure for corporations is a complex and daunting task. The success of any infrastructure is measured in how well the design choices match business objectives. Although plenty of product documentation is available, historically it has been difficult to find guidance on how to appropriately plan the core infrastructure for an organization. The Infrastructure Planning and Design series is designed to present the reader with the most concise planning guidance for Microsoft technologies. It also provides a means to validate design decisions to ensure that the solution meets the requirements of both business and IT stakeholders.

The IPD documents are designed to be used by the following IT personnel:

· Infrastructure planners and architects who have a firm operational grasp of the technology.

· Partners and consultants who design infrastructure solutions.

· Business managers who want to understand how the technology decisions being made support and affect the business.

Guides Currently Available

Infrastructure Planning and Design guides are currently available to support architectural planning for Microsoft’s virtualization technologies. The guides are: Selecting the Right Virtualization Technology, Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization, Windows Server Virtualization, Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Domain Services, Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services, and Windows Deployment Services.

Where to Find the IPD Series - www.microsoft.com/ipd

Check Out Additional Solution Accelerators in the Windows Server 2008 Suite
Windows Server 2008 Suite page
Microsoft Assessment and Planning
Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008
Windows Server 2008 Security Guide

Sales resources to check out

You are invited to give us essential feedback for a key project being rolled out by the Partner Sales Tools organizations at Microsoft.

Partner Sales Resources aggregates and exposes sales tools and resources for partners to use in their sales cycles to help sell and position Microsoft solutions more effectively. These resources are aligned to a sales process across customer segments, including small business, mid-market and enterprise, with the ability to search by individual technologies and/or aligned to capabilities as part of the Microsoft Infrastructure Optimization (IO) model when applicable.

We will be launching this portal in June, 2008. Currently, we have just finished the 1st stage of development, and have over 100 resources aggregated around core IO solutions. Leading up to launch and on an ongoing basis, we will continue to add resources supporting BPIO and APO, and content aligned to industry solutions. Check out the site and see what you think.

http://microsoft-iaf.inetium.net

Here is another tool under development. Comments and feedback welcome on this tool as well.

https://roianalyst.alinean.com/calculators/microsoft/partner/launch.html

Time for a little fun

Who the heck is Tom & what does he have to do with SBS????

We all know of & have met anti-SBSers – many of whom are still harboring negative attitudes and perceptions from SBS 4.0/4.5 days. Microsoft met with several of the HTG peer groups & spoke to several of these partners & decided they needed to do something about this to dispel all the misperceptions about the product. One crazy video at a time.

So what does Tom have to do with all this? Well, here’s exactly where Tom comes in to the picture. But instead of spoiling the fun, I’ll let Tom work his wizard magic on you directly…find out more about him here: http://sbsguru.spaces.live.com/default.aspx

You’re one of the very first handful of partners to hear about this fun campaign! So how can you help? Help spread the word & share Tom’s vlog with other partners. Make sure you check out the punching game. Not often you get to punch someone without getting into trouble. Spend 5 minutes, watch the video and enjoy a little lighter side to your day. And then spread the word. SBS is a great product for most of the clients in the small business marketplace. And Microsoft has really done a very nice job of getting a great product built that will ship this summer - so time to get the team jazzed and ready for SBS2008. It is gonna be a winner!