I'm currently up late and being insomniac in my Adams Mark Hotel room in Denver Colorado, which makes me slightly "oh I GOTTA get to sleep" -ish and at the same time restlessly anxious to write my way through the night. I've kind of got this idea that a burst of exciting creative work can guide me to slumber (and no, Alanis Morrisette this isn't "ironic", nor is a black fly on your chardonnay. God, I hate that stupid song.)
In any case, I'm getting ready to leave in the early morning to head back from the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference to DC and my remodeling-in-progress, cat-loaded, wife-away-for-three-damned-more weeks (I miss her) house. I got to musing a bit about things and realized that I go to a lot of conferences and cover a lot of "stuff" mostly, of course, CRM related and comment on what I think of what and yet there is something that I rarely comment on and that my fellow pundits also shamefully rarely to never comment on, which is the forces and people carrying on that made the trips we take to these things possible. They are part of the CRM story too and they are ignored because, well, maybe they are "just doing their jobs" or they aren't the Steve Ballmers or COO Kevin Turners of Microsoft, they aren't the keynoters either. But when it boils down to it they make it all work.
Before you get all, "oh, he's going to talk about the 'little' people...." on me....STOP. They aren't "little" people. They are important creative thinkers like everyone else in the universe who goes by the moniker, human. They do their jobs, they work hard, they have dreams, they have bosses, they have stresses and pressures, they have a job to do, they have a life, they sometimes don't have a life, they want a life, they have families, and friends and occasional enemies. They do things they regret, they are stars in other fields or their own; they have outside interests and love cooking, camping, reading, baseball, sex, church, technology, or maybe they just like to chill on weekends. Maybe they ARE CEOs of smaller companies. Maybe they don't have Steve Ballmer's handslapping, nervous, ambitious crackling energy. But they have their own form of energy and they are the ones that make Steve Ballmer's energy possible - at least those around here do that. In fact, in his keynote, Ballmer in a moment of his unhinged, uncontrolled MOVEMENT, ran through the partner crowd, slapping five and saying "you energize me." The weird thing is that he doesn't do that stuff just for show, though there is some of that. He's telling the truth. I'm speaking about the people who energize him.
And me.
The ONLY difference is that writers like me don't often cover these folks though I know, from conversations I have with my analyst and journalist and consultant and industry friends, we think about them. But DAMN are they ever friggin' good.
I mean, you had to see this conference. There were 13,000 Microsoft Business Partners roaming the huge, urban minimalist Denver Convention Center - an indoor colossus of a building that was as long a building as I ever saw. In order for me to get to the press room from the Adam's Mark, I had to allow about 10 minutes for the walk from the Hotel up the 16th St. Mall, one of the liveliest human circuses I ever saw and then another 10 minutes for walking through the building to get to the room that the press room was in (though, truthfully, that was before I found the indoor shortcut that reduced that time by half). It was THAT long.
Microsoft did it up right. There were soda and water machines everywhere. They had coffee and fruit cups and ice cream and little foodie things (cheeps, but no hambuggas) all up and down all the hallways in the place. The Expo had hundreds of partners exhibiting and there were, for my purposes, gems and partner surprises everywhere. I'll be mentioning a couple of them in just a minute. There was a Microsoft wireless network that me and my iphone hooked up to seamlessly and that everyone in the known Microsoft Partner ecosystem/universe was using - whether they were sitting down at these tables and chairs that were reminiscent of the furniture that's the hallmark of a Saturday Night Live "Nunie" bit, or on the floor. There were geeks everywhere. I saw this beautiful young woman sitting on the steps inside the building working on her laptop because something came to her in the middle of a geekdream and she just literally plopped down to the floor in this area that one had to go through to get into the building - meaning through her - and started to peck out the dream on her laptop, oblivous to all traffic. Kind of a Zen geekdom that you could only see at a conference like this one.
The conversations and buzz. Well, most of it was Exchange Server, Visual Studio-speak, because Microsoft was announcing that they were releasing new versions in 2008 and that was a big deal to the partners. There was Vista talk and talk about colorful striped socks - some guy had 6 pairs and someone he knew at his company noticed them and when they were walking around in London they had a running joke about finding them....guess you had to be there.
The press room was something else. They all are so serious about what they do and that's good and bad. At their peak, all the chairs around long tables were filled with earnest reporters who were pecking away at ethernet connected laptops with total and, honestly, kind of grim concentration on getting their story out. They were chatting and laying around, but there wasn't any of that young Paul Greenberg's starry eyed "being a reporter is important because we're chroniclers of human history and the ages" dream that drove me to graduate Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Maybe it was there. I didn't see much.
But, see, I ran into one of those hidden gems out there - Kimberly S. Johnson a Denver Post Business Technology reporter, who was doing something that I don't often hear from journalists - trying to wrap her arms around the idea of the Microsoft partner ecosystem and what all the visionary and detailed statements coming out meant in the grand scheme. THAT was SO damned refreshing because she wanted to figure out the concepts.
Our conversation began because she asked me if I knew if there were any analysts in the room. Even though I had a press badge, I suppose I'm more of an analyst than a journalist so I volunteered myself. How gallantly arrogant, n'est ce pas? I'm glad I have so highflung an opinion of me.
In any case we had a discussion which encompassed the whole environments and ecosystems thing that I've spoken about so many times that I won't repeat it, but I was delighted to converse because I learned a lot in the conversation. We didn't just speak about the formalities, but about reporting, and the transformation that's being forced on the print media by Web 2.0 and by how interesting the world is right now and sometimes so hard to fathom.
I deal with lots of reporters and rarely do they ask or think about the big questions that actually are more interesting than the facts of the matter. But Kimberly did and that's something.
Thing is, there are so many more things. I'm going to tell you a few more people who didn't speak at the conference who totally impressed me. Sometimes I'm going to be one or two sentences short. Other times a little more florid. All of these people got more than just my respect. The degree of intensity varies but the whole was there.
Oh, before I do that, there was one guy who was prominent at the conference I want to mention and that would be Brad Wilson. He runs the CRM strategy for Microsoft and I have to say, he is doing a very, very, very good job. I came out of this conference impressed with him as a person and as a strategist. He's not just a kool aid drinker for Microsoft. He has a vision that I really like on how to use Microsoft LiveCRM/CRM as platform that is only barely touched with the Microsoft Marketplace. I'll leave the rest for him to reveal when he feels the time is right. But its a good, smart vision and impressive. Pulver, you were totally right.
He was highly visible.
Now a few of the others.
Mitch Cannaday, President, Spinnaker - when I saw my itinerary, I knew his name and didn't know why. When I met with him we figured it out. He and I go back almost 10 years to SalesLogix (he worked there and I was a partner) and had a bunch of mutual friends in Pat Sullivan and Paul McCauley. He is an articulate, extremely well versed CRM veteran and he gave me a significant insight in how to look at the "single codebase" for Live and on premise CRM and overall initiatives. He uses it as an incubation platform. Meaning he brings in new fresh employees - sales people, developers etc. to work from the more simplified Live platform and when he wants to grow them to the more complex arenas, he can make that transition more easily because they are operating from the same foundation they were when they were newbies. A totally interesting take and a way for youngsters to get a foot in the industry door that is only possible in such a model. Makes the hybrid thing a bit more interesting. The guy is smart and creative and does a lot of speaking Waggener Edstrom Worldwideand has some ideas that are just plain unique.
Karin Rosain, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide - Karin turns 30 today and she is something else. She is the lead PR person for Waggener Edstrom when it comes to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM team (she never told me she was the lead person. I'm assuming that). She took care of EVERYTHING for me. My entire meeting list, except those I invented at the conference itself, my travel, my nervous inquiries, my blabbering...she made sure that it all ran smooth and that ALL the PR ran smooth for Brad and the Microsoft Dynamics CRM team. Yet she did it without a bit of rancor, or anxiety. She is a charming, ambitious and sweet human being - in addition to being better than just competent - actually superlative at what she is tasked to do and what she goes out of her way above and beyond to do. I only met her at the conference but I was truly impressed about the way she handled PR, me and above all herself. Yet, where in the program is her name? But there wouldn't be a program without her on her game and with her excellent work. I also want to say thank you to her for making my experience work.
Bill Pollie, President of Neocase Software - I know Neocase for about a year plus when they requested a meeting with me at Gartner. They are a highly robust customer service focused on demand/on premise (your choice), not particularly pretty, but very capable, application with some strong features. They are a French company who has had a bit of a problem gaining traction in the U.S. market where they have tough competition from the RightNows of this continent. I was literally wandering rather aimlessly through the Partner Expo, time to kill but no particular rhyme, reason or path, when I came across a Neocase booth that stated rather boldly that they were a Certified Gold Partner of Microsoft.
Huh? When I met the former U.S President and the former SVP of Marketing there at Gartner in 2006, they never told me that (or I'm having a serious senior moment). But I ran into Anna who I knew from Gartner and she set up a meeting with their new President (a bit less than a year) Bill Pollie. I gotta tell you, because of him, Neocase is going on my radar. When I met with them in 2006, they didn't get onto it. I liked what I saw but....so what. But Bill, ah, this man is another story.
First, his business history and credentials are phenomenal. Nine years an SAP VP of Field Operations; 4 years a VP of Microsoft Dynamics among a longer history than that. Distinguished and accomplished. Personally, a totally kindred spirit - New Yorker par excellence, every bit as big a Yankees fan as I am if not more. An exciting visionary guy who also knows something very important - which is, distinguished history or not, he is a human being who is proud of his kids (VERY proud), loves his outside interests (those Yankees :-)) and knows how to communicate with people in a way that engages them. Which is exactly the kind of person who, when they can execute too (which with his history he clearly can) can make a company successful and put that company on the maps of cautious skeptics like me . He is a GREAT guy and has some things up his sleeve that I can't wait for him to announce for Neocase. One thing, in particular, I think is unique. But that will be public when they make it that. But does he have some big public platform? Nope. But he has an amazing reach and a great gift and I may have even found a friend.
But that's exactly what I mean. One thing to remember always about CRM which is its most distinguishing characteristic when it comes to business is that it is the art of life's translation into a science of business. Its flawed, f'ed up a lot but it has a human dimension which not only makes it fascinating but also is the foundation for the business value it provides. Which is why you can never forget the totality and the individuals who make it up. It all matters as do they all matter.
So, I'm going to do one more for the conference and that will be on Microsoft Surface. But for now, I've got to try to get some sleep or its gonna be a long night. But when writing about something so nice, frankly, even insomnia doesn't seem that bad.
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