One of the best in the study and promotion of this art/science is Andy Sernovitz. I highly recommend his blog Damn, I'd Wish I'd Thought of That . And, just today, he posted on Mini-Review- Microsoft Office 2007 Upgrade I blogged about Andy before ( here...

Lajuane Brooks from Ngen writes in after completing her first event: Because we are like so many Microsoft partners who are relatively small with their resources already committed, I realized about 30 days before the event that I needed more resources...

The Chinese may call 2007-2008 the "Year of the Pig," but for Microsoft partners, I am going to call it, " The Year of the Megaphone ." One of the primary, if not THE primary, reason that customers attend events is to network. You have a unique platform...

A fantastic presentation by Guy Kawasaki (about 55 minutes) that is worth the watch. What does Nike sell? two pieces of cotton, one piece of leather, and some rubber "Authentic athletic performance" Obviously, #2, but how often do you sell features or...

You know how I feel about the way people abuse PowerPoint. Here's a good one. Presentation Zen: Two decades of PowerPoint: Is the world a better place?

When I wrote about getting a cold reception from the email I sent last week , I prefaced the entire email with "I am putting on my partner advocate hat here...." The thing is, in the new age of Web 2.0 or whatever we're calling it is that the expectations...

Today, we are talking with Will Knight, Director of Mid-Market Marketing, based in Redmond. Continuing our series of interviews (see here , here , and here ) Will is responsible for marketing to 300,000 customers ranging from 50-2000 employees across...

Sometimes, no commentary is needed... From John at Solutions Developers My company has done sixteen Microsoft events in the past sixteen months. We had a pretty good track record until yesterday; nobody showed up. We were packing up and a person arrived...

Last week, I got into a bit of hot water for an email that I sent up the chain of command. When I wrote it, I felt totally confident and noble in my objective (of course, right?!). I wanted to make the organization better, I was passionate about it...

Blogreader Joan writes in: I attended this webcast yesterday and thought it had a lot of good information. You might want to post it on your blog. On Demand Webcast: How to Build a Winning Brand http://www.msreadiness.com/recordedeventregister.asp?eid...

Had a chat the other day with one of Microsoft's leading (if not, the leading) community builder/marketer, Sean O'Driscoll. He's Microsoft's General Manager for Community Support & MVP His blog, Community Therapy , talks about the ideas and challenges...

Went up to Hagerstown, MD today for an Open House with Innovative Incorporated , one of the leading Microsoft partners in that area. These guys really get the idea of the immersive customer experience. A festive atmosphere with rooms throughout the office...

Fabian Williams and the team at Williams Information Group should be proud. A few months ago, they went out on a limb and said, "you know what? We want to grow our business and we'd like to tap into your event model." They listened in on our bi-weekly...

Blog reader John sends in the following: Sales people hit barriers all the time -- a quick little newsletter to help

For those of you who loved "A Few Good Men" with Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise...and who are salespeople. Sent in by a consummate salesman... Sales: "You want answers? Finance: "I think we're entitled to them." Sales: "You want answers? Finance (YELLING...

at WorldWide Partner Conference is the single most valuable tool for you to meet/get to know the MS staff, and more importantly, complementary partners. Sign up for it and set those meetings!

Joan at AKGroup is another one of our success stories. Back in September, she did her first event with us and had 18 people there. Over the course of the year, she's religiously read this blog and joined our Best Practices call. Last week, she had...

How many business cards have you received? How many of them do you keep? How many of them make an impact? Are memorable? Take a look at these (the backside of each card). Unique, different, a good way to remember the person who gave you the card Jamie...

Continuing our series of interviews with really smart people who work in Redmond, today's guest is Chris van Wesep, a Senior Product Manager for Windows Server AND Small Business Server in the SMB space. He's part of a team sells 250,000 Windows Server...

We often talk about how partners can influence the sale of Microsoft products to their customers. You know what really works? Use them yourself! Was talking to a longtime acquaintance today, Mike Petrov (it's his birthday) from DigitEdge . He's...

Here is the view of the parking spots across the way from me at Shoppers yesterday. And here is the amount of room left by a contractor's truck on my driver's side. It was so small that I had to get in the passenger's side. Pretty annoying since I had...

My wife is a big fan of Shoppers Food Warehouse . Standing in the checkout line, I peered behind me at the empty register slot. A how-to guide for efficient, speedy checkout. To me, this says that the store is focused on the right thing...at the right...

I play the role of mentor to one of the younger guys in my office. A few weeks ago, I told him that, if he wanted to move up in the company/career, I thought it was time for him to "raise his game" in terms of his appearance. His work ethic and results...