Continuing our series of talks with folks from Redmond who have a great view on various Microsoft business practices... Today we are talking with Zakia Ovington. (see Larry Brennan from yesterday ) Zakia is the senior product manager for Windows Vista...

One of the things that I've seen in my time at Microsoft is that there is a big game of "telephone" between corporate Microsoft and partners and the field. Everyone does their best to communicate but with so many hops, things get diluted. Today, we...

Neat stuff. see video here .

Stephanie at Data Management Group saw the success that some of our other partners have had running events (see here , here , and here ) Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned, and they had to cancel. I asked Stephanie what she learned from this experience...

Great marketers always think about the next step. Karen at Corporate Network Services ran a successful event last week. You know what she asked me yesterday? "Any advice on when/where we should do our next event?" She's leveraging our ...

One of the best ways for a partner to convince a customer of the value of their service is by showing the whole picture. For example, if Microsoft wants to sell Exchange Server and the customer is interested in larger mailbox storage, we can talk about...

Inspired by Guy Kawasaki's post on the value of LinkedIn (and a good looking profile ), I updaded mine. Click below and let me know what you think. Feel free to join my network and/or leave a recommendation as well. Thanks! (For more on my experience...

Call out to Guy Kawaski for the Link to How to Change the World: The Top Ten Reasons Why PR Doesn't Work

Once upon a time, the marketing department was a match. It was responsible for lighting a spark and the sales team would fan it to make it grow. Some sparks would go out, but if you lit enough, some turned into bonfires. 10 years ago, that was the name...

A lot of partners ask: OK, so the event is over, now what? Well, here's a great example of one thing you could do. Following up on their great event, Digerati decides to strike while the iron is hot. They offer 1 hour of on-site service (a great loss...

I guess I've gotten a name for myself with my bad PowerPoint jihad. Ed Mullin from AIS writes in and suggests that we each watch this video of " horrific powerpoint techniques we should all avoid ." There is another funny Powerpoint-based video after...

Something happened on this morning's partner marketing call that I hadn't seen before... Bryanna from The Computer Doctor was listening to Peter recounting Digerati's event in Harrisonburg . She offered that Harrisonburg, VA is the model city for IPv6...

Well, Dave and his team at Evolve pulled off Moneyball at RFK Stadium yesterday (and the Nationals beat the Braves, 4-3!) Each of the 40 customers was assigned to a team "managed" by one of the reps from the sponsoring partners ( Evolve , Microsoft, Palm...

I tell partners often... your ability to successfully market with Microsoft is greatly impacted by one key variable: the degree to which you influence the sale of Microsoft licenses. That's why I LOVE seeing this signature file. Even if they...

Ask the people who cumulatively lost 4 billion dollars worth of Apple market cap thanks to 1 blogs report. And, oh yeah, it was a false rumor.

Love when partners stoke the fire after an event. Here's what I got this morning....Nice job! Microsoft and The Computer Doctor Partner Event held in Occoquan, VA yesterday was a huge success. The afternoon was filled with excitement as our customers...

The Moneyball event at RFK is tomorrow (pray for no rain), but the PR machine is underway ! I love seeing partners get out in front of it. We're not going to split hairs, since I gave Dave the idea after I read the book ( Book Review: Moneyball ) and...

My research last year shows that for salesreps, the average partner exec invests approx 10-15 hours and the company will spend $20k in the search process. On top of that, only 50% of sales hires stay more than 1 year. I've seen a lot of fits and starts...

A new service called BRINGO offers you the following deal to avoid 'phone trees.' Find the company you'd like to call by category (credit cards, mortgages, loans, health care) Enter your phone # (we will never disclose your phone number to anyone, not...

So I spent the day doing what I ask partners to do all the time....calling up customers and asking them to attend an event (and buy software). I had a slight advantage perhaps in saying I am an MS employee, but other than that they were just as cold....

I introduced a friend of mine who sells coffee service to the office manager a few months ago. Today, I was in the kitchen, and saw his company's machine getting set up. I was a bit irritated.I called him. "Hey, how come you didn't call me to say 'thanks...

"Death by Powerpoint" is a common problem at Microsoft. Most people think that-because they have made slides--that they have an effective presentation. WRONG. Some more food for thought in the anti-bad Powerpoint/Presentation jihad (is it non-pc to use...

One of the benefits of being in the top 10% of all Microsoft blogs is that people throughout the company want to leverage the distribution to communicate with partners about stuff they are doing. Today I found out about RSVP magazine for the first time...

We talk a LOT about effective presentations. How you make people feel, what your slides should look like. Here's a great nuts and bolts article on just making sure you minimize the chance of failing on something obvious.

A good article from GigaOm re: MIcrosoft's Unified Communications future .