Last week we hosted a record-setting 16,000+ attendees in Toronto for our Worldwide Partner Conference 2012. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I LOVE Worldwide Partner Conference and it is my favorite week of the year here at Microsoft! I thoroughly enjoy having the opportunity to connect in person with so many of our partners from around the world, whether it is seeing partners I haven’t seen in awhile, partners I’ve had the chance to connect with via social media but have not met in person before, or meeting partners I am meeting for the very first time. Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference brings these opportunities to life, and for the past couple of years, I have been posting my “Fantastic People of WPC” posts just after Worldwide Partner Conference to share pictures of just some of the fantastic people (partners, press, analysts) I had the opportunity to meet, see, and spend time with while at WPC12. Here is this year’s collection of some of the Fantastic People of WPC12:

(You can click on any picture below to view them in larger size)

With Christopher McMillan (@CEEKTechnology) of Ceek Technology	With Justin Pirie (@JustinPirie) of Mimecast	With Scott Bekker (@ScottBekker) of Redmond Channel Partner
With Mary Jo Foley (@MaryJoFoley) of ZDNet	With Paul Spain (@PaulSpain) of Gorilla Technology	With Joe Panettieri  (@TheVARGuy) of the VAR Guy
With John Krikke (@JohnKrikke) of Onward Computer Systems	With Rich Gibbons (@RichFromBechtle) of Bechtle	With Pete Zarras (@PZarras) of Cloud Strategies LLC
With Dave Seibert of IT Innovators	With Joel Zaidspier of ChannelPro SMB (@ChannelProSMB)	With Peter Ells (@PeterElls) of Software ONE
With Joe Moore and Curtis Hicks of Center for Computer Resources	With the FY13 SMB PALs	With Tim Carney (@TechmoTim) of EBT Solutions
With Kenold Pierre-Louis (@KenoldP) of Slalom Consulting	With Angus Fox (@Nuxnix) and Elaine Murray (@ElaineLibMurray) of applicable	With Andy Trish (@AndyTrish) of NCI Technologies
With MPN Live Day 1 guests: Darren Bibby of IDC (@darrenbibby), Angus Fox (@NuxNix) of applicable, and Jennifer Mazzanti (@JMazzanti) of eMazzanti	With Justin Slagle (@JustinSlagle) of QuickStart Intelligence	With Sinclair Schuller (@SSchuller) of Apprenda Inc
With Aki Antman (@AkiPekka) of Sulava	With Liza Sisler (@LizaSisler) of Perficient	With Mary Jo Foley (@MaryJoFoley) of ZDNet and Guy Gregory (@GuyGregory) of The Final Step
With Beth Davis of D&H and Bill Hole (@TheHoleGroup) of The Hole Group	With Birger Steen (@BirgerK) of Parallels	With Mitch Garvis (@MGarvis) of SWMI Consulting Group
With Kevin McMillen (@RyanTechKevin) of RyanTech	With Eric Mantion (@CaptGeek) of Intel Corporation	With Ryan Redmond (@CRMGurus) of Customer Dynamics
With Drew Milam (@DrewMcM) of Branch Banyan Inc.	With the cast of MPN Live Day 2: Josh Waldo (@JoshuaWaldo) of Microsoft, Larry Walsh (@lmwalsh2112) of The 2112 Group, Danny Burlage (@DannyBurlage) of Wortell	With Mark Crall (@MarkCrall) of Storage Craft
With Philippe Moufflet (@PMoufflet) of BostonCSE	With Carlson Colomb (@CarlsonColomb) of Level Platforms	With Jamison West (@jamisonwest) of Arterian
With Arlin Sorensen of Heartland Technology Solutions (@HTGMembers)	With Justin Coffey (@ApexJCoffey) and Jason Lambiris (@JasonLambiris) of Apex Digital Solutions	With Kurt Sippel of Applied Tech and Matt Makowicz (@MMakowicz) of The York Group
With Chuck Traywick of Infotronics	With Brenda Luper (@BLuper2) of Franklin Moves	With Bill Hersh of D&H Distributing
With the cast of MPN Live Day 3: Justin Pirie (@JustinPirie) of Mimecast, Jef King (@jefkingabc) of Agile Business Cloud, Pam McClelland (@PamMcClelland) of SolidSoft, and Ross Brown (@Hey_Ross) of Microsoft	With Jean Alexander of ASCII Group, Ken Thoreson (@KenThoreson) of Acumen Management Group, Eric Rabinowitz (@ERabino) of Nurture Institute, Jeff Hilton (@KnowledgeCircl) of Knowledge Circles, and Erik Frantzen of B2B Contact	Jeff Cohn of Sage Computer Associates
With David Lee (@DSLee) of Digivie Communications Inc.	With Dave Sobel (@DJDaveET) of Evolve Technologies	With Kartik Shah (@KBI911) of Bitscape Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
With James Keefner (@CloudFactors) of CloudFactors LLC	With Petri Salonen(@DrSalonen) of TELLUS International, Inc	With Kenneth Ahanaonu of Ziontrend Systems Ltd and Chucks Okoye of Chuxel Computers Limited
With Julian Oh of Britec Compter Systems	With Naomi Moneypenny (@NMoneypenny) of ManyWorlds and Christian Buckley (@BuckleyPlanet) of IAMCP	With Ulises Aguilar Nahle (@UAguilar) of e-Nfinito
With Tiffany Wallace (Ingargiola) (@TiffanyWI) of New Horizons	With Corey Roth (@CoreyRoth) of Infusion, Dennis Brink (@DennisBrink) of T4G, Tiffany Wallace (Ingargiola) (@TiffanyWI) of New Horizons, Sally Parks (@Sparks_Austin) of New Horizons

Speaking of terrific, how about the city of Toronto that hosted our Worldwide Partner Conference 2012! Thanks to Photosynth on Windows Phone for enabling this picture from the partner celebration:

Thank you again to all of you who joined us in Toronto for Worldwide Partner Conference 2012 and for helping us set a new all-time attendance record, making WPC12 the LARGEST Microsoft conference! Also, thank you to all of you who joined us virtually throughout Worldwide Partner Conference 2012 online through Digital WPC as well as through social media. I also appreciate all of the RTs, mentions, +1’s, + Klouts, etc. of my content that I posted last week.

Since one of the great values of Worldwide Partner Conference is the connections you can make with others, be sure to make the most of the connections you made. Remember that partner you had lunch with who told you all about the interesting things they are doing that are complimentary to your offerings and would be a great partnership? Call or email them right now. Did you hear something intriguing on MPN Live from one of the guests? Follow up with them. Did you get to meet the “Fantastic People of WPC12” above? Reach out via social media (I’ve included their information) and say, “Hi.” Whatever you do, capture the opportunity you have to expand your network, connect with your peers, and embrace the amazing opportunity that lies ahead for as Microsoft partners!

Now, it is off on the journey of our FY13 fiscal year and all of the phenomenal things that will be coming online to make this an incredible year together with our partners everywhere! I can’t remember a more exciting lineup and set of offerings that we have had coming to market in a 12-18 month window than where we are now and I look forward to taking this journey with all of you, driving our joint success all the way to WPC13 next year in Houston!

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Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER, LinkedIn, and RSS and see “What I’m thinking”
Director, Worldwide Partner Experience
Microsoft Corporation
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights