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Rod Colledge, is a Microsoft Most Valued Professional (MVP) for SQL Server, and an expert on the technology side of the use of Business Intelligence in education in Australia. For a living, he helps Microsoft customers with their own business intelligence projects, through his business at StrataDB. But in his role as a Microsoft MVP one of the things that he’s been able to do is record a series of short videos of examples of using business intelligence in education, to show some of the simple things that are useful for school leaders and teachers.
Today’s video is in two parts:
If you’d like to know more about Rod and his projects, you can find out more on the StrataDB website or email Rod directly
You’ve got until the end of the week to enter for the Australia Microsoft Education Partner of the Year award. And I know that every year a bunch of you sit down with your keyboards and screens, and craft a carefully worded entry to give it your best shot – something I see because every year I read every single entry, alongside the education team members who act as judges.
But I know you are busy people. And there are plenty of other competing priorities. So this year we have aimed to make it as stress free as possible. We’ve taken out all of the tricky questions that some of the other categories have in their entry forms. And we’ve removed as many of the entry criteria as is reasonable (all we ask is that you’re a registered Microsoft partner, and that you have a PinPoint profile – both of which 99.9% of partners have already done).
So all that is left is the task of telling us your best customer story, using the five headings we’ve given you, to help us recognise the way that your partnership with Microsoft helps our joint customers in the Australian education market.
And because I like making your life easier, you don’t even need to download the Award Guidelines – because here they are:
The Education Partner of the Year Award recognises a partner organisation that excels at providing innovative and unique services or solutions based on Microsoft technologies to education customers. The successful submission for this award will demonstrate industry knowledge and expertise, as well as consistent, high-quality, predictable service or solutions to education customers. Successful entrants will also demonstrate business leadership and success through strong growth in new customer additions and revenue by integrating with Microsoft cloud-based technology such as Windows 8 Apps, Office 365 Education and Windows Azure in addition to the Windows Phone platform.
Partners applying for this award should demonstrate effective engagement with Microsoft by taking advantage of the Microsoft Partner Network to develop, create demand for, and sell their software solutions or services.
(These are the headings you need to respond under on the website)
1. Is your solution specific to one particular customer, or does it have broader market potential? Upload or provide outside references or data sources that illustrate exceptional customer experience or satisfaction (links to published articles, case studies, videos, customer testimonials, etc.).
2. Did your company partner with any other Microsoft partners in designing, developing, implementing, and/or integrating this solution? If yes, please describe your partnering story and how it benefited the customer.
3. Describe how using Microsoft technologies in your solution helped you win against the competition in a customer situation from a technical and business perspective.
4. Describe which Microsoft technologies you have used.
5. Describe the problem your solution solved for customers. If possible, identify the impact of the customer’s pain points, contrast before and after scenarios, and provide metrics on benefits received by the customer.
And, err, that's it. Hopefully, we’ve done everything we can to make it as easy as possible to enter the Awards, and give you the chance of telling us your story. Now it’s over to you to do the hard bit – finding an hour before the end Tuesday 28 May to enter.
Enter the Microsoft Australia Partner Awards 2013
PS Want some tips on writing your entry? Then I’d recommend reading "How to win the Microsoft global Partner of the Year Awards"
PPS If you know an easier way of getting your case study read by the whole leadership team from the Microsoft Education business, then go for it. But if not….
Today’s video is a short demonstration of using geospatial visualisation, using a demonstration education data set. It's a simple example of how you can take a complex data set and visualise it a number of different ways.
The demo is using a dummy dataset and was built in Report Builder in MS SQL Server 2012
If you are using Windows 8 for teachers’ laptops, then you might want to make a note of this video, from the Windows team. It’s a great way to explain how to use some of the new features of Windows 8, and the way that you can have both existing Windows software as well as the new Windows 8 apps. It’s good for students too, but I’ve often heard from education customers that making change is often more difficult for staff, so if you are planning to roll out Windows 8 for teachers, then this video is a great start to your staff training day.
In addition to the video above, there's a whole host of other Windows 8 videos on the WindowsVideos channel on YouTube
Today’s video is a demonstration of using SharePoint 2013 dashboards, for an education BI project - in this case creating a NAPLAN summary dashboard for a school. Once the report is created, it becomes a dynamic, clickable report that users can use to break down their own views of the data.
The demo is using a dummy dataset in dashboard designer, using SharePoint 2013 and PerformancePoint
Rod Colledge, is a Microsoft Most Valued Professional (MVP) for SQL Server, and an expert on the technology side of the use of Business Intelligence in education in Australia. For a living, he helps Microsoft customers with their own business intelligence projects, through his business at StrataDB. But in his role as a Microsoft MVP in his spare time he speaks at conferences, writes books, and shares his knowledge freely.
One of the things that he’s been able to do is record a series of short videos of examples of using business intelligence in education, and the new features in SQL Server 2012 and Microsoft Office 2013, to show some of the simple things that are useful for school leaders and teachers. I’ll share one video every day for the next week, as I think they are ideal for showing to colleagues to start a discussion about how they’d like to use data in your institution, and whether they can start to use some of the features of the latest software releases.
Today’s video is a demonstration of a key feature for an business intelligence in education project - the ability to set alerts automatically, to allow you to 'manage by exception', rather than having to trawl reports looking for outliers and identify performance issues manually.
The example that's used here (with a dummy dataset) is using student absences to generate alerts, and uses Microsoft SQL Server 2012, and PowerPivot reports.
Registrations are open for the Microsoft Australia Partner Conference 2013 (APC 2013). And the early bird discounted ticket offer closes this Friday (17 May) – which saves you $172 off the normal fee.
Even better news, Australian Gold Competency Partners get two free tickets – so quick, grab them before somebody less worthy in your team does
These are the three key reasons the APC organising team give for attending:
And, as usual, we’ll be doing a whole load of things to make it even more valuable for education partners, including giving you the chance to book 1:1 sessions with our Account Managers across our team, and get deep insight into the trends and stories across the education market. I’ll publish more details on who’s attending, and how to grab a slot in their diary next month, but for now I’d recommend that you get your APC 2013 place booked and confirmed. Especially if you’re hoping to be jumping up on stage to collect your Education Partner of the Year Award…
Make a date: Find out more, and register for Microsoft Australia Partner Conference 2013
It’s that time again – your opportunity to gain fame and fortune for your business and for the great projects you have done in the Australian education market this year. Yep, we’ve opened entries for the 2013 Microsoft Australia Partner Awards, and yet again there’s an entry category for ‘Australian Education Partner of the Year’.
Without a shadow of a doubt, winning any of the awards is a great way to raise your profile across the education marketplace, and you get a bonus of a snazzy logo to use in your marketing (and your spot on the Microsoft Partner Award Winners page).
Even just entering the awards raises your profile, as it means that your entries will be seen by the judges, which includes four key people in the Microsoft Australia Education business. Last year the judges learned about some new projects that they were able to discuss with customers, and helped create some new business opportunities for our partners.
The deadline for entries is 28th May, and the winner will be announced at the Microsoft Australia Partner Conference in Cairns on the 20th August 2013.
There are 24 categories that you can enter (although, obviously, your first priority should be Education Partner of the Year!).
Learn more about the Microsoft Australia Partner Awards 2013
For many of our products and services, there's special education pricing – these typically give education customers up to an 80% discount on normal prices, or even go so far as providing some services (like Office 365) free for education customers.
It doesn't apply to Windows Azure, as there isn't a specific Windows Azure Academic licensing price list. The basic Azure service is pretty low-cost already (renting a virtual machine on Windows Azure costs $2c an hour!), and some parts of the service are free to everybody – for example, with Windows Azure Web Sites you can run 10 basic websites for nothing in the cloud.
So when you're looking to move some of your IT to the cloud – for example, to host a learning management system like Moodle on Windows Azure – you would just use our standard Windows Azure pricing.
So if there isn't special academic pricing for Windows Azure, why did I say that there's "something better"?
Well, it turns out that if you want to use Windows Azure for teaching purposes, you can apply for a "Windows Azure Educator Grant", which will give you a 12 month free subscription to Windows Azure for faculty, and a 6 month free subscription for your students!
There's a ton of different services and resources included within the free subscription for both staff and students, including:
Azure was expanded last month, when we announced the availability of Windows Azure Infrastructure Services. This new service now makes it possible for you to move whole applications into the cloud, and puts us in the position of being the only global cloud provider with fully supported infrastructure and platform service offerings.
To get more information, and apply for a Windows Azure Educator Grant go to the Windows Azure Educators site. After receiving your application and verification of your faculty status, we will send you a grant letter to sign and send back to us to get passcodes for your Azure accounts. Neither you nor your students will pay for access to Windows Azure. Accounts are valid for 12 months for faculty and 6 months for students and can be extended if needed.
Find out more on the Windows Azure Educators site
To help you get started with Windows Azure in the classroom, there are plenty of resources, and course and lab material, at Windows Azure Resource Kit and on Faculty Connection Web Site. It includes an Introduction to Cloud Computing, Software & Tools and Course 50466B: Windows Azure Solutions with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.
The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2013, is in Houston from 7-11 July. It's a global event that gets over 16,000 attendees from 160+ countries, and there'll be a large contingent as usual travelling from Australia. (Registration info for WPC is here)
If you're a Microsoft partner who works in the Education market and you're planning to be there, then you'll be happy to learn that within the agenda there are a series of sessions specifically for education partners. It means that as well as getting up-to-speed with the Microsoft technology and business strategy, there is an opportunity to understand our product and strategy focus in the education marketplace. This is key for you if you are looking to develop your education businesses to better serve the needs of the different segments of education – schools, TAFEs and universities – and if you want to understand where Microsoft's strategy will support your business plans.
As Anthony Salcito, the Microsoft Vice President for Worldwide Education, puts it:
With a cavalcade of new product releases, FY13 was a huge year for Microsoft and our partners - and we expect FY14 will offer even more opportunities for our partners to grow their businesses as these platforms continue to be adopted by our customers. We've had many important strategic wins with Windows 8, our OEM partners have hit the market with more than 120 Windows 8 devices, Surface is having an impact, and Office 365 for Education is growing so much faster than expected that we increased our targets by 1,000%.
My team and I are excited to share with you strategies for success and why Education is one of the fastest growing and most important business segments at Microsoft.
On Sunday 7 July before the main WPC kicks off with the Welcome Reception at 4PM, there is an afternoon dedicated to the Education Partner community, called GEPS@WPC (shorthand for the "Global Education Partner Summit @ Worldwide Partner Summit"). GEPS@WPC is our annual gathering of top global Education Partners. This year more than ever you won't want to miss this event as we'll discuss the amazing opportunities the launch of Windows 8, Office 365 for Education, and the rest of the new lineup of innovative Microsoft products, is presenting to existing and new education partners.
The full agenda is on the GEPS@WPC website. Education partners attending WPC can register for the additional free GEPS@WPC day
There are a number of education sessions as part of the main WPC conference agenda too, that sit alongside other breakout sessions (the way that WPC works is that there are big keynotes for all 16,000 attendees, then a choice of smaller breakouts for partners to choose between). These are:
Education keynote address: Microsoft’s vision and strategy drive partner success in education Maximise your revenue potential by leveraging Microsoft’s big investments in the education market. Big Data, social, cloud, and mobility are key trends in the education market. In this session you can learn about Microsoft’s strategy and priorities for driving adoption and usage of the Windows 8 operating system, Microsoft Office 365 for Education, customer relationship management (CRM), and Microsoft SQL Server through investments in Partners in Learning, Shape the Future, and other sales programs that help our partner ecosystem grow. Devices and services in education; Shape the Future! and drive Windows 8 and Office 365 sales in the global education market This session will delve into Microsoft education programs and strategies for driving adoption of the Windows 8 operating system and Microsoft Office 365. Microsoft and its partners have built a pipeline with more than 100 million devices and more than 100 million Office 365 for Education assigned IDs through the Shape the Future program. This session will describe how you can leverage this progress to increase your revenue. How to build great apps that make money in education This session will explore the explosion in app adoption in education, and will share strategies for building great apps. You will also get tips for marketing and making money with apps for the Windows 8 operating system, for Microsoft Office, and for Microsoft SharePoint in education. Increase revenue and share through Big Data and relationship management growth in education This session will look at Big Data and analytics, combined with relationship management, in the fast-growing education industry. Understand how you can build and deploy solutions by using key platforms like Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft SQL Server, and help education customers make sense of Big Data and unlock the potential of personalised learning.
Maximise your revenue potential by leveraging Microsoft’s big investments in the education market. Big Data, social, cloud, and mobility are key trends in the education market. In this session you can learn about Microsoft’s strategy and priorities for driving adoption and usage of the Windows 8 operating system, Microsoft Office 365 for Education, customer relationship management (CRM), and Microsoft SQL Server through investments in Partners in Learning, Shape the Future, and other sales programs that help our partner ecosystem grow.
This session will delve into Microsoft education programs and strategies for driving adoption of the Windows 8 operating system and Microsoft Office 365. Microsoft and its partners have built a pipeline with more than 100 million devices and more than 100 million Office 365 for Education assigned IDs through the Shape the Future program. This session will describe how you can leverage this progress to increase your revenue.
This session will explore the explosion in app adoption in education, and will share strategies for building great apps. You will also get tips for marketing and making money with apps for the Windows 8 operating system, for Microsoft Office, and for Microsoft SharePoint in education.
This session will look at Big Data and analytics, combined with relationship management, in the fast-growing education industry. Understand how you can build and deploy solutions by using key platforms like Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft SQL Server, and help education customers make sense of Big Data and unlock the potential of personalised learning.
All of these sessions can be seen on the session catalogue for WPC, alongside the main agenda
For more information on the 2013 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, jump across to the WPC website.