When Mitch Garvis and I were presenting on when to choose EBS or SBS on the weekend, we asked a very simply question of the audience and received a very shocking answer….”How many of you are providing managed services to you clients?” and the answer was very few.

Now the reality is that most in the room really were providing this service in one form or another…but not necessarily charging for it. As SBS consultants we all manage our clients systems remotely and check on them from time to time to make sure the systems are running as expected. We may run disk utilities, ensure the backup is running regularly and of course check on the patch level and virus scan version. The big question is: Are you charging for this service and better yet have you bundled this into a service offering?

Small Business owners are frugal, I understand and respect that, but they are practical as well. They do not want to suffer the down time that a system failure, backup issue, etc can cause. As such, there is always a balance between the cost and value such services provides. This can be a very lucrative way to increase your revenue while providing you customer greater value. Even greater is the ability to build trust and a business relationship on these services when they are needed for the wrong reasons. Saving the data issues that an about to fail drive will cause in a proactive manner will win you nothing but respect and positive referrals with the customers business contacts.

If you are not offering this service look into it, if you are….market it as hard as you market any aspect of your business as it very well could be what you build your entire SMB practice around.

Cheers

Will

I am a big fan of the Edge Community at TechNet and the work of my hero's department...Jeff Sanquist, Senior Director of Evangelism for microsoft who is from Estevan, SK. A slick graphical UI and fun the use of new media make this a great site with even better information. I blogged on Edge for TechNet Canada's CanITPro blog a while back and saw this video post on SBS and needed to promote it again.

http://edge.technet.com/Media/SBS-2008-Setup-PM-demo-and-interview/

Will

[Today's post comes to us courtesy of  Kevin Beares]

This is the third year we have published an SBS WW Community Survey to the SBS Community.

We have learned an amazing amount of information from the people who have taken the time to tell us what they thought. Some things we kind of knew already, but other things were not as clear before we had received the feedback.

Because of the previous surveys, we have made some adjustments in our community engagement. To name a few; we really worked on putting more focus on the Official SBS Blog. Our Sustaining Engineering team runs mini betas with our MVPs before KB's and Bug Fixes are released via Windows Update. We try to get more involvement in our techbetas from our User Groups. The list does go on.

To the survey, the SBS Product Team would like to hear from the Windows SBS Community again. This survey is completely anonymous. In fact, some of you may have to sign out from Live in order to take the survey. So, if you get a PAGE NOT FOUND error message, please log out of Live and click on the link to the survey again.

We want to know how valuable your experience is with the community resources and information that is available to you today as a member of the Windows SBS Community. We also want to know what you think could be done to improve your Windows SBS Community Experience. Please take a couple of minutes to provide us your candid feedback via this survey and let us know what you think.

SBS WW Community Survey 2008

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

 

• First and foremost is the fact it is built on Microsoft’s newest server technologies: Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, SQL Server 2008, Windows Server Update Services v3, and Windows SharePoint Services v3
• A new setup and administrative experience that has been re-designed to make initial deployment and day-to-day management significantly easier
• Many new management features such as extensible monitoring reports, and tools to manage internet domain names, data folders, certificates and more
• A revamp of the Premium Edition to include both SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition technologies, a 2nd copy of Windows Server 2008 and a new CAL Licensing model allowing for singles, 5’s or 10’s to fit any circumstance
• A new server backup wizard built on the Windows Server 2008 block-based backup technologies, which allows you to back up your server in minutes rather than hours
• A redesigned Remote Web Workplace with new features such as custom links, logos and user to computer mapping
• Built-in anti-virus and anti-spam support with 120-day trial subscriptions to Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server and Windows Live OneCare for Server

So the weekend did not go as planned, but I am still very Energized by its outcome!

Friday's trip to the Microsoft offices was cancelled for me at the last minute due to an issue at work that needed my attention. Disappointing in that I did not get to interact with the Program Managers I had hoped to...but work comes first.

I still was able to fly out late Friday afternoon and participate in EnergizeIT! I got into Toronto at about 10:45 and headed to the hotel to drop off my bags and over to the convention center to drop off my server and gear for setup. As we are driving up to the event center, there are about 1000 (no lie!) Anime convention attendees walking the streets in full costume going to the hotels and restaurants around the area. Apparently we were sharing the building with as many as 5000 Anime North 2008 attendees, most of who were in full costume all the time. More on that later.

After a few minutes more onsite, we headed back to the hotel. It is now 1:15 AM and when I try to turn the TV on in my room, it does not work. After some tech help from the front desk (me telling them I tried everything...move me) I get a new room. It is now 2:00 and we have to leave for site at 7:00. I run through my presentation, make some more notes and drop off at about 3:30-4:00. Up at 6:30 and off to the event at 7:00 sharp!

Energize had a different setup this year. The stage was in the center of the room so the event was in the round. This is cool as everyone gets a clear view of the stage. They also have 10 big screens setup around the entire space so everyone has a way of seeing close up what is going on. All the speakers were invited to have a private breakfast with Phil Sorgen, the President of Microsoft Canada and at 9:00 it is off to the big rooms for the event. Rock concert lights and pounding music get the day started as a version of ACDC's Thunder Struck (Energized! remix) plays. A T-Shirt toss starts the days off as people cheer loudly to get some free swag. The morning is a large group session for all attendees with presentations from the IT Pro and Developer Evangelist teams, Phil Sorgen with the Microsoft Canada awards, a presentation on the changing face of IT careers, and the EnergizeIT Demo Competition.

The Demo Competition was 3 great presentations on how to use Microsoft technology in a fun way. I was on team Shell Shocked and as part of the demo we “bribed” attendees to vote for the demo by throwing out more T-Shirts, some with copies of Vista Ultimate or Office inside. This was a great way to hype the crowd and keep people interested in the presentations. A little fun thrown in the middle of the day made for a great experience. The Powershell demo also included the largest Rickroll in Canadian history to date. Next up is the boxed lunches and off to make my first presentation.

My presentation was an overview and demo on the soon to be released Windows Small Business Server 2008. This is a product I am passionate about and as such it was fun to give an insight into a beta product for some equally existed participants. I like to make presentations interactive, and as such took a lot of questions throughout the 70 minutes and really had a dialogue with the people in the room. This was my first experience presenting at a Microsoft event of this sale and it was fabulous. People responded well to the presentation; ask questions before and after, so I took that as a good indication.

I also made a joint presentation with Mitch Garvis from Toronto on the choice between SBS2008 and the new EBS2008 product, and when to use each later in the afternoon. This was a completely unscripted presentation, with the slide deck consisting of 8 slides thrown together over lunch but I think it was a great dialogue with the participants on the fit for both of these products and why as a consultant I will want to know and use both of these in my practice. Anyone who knows or has met Mitch will agree that he is an imposing figure, at 6’3” and 265 (I am being kind here!) he is a presence just as he walks in the room. His physical size is dwarfed by his personality though. He is always on and as a professional presenter and teacher, he has this game mastered. It is a bit intimidating to co-present with Mitch, but think we delivered a great presentation that was enjoyed by all….including us!

The event is winding down now and the best part of the day has began as far as I am concerned….it is off to the restaurant for the post event meal and some drinks and then to the hotel lounge for some more drinks and the hockey game. The best part of becoming an IT Pro UG lead and MVP is the chance to interact with the Microsoft staff and other leaders from across Canada. Over the next 7 hours we had the best time winding down, laughing at each other and bonding as a national community. And to a great extent finding new jokes about the fact the event was next to the anime event…..what is the difference between a geek and a nerd? $60,00 a year in income and not living in your parents basement at 32! This is the reason why I go to these events!

Now for my personal reviews of the event:

Pro’s:

·         The event space was so much better than last year by making the event in the round

·         The demo challenge was awesome and hopefully will become a yearly tradition…..maybe we can have the user groups involved in the challenge and make it a national event

·         Having 11 tracks and 33 presentations in the afternoon made for a diverse group of attendees and topics to be in a single forum. This was a big improvement over the agenda from last year

Con’s

·         The fact there was no physical demo labs and only virtual ones where people could download the material from wasn’t as good as in the past….and a bit confusing for the attendees

·         The recognition awards do not have anything to do with the user group community. Awards are given for Developer and IT Pro people and groups for solutions they achieve based on Microsoft technologies but there is nor recognition in a forum like this for the work done at the community level by user groups across the county.

·         The morning presentations go from a euphoric high with the opening of rock music and shirt giveaways, through some not so slick presentations and then end with the euphoric demo competition….they need to work the flow a little bit to keep the morning energy higher while still delivering some information…think Ballmer at MIX008 when he is asked about the monkey boy…you can still deliver the message with a whole lot of excitement…ENERGIZED!

So that was my 34 hours in TO in a nutshell….great time and great event but even greater people

Cheers

Will

I have to give a presentation next weekend in Toronto as part of EnergizeIT!, so I have been preparing my slides, doing research and a bunch of dry runs...including one with Damir from Microsoft and Mitch from the IT Pro Toronto User Group via LiveMeeting. I give lots of presentations now between work, the Regina IT Pro User Group and CIPS so it is not a big deal for me. But I have been thinking twice about my style in the last few days.

I had the pleasure of bringing Jeff Sandquist to Regina last week for the 2008 CIPS Regina Spring Seminar. For those unfamiliar with Jeff, he is the Senior Director of Evangelism for Microsoft, and a guy originally from Estevan, SK. I have been following Jeff's work for a couple of years now, after stumbling across the fact he was from Saskatchewan when reading his blog. Jeff made a 60 minute presentation on Evangelism, his teams work and how he got to where he is today on 8 slides in PowerPoint and 2 short videos. Even better was the fact none of his slides has bullets. He honestly had 1 slide up for 30 minutes, and it took to the end of those 30 minutes to get to the slide. The great part was the fact the slide was a picture of a Channel 9 squishy toy! Jeff's presentation was really a series of stories that came across more as a conversation with pictures than a presentation.

This got me to thinking about the presentation I was about to make. Now granted, I am doing a product demo on the release of Small Business Server 2008 coming later this year, so they are not quite the same style of presentation but how can I turn that into a conversation. I recently did the Heroes Happen {here} Community Launch in Regina, presenting on the new Windows Server 2008. I had 40 slides in 1 hour and 2 very short product demos. It was very clinical, and did not engage the audience the way I would have liked. I don't want the presentation at EnergizeIT! to be the same. I attended the event last year and found some of the afternoon sessions to be the same.....Death by PowerPoint.

So now I am sitting here cutting slides from my presentation and working on speaking notes to turn the presentation into a conversation on my experiences with the Small Business Server product line over the last 9 years and how the newest release compares in features and usability. I want the presentation to be a two-way conversation with the audience to understand if they are business people, Microsoft partners looking to expand their market through this product or IT Pro's working with SBS.  This combined with some heavy emphasis on a hands-on product demo should make the presentation fun.

We will see how it goes!

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