Microsoft Small Business Symposium
The Small Business Symposium was a great event of networking with the SBSer’s from around the world as well as gaining a lot of great business insight from the “Who’s who” of the small business world. The part that surprised me was how much of a focus it was on the business aspect of being a SMB Partner verses a typical technology rally round the campfire cheer leading event.
I was impressed with several of the sessions, but the ones that stuck out in my mind were Tim Loney’s session that focused on finding and keeping quality skilled technicians in your business and the Sloan Brother’s from www.startupnation.com who spoke about the keys to success for running a small business. I’d never heard of them before, so I logged onto their site and found several great podcast topics including one titled “what a server can do for small business.” If you have been to their site, you should check it out.
There was a lot of marketing for Small Business Server 2003 R2 and the “Green Check”, but there was very little discussion about it out during the day which surprised me. I was really hoping to see more about it and the futures of SBS in the Longhorn time frame, but it seemed to slip by without much fan fare.
At the after party Harry, Beatrice, and the rest of the folks from SMBNation released their new magazine which will be a FREE subscription to it for the Small Business Specialists of the world. This was great timing of its release by the SMBNation folks since this is the 1st Birthday as they labelled it on the magazine cover for the SBSC program. Watch for more news throughout the week on the next phases of the SBSC program and what new stuff is in store for the program and what Microsoft is doing to help drive more value for the Small Business Partners that are part of the program and the companies continued focus on the Small Business market and the opportunities for growth in it for everyone.