SMB Community Podcast

One of the fun things at this year's SMB Nation event was the whole "Back to the Future" theme. In addition to the lovely Claudia Wells (see previous podcast ), StorageCraft and Intel paid to bring the Time Machine to the conference hall. Since he was there all weekend, I grabbed the opportunity to talk to the current owner, Mark Shields. Download the interview with Mark Shields now. You can find...

I caught up with Jeff Middleton at SMB Nation over the weekend. We covered several topics, including: – Update on the SBS Migration / IT Pro Experts conference (the annual conference that is held from time to time) – SMB Community Roadshow, sponsored by Microsoft and HP – The future (and past) of Small Business Server – The new IT Pro Experts brand: www.itproexperts.com – SBS Migrations going forw...

As I said on my Facebook page, two of my favorite people in the world have been honored as the SBSers of the year: Rayanne Buchianico and Bob Nitrio. This award is officially the Jim Locke Memorial Community Award and is sponsored by SMB Nation and the SMB Technology Network (SMBTN). Both of these folks happen to be user group leaders, so we talked a bit about that. But we also talked about commun...

I talked to Bob Godgart from ChannelEyes ( www.channeleyes.com ) about what's new with their cool channel partner tools. The coolest new product – Channel Candy – is an app that allows vendors to create a branded partner app for smart phones. This will allow you to track the information and updates from your vendors. There will be some common controls from one vendor to another, but vendors will b...

Report from SMB Nation Fall 2012. I caught up with Jessica DeVita – one of my favorite people in the IT space. Jessica is an IT consultant, technical wiz, advocate for education in the IT community, Microsoft MVP and a really great person. Her web site is www.theubergeekgirl.com . Recently, Jessica was on the cover of ChannelPro magazine and had an article in there about Women in IT. We talked to...

Report from SMB Nation Fall 2012. Highly Reliable Systems Provides a New Approach to Backup Hardware Many people don't like tape backups. But most hard drive-based backups have their own problems. I talked to Darren McBride about the "Highly Reliable" systems and what makes them different. Their story is interesting and compelling. Until this conversation, I wasn't sure about the exact need they f...

The theme of this year's SMB Nation is "Back to the Future." Basically, it's wrapped around all the cool new things we have . . . and understanding them in light of the fact that SBS Server end of life is upon us. So Harry Brelsford and Chris Bangs over at SMB Nation got ahold of the guy who owns the DeLorean from the movie (Mark Shields). Yes: This guy still drives this car. Then they got ahold o...

This article was originally posted June 23, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. SMB Community Podcast: Chatting with Jeannine Edwards and Erinn Davis Fifteen minutes of information and commentary. – – – – – I caught up with Jeannine Edwards (ConnectWise) and Erinn Davis (LabTech Software) and had a great discussion about what's new, the community, IT Nation, and what they see for the SMB Community...

This article was originally posted June 16, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Freeday Friday Report: Three Conferences in Eight Days This is a very different Freeday Friday podcast . . . and the last one we'll produce. – – – – – My report on IT Pro Conference in New Orleans. "Trusted Identity" and what it means in the big picture. A few comments on delegation of trust and what that mean...

This article was originally posted June 15, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Thomas Dawkins Introduces Microsoft Technical Communities While attending the Microsoft TechEd North America conference last week, I literally ran into Thomas Dawkins just wandering the floor. Thomas is a senior IT Pro Audience Marketing Manager at Microsoft. He is responsible for relationships with IT Pro Groups and Us...

This article was originally posted June 15, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Len DiCostanzo Reports on Autotask Community Live 2012 June 2012 – Orlando, FL – A buncha people gathered in Orlando for the Autotask Community Live conference. This is, of course, a very product-specific conference. Many of the panels were run by users. The coolest thing about that is that 83% of the attendees were fir...

This article was originally posted June 15, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Mark Moreno Gives a Mid-Market Perspective on some SMB Events One of my favorite people in the SMB/MSP space is Mark Moreno from C & M Support Services. I think I first met Mark at the IT Pro Conference in New Orleans five years ago. But I also see him at SMB Nation and several other events. In the last ten days I r...

This article was originally posted June 15, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Six Podcast Reports from New Orleans IT Pro Conference June 2012 – New Orleans – Jeff Middleton's IT Pro Conference was a great success last week. Two days of panels and discussions on the theme "Trusted Identity: Faith in a Technology World" were very well received. About 150 attendees spent the time in a con...

This article was originally posted May 18, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Reports from the SMB 150 Banquet 2012 May 16th – Los Angeles – SMB Nation put on a nice banquet to celebrate the 2nd Annual SMB 150 Influencers. This was a great event. To be honest, this event started for me about lunchtime as I met with a series of great people that I don't get to see very often. Download the SMB 150 r...

This article was originally posted May 18, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Freeday Friday May Podcast Posted – US / UK Edition This program was recorded and is posted here . How to Convert 700 Clients to Managed Services Without Dropping Any The US/UK Edition of Freeday Friday featured a kickoff question of whether it's possible to covert a traditionally break/fix business into managed services...

This article was originally posted May 18, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Freeday Friday May Podcast Posted – Oceanic Edition This program was recorded and is posted here . Customizing Cloud Services for Medical and Other Verticals The "Down Under" edition of Freeday Friday featured a kickoff question about building a cloud package for the medical industry. In particular, how do we deal with a...

This article was originally posted April 20, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Freeday Friday April Podcast Posted – US / UK Edition This program was recorded and is posted here . Do I Really Need to Try to Sell SBS Essentials into My Client Base? We had a good show today (45 minutes). Four people posted questions live and we had a good email question to kick us off. The kickoff question was, &qu...

This article was originally posted April 19, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Freeday Friday Podcast Posted – Oceanic Edition This program was recorded and is posted here . How Do I sell if I'm Not a Salesman? We had a quick show today (35 minutes). Just a few questions. The kickoff question was, "How do I upsell clients when I don't want to be the salesman?" I give a little advice and...

This article was originally posted March 19, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. This program was recorded and is posted here . Robin Talks About What's Next, Cloud and BDR Promotions, Perennial Campaigns, and More I had a nice chat with Robin Robins this morning. For those of you unfamiliar with Robin, she's the genius behind the Managed Services Blueprint , as well as marketing programs geared to...

This article was originally posted March 16, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. First Freeday Friday March Podcast Posted – US/UK Edition This program was recorded and is posted here . UK Partner Challenged with Time Management. US Partner Wondering About Hiring Techs. The first UK/US show went off pretty well. Lots of questions. Totally different topics from the Oceanic edition yesterday. We star...

This article was originally posted March 16, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. First Freeday Friday Podcast Posted – Oceanic Edition This program was recorded and is posted here . Well, the Aussies Kicked Off Freeday Friday with a Great Show When it's Thursday afternoon here, it's Friday morning over there. So at 3PM Pacific time today, I launched the Aussie/New Zealand/Oceanic edition of Freeday...

This article was originally posted March 5, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Interviews with Chris Bangs from SMB Nation and Dal Gemmell from Symantec As MVP Nation was winding down in Redmond, I was able to grab Chris Bangs and Dal Gemmell. Chris does a variety of things at SMB Nation, and plays a big role in getting vendors on board. Dal Gemmell is a Principle Product Manager at Symantec. 1) D...

This article was originally posted March 4, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Greg Starks from HP Gives a Great Intro to iQuote What do you need from HP? What have you always needed from HP? A "Configuration" Quoting Tool! Well, in this member podcast, Greg Starks from HP shows us the great stuff you can do with HP's new iQuote tool. There are three ways to use the tool . . . including using thei...

This article was originally posted March 4, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Interviews with Jeff Middleton on IT Pro Conference and Tom Poole on SMB Nation I caught up with a few more folks at MVP Nation in Redmond. After two days on content, content, content, I managed to talk to a few community members about what's next. Then I nabbed Jeff Middleton again to give us the low-down on his June c...

This article was originally posted March 3, 2012 on Cloud Services Roundtable. Member Podcasts from MVP Nation – Part 1 I ran into Arnie Mondloch and Dave Sobel in Redmond this week. I was there for the MVP Nation show. Arnie's in charge of Windows Evangelization program worldwide and has some great information on how partners can get involved in the development of Apps, Apps, Apps for the new Win...