Bamboo Partner Sightings at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference
Published 07/15 courtesy of Bamboo Solutions Community
I opted for a quiet evening in my hotel room to watch the All-Star Game last night. Those who know me know I am a big baseball fan (Go, Cardinals!), so it was a tough decision for me this week between attending the All-Star Game being held in my hometown of St. Louis, or the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. We all know which one won. I would never pass up the opportunity to meet with our fabulous Bamboo Partners in person. Since I have a bit of downtime next to the TV, I thought I would send a shout out to all the great current and future Partners I have run into and spent some time with during the past few days.
Day 1 began with a keynote which was fabulously covered in Lily's earlier post. Following the keynote, it was down to business attending meetings which had been arranged through the powerful Microsoft WPC Connect tool. I started by meeting with one of our newer partners, Aztec Systems, for lunch at Mulate's, a fantastic Cajun restaurant located directly across the street from the convention center. Since they're based in Dallas, TX, the Aztec folks were used to the hot and humid weather down here in New Orleans. We had a nice lunch, catching up on their go-to market around their expertise with the Microsoft platform, particularly the Dynamics stack, and their plans to incorporate Bamboo products into their internal processes, leading to a shorter learning curve. It is always nice to put a name with a face, and I was lucky to do that with 4 of the folks from Aztec. While I was enjoying that fantastic lunch with Aztec Systems, Lily was meeting with ICS Solutions, one of our partners in the UK. ICS Solutions has a great go-to market around the entire SharePoint platform and its capabilities, and they do a fantastic job with marketing. As our Director of Marketing, Lily was naturally the best person for the job in identifying marketing initiatives to start working on with ICS.
The rest of the afternoon was spent with a couple of internal meetings with Microsoft, with discussions around the marketing programs available, whether we're leveraging them, and if not, why not. We also met with H3 where we were further impressed with their mobile framework for SharePoint, and discussed all the different options of working together. I then had a combo MindSharp/Combined Knowledge meeting where I learned more about the initiative around their global reach, and was further impressed with their training offerings and event series (better known as the SharePoint Best Practices Conference).
After the WPC Connect sessions ended, we headed over to the EXPO Hall Celebration. As always at Microsoft-hosted events, food and beverages were srategically placed throughout the exhibit hall...much to our surprise, they steered clear of the Cajun/creole favorites we know and love about New Orleans. Microsoft had a majority of the floor space, highlighting their extensive product releases on the horizon; Windows 7 and Office 2010 were our favorites. Lily and I both participated in the Windows + a picture of us = ___________. It had to be one word. I chose sweeeet, Lily chose fabulous. We are so imaginative!
We made a detour so that we wouldn't miss a chance to visit Fpweb.net, a Bamboo Partner providing hosted SharePoint, and the entire Microsoft stack, for that matter. Their booth traffic was high, and they stated that they were very excited to be at the conference. Additional Partners I ran into throughout the day, and am looking forward to chatting with in more detail during our Bamboo Happy Hour Wednesday evening include: Pointbridge, RBA Consulting, Covenant Technology Partners and Applied Knowledge Group.
Day 2 began with the daily keynote, and once again - Lily did a fabulous job outlining those in an earlier post. My partner meetings started out with a few meetings with prospective Partners: Janalent, Idea Integration, and Cogent Company. My day 2 also included a 1 ½ hour shift at the IAMCP booth, where I evangelized the benefits of being part of this organization. IAMCP focuses on partner-to-partner networking, and the "you cant do it all and do it well" analogy - pick one or two competencies, and partner with others for the rest. After my 30-minute dash to the opposite end of the conference center for a quick lunch, I met with Salis IT, a Partner currently completing the enrollment process into the Bamboo Partner Advantage Program - they are based in Egypt and have a great team, building on a great vision.
After the WPC Connect meetings commenced, Lily and I stopped by a hosting networking mixer at Tommy's Wine Bar, and then an IAMCP mixer at Lucy's Retired Surfer Bar. Talk about a clash in venues, but a great way to end the day. I wish I could say more for the outcome of the All-Star game. Maybe next year, National League!
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