Back in the fall – Damir and the team went our across Canada with the “IT Manager” focused series of events under the “Align IT” banner. It’s format was simple, having basically three parts.

1. Provide background on the Infrastructure Optimization model based on information Microsoft had collected from it’s customers worldwide.
2. Bring in local Microsoft Consulting Service experts who had engaged with customers using the IO model as a framework for mapping out a plan on how to get an organization up to a higher level of maturity.
3. Talk about an enabling technology that can help an organization be more agile and possibly move up the IO model. The technology was Virtualization and how to manage it effectively with the rest of the organization. 

The event concluded with a networking lunch opportunity where the attendees (including presenters) could mingle with different tables and talk about issues they are facing today in their work environments. Personally – I find this portion of the day absolutely invaluable. It allows us to sit and listen to what you have to say about any topic. In case you didn’t know, we take all this information very seriously and compile it as a team in order to determine how we’re doing on meeting your needs and about the state of the nation for IT Managers in Canada.

One thing that came up frequently was the difficulty locating relevant resources for IT Managers on the Microsoft site. Resources are spread around and often mixed in with Technology reference areas targeted at developers and IT professionals. We took that feedback and started to come up with a plan to make things more relevant and discoverable.

I am pleased to announce that we’ve launched a resource page specifically designed for IT Managers in Canada.

I spent some time perusing the page recently and I wanted to draw your attention to some highlights:

• Direct contact / email to our team. Damir Bersinic is our point person for IT Manager related activities and resources on our team. He’s put up his info and email address right on the page in case you have any need to talk or make a connection to someone who’s passionate about IT Managers at Microsoft.
• Links to our most asked for resources from AlignIT – our IO model, evaluation tools and reference information. We’ve got Infrastructure, Application Platform and Business productivity highlighted on the main page with more resources to follow.
• Hot Topics like Licensing and platform architecture / blueprints for solutions.
• Beneath the fold resources include links to Podcasts, webcasts, events and training for IT Managers and your staff.

The design of the page is such that we can feed in new and relevant content as we create it or as it’s identified to us as something to share. It is also designed to leverage Social Bookmarking from our TechNet/MSDN community driven Social bookmarking engine.

Check out the site – give Damir or myself your feedback and ping us if you feel there is something we can add to provide more value to the IT Manager Portal. I am anxious to see how it evolves over time.

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