Susanne Dansey’s Blog

I write my last post before hopping onto a plane for nine and a bit hours over to Redmond to take in this year’s SMB Nation Summit.

Finally, I have packed and printed out all the booking references for the hotel, shuttle, flights etc… and I’m sitting down to have a quick glance over the agendas to work out which ones I intend to attend.

For those who haven’t been to an event like this, the days are split into tracks. This years are as follows:

Track 1: Business Track - “Running your business is just as important as your technical knowledge and capabilities”

Track 2: Technical Track - “Technical content on product strategies and tools that will accelerate your business results!”

Track 3: Premium Solutions - “Products and solutions that can add value to your total customer solution”

Track 4: Products and Solutions Track - “Products and solutions that can add value to your total customer solution!”

For me, I think I’m going to stick to the majority of track one. Whilst it’s nice to see what the latest product releases from vendors are, I can get that back home. I would add that I am more than happy to attend some of these if there is some honest discussion surrounding some of the products being showcased (Vista, Office, CRM, SBA etc.) That means we ask the Vista evangelists how successful they think the immediate take up in the SMB arena will be (and that doesn’t include the home/consumer market) and we get a real answer. Get me someone who understands where we’re coming from and I’m there!

So if I’m not sharing ideas over coffee with other attendees, you’ll find me tucked up the back taking notes on something I always like to know more about - business. Customers don’t really care how you connect a Mac to an SBS network; that’s our job! But for me, I want to know more about communicating effectively to clients, getting to understand their way of thinking, and finding out more about what motivates them. I have a few answers of my own, but you can’t beat a bit of time out listening to someone else show you a different perspective.

I am in a fortunate position where I can focus on Business Development and know that others in my team can focus on the more technical subjects. There is plenty to absorb yourself in over the course of the summit and I’ll be taking plenty of notes! I will also be updating via my blog on what’s new, community gossip, what’s good in other countries that the UK & Irish teams can learn from, as well as anything else that takes my fancy.

Vlad’s letting me loose with the video camera so we’re going to put together some VladFire footage to show everyone else who couldn’t make it what’s going on.

So if you’re about at SMB Nation and you spy me, come on over and say ‘hello’ - it will be nice to meet some new faces as well as catch up with some more familar!

I also take this opportunity to stress the importance for events such as this which help bring peers together offline and help get a real sense of what our market is about. No matter what time zone you live in, you will find just by spending time with other businesses, either from abroad or on your own doorstep, that you can learn so much and come away energised with ideas on where to take your business next. You saw the effect that Boston had on many of us so I will be excited to hear some of the outcomes from Redmond next week.

Community events are key to establishing what we’re all really about. Why? Well everyone who attends has made the calculated decision to take a day or two out from their day to day working lives to learn. This means these guys want to make a difference to what they do, even spending a few minutes here and there on forums and blogs shows commitment, but you can’t beat good banter over lunch or a pint where you can get some real honest answers that would normally escape public forums. One man band or multi-site businesses can all benefit from information exchange as long as they know what they are looking for in the first place.

With the summer passing, the UK and Irish community is beginning to pick up momentum again and I know the SMB team at Microsoft are keen to pick up where they left off to help encourage business growth for their partners. Some of the group leaders have been discussing the possibility of a community day/weekend and if you would like to know more, please drop me an email or nudge your group leader. The UK & Irish community is one of the fastest growing networks and we have a lot of proactive partners keen to get a real sense of return for those involved (myself included). Want to help more? Well, if you belong to one of our 19 groups (please refer to the list of groups to the right of my site page) then take some of the load off your leader and throw some ideas out there. And if that doesn’t suit you, then tell someone who will listen who you think can help you. Like I say, if YOU don’t ask, YOU don’t get!

I’ll be visiting a few of the UK groups in the next few weeks to talk more about my experiences in the community, I don’t profess to know more than the next guy but people seem to be listening to me at the moment so it can’t all be bad!

I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for reading my posts. I was at a training session with Microsoft yesterday and met up with a partner who regularly reads what I babble on about and actually enjoys it! I am still getting the hang of this community stuff and I don’t think there has been a day since last year’s SMB Nation that I haven’t talked about the community. So thank you for your support and watch this space for more babble…