Help Out Eric Ligman!

Review my performance – Your input counts! - Microsoft SMB Community Blog - By Eric Ligman - Site Home - MSDN Blogs:

I'm reposting this from Eric Ligman, so you can help him out -- he's asking for a few minutes of your time, so if you're in the Microsoft community, help him out.  From his blog post:

"For any of you that have been following me over the years, you know that I have been very open about my goal in my role to help increase the satisfaction of Microsoft partners around the world in working with Microsoft through things like: helping provide information of value and interest, providing correct answers to questions (even when it is not the popular answer), helping address concerns and opportunities, directing you to relevant and important information, providing avenues for input into and out of Microsoft, connection opportunities with Microsoft, and much, much more.  (In fact, I have this openly stated on my overview page about me)  This year has been no exception.

Now is your opportunity to provide your input and feedback into how I am doing.  Here at Microsoft, as many of you know, our fiscal year runs July 1 – June 30, which means we are approaching the end of our year here in a few weeks.  Like every other company, we do annual performance reviews internally where people’s performances are evaluated to determine how well they are performing.  Since I focus so much of my time to helping organizations outside of Microsoft, like our Microsoft partners around the world, I am providing you with an opportunity to have your voice heard in evaluating how I am doing.  "

 

Tracking Systems

I believe in tracking systems.      Not spy movie style tracking systems, but rather the idea of having something that keeps track of everything in your business.

For Evolve, this system is the heart of what we do.  Everything is tracked within it, and we have signs posted around the office that say "if it's not in ConnectWise, it doesn't exist".  Only things written down and documented are managed.  Because if it can't be measured, it can't be managed.   I recently wrote a piece about this for my industry colleagues, and I think it's very relevant for my customers.

If you’re driving a car, you require a pretty steady stream of data to ensure you’re operating well. Your speedometer ensures you’re going the right speed, you keep an eye on the gas tank, your GPS for directions, your mirrors to know what is around you, and even the feel of the car to know how it’s running. But driving your car on feel alone would be impossible.

The same is true of business. Without good metrics, you can’t know how well the business is running without knowing the details. How efficient is your team? How profitable? How does your sales pipe look? Is your marketing functioning?

It’s important to take the time and measure all the parts, so as you adjust and make decisions, you know how well you’re doing. If you make a change to the way services are delivered, did you make it better? You only know if you know how well it worked before, and thus an improvement or slowdown in service will be shown via those metrics. Sales suffer from much the same problem. If you don’t measure, how do you know how well you’re doing?

There are multiple systems to help with tracking these kind of metrics, and generally fit into the category of "Customer Relationship Management", or CRM.   These tools let you track the various pieces of your business, and tie into your financial metrics systems.    Ultimately, you get insight into the various parts of your business, and let your team manage the parts that are important to them.

Embrace the numbers. They’ll help you drive your car better, and help you drive your business better.

 

 

Cloud Services Roundtable -- guess who

Guess who is a new contributor to the Cloud Services Roundtable?

This guy!

http://www.cloudservicesroundtable.com/cloud-services-roundtable-blog.html

Catch me tonight doing Q&A on Virtualization

Want to talk best practices for virtualization?   Catch me tonight doing a roundtable on it.

When: Wednesday, Jun 16, 2010 6:30 PM (PDT)

Where:

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Susan Bradley has invited you to attend an online meeting using Live
Meeting.
*Join the meeting.
<https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/winserver_usergroup/join?id=Q6JHCM&role=attend&pw=8%5E-%5CzqX>*

*Audio Information*
*Computer Audio*
To use computer audio, you need speakers and microphone, or a headset.
*First Time Users:*
To save time before the meeting, check your system
<http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90703> to make sure it is ready
to use Microsoft Office Live Meeting.
*Notes*

*Troubleshooting*
Unable to join the meeting? Follow these steps:

1. Copy this address and paste it into your web browser:
https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/winserver_usergroup/join
2. Copy and paste the required information:
Meeting ID: Q6JHCM
Entry Code: 8^-\zqX
Location: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/winserver_usergroup

If you still cannot enter the meeting, contact support
<http://r.office.microsoft.com/r/rlidLiveMeeting?p1=12&p2=en_US&p3=LMInfo&p4=support>

*Notice*
Microsoft Office Live Meeting can be used to record meetings. By
participating in this meeting, you agree that your communications may be
monitored or recorded at any time during the meeting.



Are your VMs taking longer to startup?

The startup time increases every time after you back up the data on all the disks of the computer in Windows Server 2008 if the computer runs some virtual machines:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;982210&sd=rss&spid=14134

 



Thought I would pass this one on.

 

Baseball on the mind... and the respect shown within it

I totally have baseball on the brain today, having attended the debut of the new "hottest" pitcher in baseball last night.  My buddy Matt chronicles some thoughts on the game itself, but my mind is on something that happens at every game that I thought was culturally significant.

 

 

It's more significant in Washington, as the nation's capital, but every game, usually around the third inning in the game, the team calls attention to the wounded soldiers from Walter Reed who are in attendance.  Every game, the Nats bring over some of our injured to give them the night out, and the scoreboard shows "Welcome Home!".  And without fail, the stadium stands and applauds.  For me, this is just part of what's traditional at a game.   These are our soldiers, and they're to be respected.

This isn't the case everywhere in the world.  I was on a trip to the UK last year, and attended a rugby match with some good friends there.    Lots of British soldiers in attendance... and the crowd interaction was different.   The soldiers were simply more members of the crowd, bantering with those in attendance.  At one point, a group of spectators heckled the soldiers, who responded in turn with their own retorts back. The dynamic was very different than I'm used to.   I had some discussions with my British friends about it, who noted it was simply the way things were.  They didn't think anything of it.  Soldiers were just regular people.

I really enjoy the opportunities I get to travel and meet people from all around the world.   Differences are what makes us all great, and the ability to learn from those differences is key.  Certain things, however, always make you proud to be from your country. The respect we show for our armed forces her in the States... it makes me proud to be an American.

Giving up my laptop for an iPad?

I think I'm really close to being able to give up carrying a laptop on trips. 

I've been sticking to my iPad for the majority of my mobile work, and so far loving it.   Email, RSS, browsing, all work just as well on the iPad.  I do have a short list of things i can't do well.

Document editing.   All my stuff now lives either in SharePoint or in DropBox, so i can get to all my data and read anything.   I just can't edit it and put it back.  That is something i need fixed.

Instant Messaging.   I am a pretty heavy IM user, and between Skype, Windows Messenger, and AOL IM, I chat a lot.  Meebo covers a lot of that, but without multitasking, I'm either messaging or working, and that is kinda annoying.   I'm hoping the software upgrade fixes this complaint.

Blogging.  To my shock, I can't find a good blogging tool.   Sucks.

ConnectWise.   Despite making it work via Wyse PocketCloud to hosted desktop, I'm really itching to have this solved by a native app.

Presenting.   If I'm giving a presentation, I still feel I need a laptop.  While I can connect a VGA out to the iPad, using my iPhone as a remote just doesn't work for me.  I have a little presenter remote I rely on when giving a talk, and i still feel I need that setup when I'm presenting.  However, I might consider my net book in those cases now....   

But I'm close.   I'm really close to feeling like I don't need a laptop.