One for the Easter weekend....sometimes life can pass you by and you have to look at what is truly important. The post below said a lot to me about how people change when they get something they didn't expect - have a read then mosy on further down this post: 

http://fortifyservices.blogspot.com/2007/03/simple-courtesies.html

Some questions spring to mind:

• How come Rowan got all the 'brilliantly obvious brains' at birth (:-))?
• How many times does the impression of a company change when you meet the real people?
• How does simply remembering someone else's special occasion change the relationship you have with them?
• How come just being honest, open and direct really help people get more from a relationship?

I have blogged about passion before and often it's this passion that makes the difference, maybe just the passion to say the truth, maybe the passion to help others just to be better.

Now here's a secret - I used to be absolutely terrible at presenting (still am - Jazz hands and all that) but now I enjoy it following a few very handy tips from a TV presenter who gave me a little hand a few years ago. Be yourself - and people will link to your passion and maybe not agree, maybe not buy your idea but they will enjoy the ride..dont be afraid to be passionate if you love something. The moment to be afraid, is when you need to hide what you are passionate about, because of those around you.

Happy Easter to you all!

Controversial and hilarious post entitled: 'NOBS, the end of the MBA' by Seth Godin - really amusing parody of what the old style of MBA is and doesn't do:

NOBS, the end of the MBA

I slightly disagree with him, not sure you can tar all MBA courses with the same brush - some are now delivering some great content on experiential learning for example but I do agree that maybe too much emphasis is placed in areas that aren't practical. Seth's course timetable strikes a very sound note indeed:

1. Finding, hiring, and managing supergreat people

2. Embracing change and moving quickly

3. Understanding and excelling at business development and at making deals with other companies

4. Prioritizing tasks in a job that changes every day

5. Selling -- to people, to companies, and to markets

Now tell me a company that doesn't need skills like the above in all their management! The NOBs advice sounds very good to me:

NoBS is worth considering. Before you go to business school, before you decide that a fancy MBA is the one thing standing between you and success, you ought to think really hard about why you're going and what you're going to learn.

Funny how people can jump from department to department, company to company, even continent to continent searching for the company that understands them - maybe a piece of experiential learning to help you understand you could be the trick to success?

If not apply for the NoBS MBA today! Lol :-)

Righty ho for those Excel Services gurus amongst you the following will be like Christmas - great set of resources:

Estimate performance and capacity requirements for Excel Services environments

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/f?en-us/library/f0ff6cc9-2f84-4d73-8ac2-390bbcb08c151033.mspx

White papers: Excel Services step-by-step guides

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/f?en-us/library/eea3ace8-0863-429a-b1e8-041254ed2fc41033.mspx

Updated: 3/8/2007 12:00:00 AM

Chapter overview: Configure Excel Services

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/f?en-us/library/fdcce254-afdc-48f1-a023-8031d0443b8e1033.mspx

Plan access to Excel spreadsheets

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/f?en-us/library/93f576a4-e549-4675-b083-7fe4f145ac591033.mspx

Updated: 11/16/2006 12:00:00 AM

Plan rendering Excel KPI data

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/f?en-us/library/ff3ee313-7293-4611-b9ab-175d539878bc1033.mspx

Updated: 11/16/2006 12:00:00 AM

Plan Excel Services security

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/f?en-us/library/a49883a7-de84-4a66-8fa0-7c7d125f237b1033.mspx

Updated: 12/14/2006 12:00:00 AM

Determine resource requirements to support Excel Services

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/f?en-us/library/fb6928ce-49f8-492a-abff-5bd00ed588e21033.mspx

Updated: 11/16/2006 12:00:00 AM

Plan external data connections for Excel Services

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/f?en-us/library/7e6ce086-57b6-4ef2-8117-e725de18f2401033.mspx

Enjoy!

Just a quick post:

Get your free trial version here: www.microsoft.com/hpc

Hat tip to bink.nu for signposting the ZDNET article on Microsoft's success in the Compute Cluster space, the full article is here but have sliced out a few of the gems I like here:

"We think that's fertile ground that nobody else has hoed yet," said Gartner analyst John Enck. "We were pretty skeptical when they came to market with this, but they're doing much better than we anticipated."

Nice customer story:

That's exactly what happened in the case of the South Florida Water Management District, which is using Windows CCS to power a modest-size five-server cluster that computes water flow to as part of a multibillion-dollar habitat restoration project in the Everglades National Park.

The group also has a much larger Linux cluster, but the group also had Windows-based modeling tools that they moved easily to the cluster, said Akin Owosina, program manager for the district's Interagency Modeling Center.

Nice channel growth story too:

Microsoft also has struck partnerships with IBM, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and SGI to make it easier for customers to purchase clusters with software already set up. SGI likes having Windows CCS as an option for customers working on animation, for example.

Enjoy!

This made me smile, doubtless there are similar 2.0 errors in Live Maps:

http://tinyurl.com/2yqwz5

Step 37 is a cracker:

Lol :-)

So I guess I thought I would check what Live Maps did and happily here's the result:

http://maps.live.com/?q=london%20to%20san%20francisco&mkt=en-GB&FORM=BDRE 

Phew! 

Fantastic opportunity from my colleague Claire for ISV's looking for technical skills abroad, read on for more:

Helping ISV’s access Microsoft Skills Overseas

Following on from successful events in October and January to highlight the opportunity around off-shore development to SE Asia, UK Trade & Investment (DTI) in association with Microsoft are taking a trade delegation UK companies to Vietnam and the Philippines at the end of May.

What’s the opportunity?

There are still places remaining for  ISV’s and Enterprises on this trip. In Hanoi, you will have the chance to meet with Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer and senior ministers from the Govt. The itinerary in Manila also includes a reception at the British Embassy with President Arroyo. There will be significant press engagement associated with this mission.

You can do both or either of the country visits: w/c 21^st May to Hanoi and/or w/c 28^th May in Manila.

Why should I attend?

Are you:

· Finding it difficult to get dev resource in the UK?

· Thinking about outsourcing to India or elsewhere?

· Considering migration off other platform to .NET or SQL but can’t ‘justify’ it?

Then this is an opportunity not to be missed.

What about travel costs?

UKTI will subsidise this trip (100%) for some companies as spokespeople and the Regional Development Agencies will provide grants to the remaining delegates. Our partners and Microsoft in the region will be providing substantial support on the ground so your costs are minimised.

I’m interested. How do I sign up?

For an application form please contact Donna Chubb asap.

Great new site for showing your customers what MOSS 07 does and can help you to achieve in your business:

Search for documents and business plans:

Searching for customer contacts in 3rd party systems like SAP or Siebel:

Love the UI and the business minded simple approach - nice, this will marry really well with an announcement I will be making later this month so stay tuned for more on that one :-)

So of all the developments in Microsoft around Search this year, this is one of the coolest innovations we have seen to date. Supporting our channel partners with some great training and more, check out what you can get:

1. Deep Technical Training
2. Free elearning
3. Exam Vouchers

So when you check out the skills in your business and want to give more to your employees make sure you join the Quickstart as soon as possible - be warned the exam vouchers will run out quickly!

The more people you get qualified, the more chance you have of joining the Search specialisation when launched in July!

So was out and about today and happened to have 5 minutes spare when I went past the new TechGuys shop in Woodley near Reading. Really friendly people, really cool set of services that would definitely be useful for some of my neighbours and my parents! Check out there simple list of most popular services.

Best of luck to them - nice concept, well priced services for those not in the know and a really friendly experience when going into the store - good on ya.

Check them out when you get a chance!

So for those of you who were in Minneapolis last year you will know how amazing the Microsoft Partner Conference can be, this year we are doing it all again in Denver! Instead of banging on about how good it was I thought I would give you an insight on why I think the partner conference is good and what I get out of it:

1. Motivation - A huge motivation boost seeing and hearing the experience of partners working with our technologies from all geographies worldwide
2. Insight - Fantastic insight to the new technologies coming out over the next few years
3. Networking - a great time to meet those people you haven't been able to connect with all year or those people you have worked with remotely (product groups for example) but not been able to actually meet
4. Fun - the sense of community and the fact the UK party is always remarked as one of the best each year (which is why the MS global Execs come along)

So how could this help your business in practical terms:

• Develop new offerings on new technologies that provide opportunity for your business
• Develop relationships with other businesses to help you grow in your competence areas
• Share experiences with the people who write the code or manage the businesses on a worldwide or country level

To register just click here and if you do attend make sure you come to my session on Enterprise Search with references on how to work with MS HQ, the field and the partner perspective!

Look forward to seeing you there!

The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search (MOSSFS) 180-day Evaluation Kit is now available, this includes:

· SharePoint Server 2007 for Search Standard Edition (32-bit and 64-bit)

· Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard (32-bit)

· SQL Server 2005 Enterprise (32-bit)

· SharePoint Designer 2007 (32-bit)

Please get in touch if you would like one and I will get them sent to you - we are placing a priority on UK partners first!

Another great article from Brian Sentance and the gang over at Xenomorph, check it out here:

"Cluster Wars - Scaling-Up Derivatives"

Fantastic to see the new ways people are using the power of Compute Cluster Server for.

Enjoy!

Saw this site the other night and loved the list here: Top 10 Ajax Applications and the even more interesting is the top 23 Mashups

Well worth a browse if you get a spare moment!

Enjoy!

Saw this great online article sent through by my friend Sol - great few words on MOSS 07 and what it will be and does (see - SharePoint 2007 6 pillars of MOSS) I particularly liked the following sentence:

So the competition is in no way thin on the ground, but looking at this from a different perspective, the move does begin to make good on Ballmer’s ebullient promise that SharePoint (MOSS) 2007 is in fact Microsoft’s new operating system

One of the challenges and opportunities we have with MOSS 07 is that it does so much - if we look at the different ways you can use the product to help businesses you can actually help your customers around these 6 pillars but only ever sell them one software platform. So why is this cool for you as a partner:

1. Create wonderful ongoing partnerships with your customer in many different departments driving real value into their business for example helping HR to get new starters up to speed rapidly by finding things colleagues, teams, and resources easily
2. Allow the IT decision of a software purchase to be used in many ways therefore helping justify the purchase without more point solutions being supported by department (and hence decrease costs)
3. Drive a high net worth services business around clear business aligned platform messages - for example help HR, drive cost out of finance, allow more compliance with brand guidelines for web content management etc

Really cool stuff!

So whilst we run the first user group for CCS at Microsoft, look what happens to the MSFT share price!

Made me smile!

Some of you may have seen this but it passed a few of us by, the evaluation software for MOSS 07 Search SKU is now freely available. Check it out  - very handy if your customer is in the following situations:

1. Wants to take advantage of the Microsoft Enterprise Search platform in conjunction with an existing content management system
2. You are an ISV wanting to build search into your application and want to test the platform interoperability with your app
3. You are a system builder wishing to develop your own search appliances

Enjoy!

This video is handy as it shows a few nice things about Excel Services - it starts off by giving a good resume on Excel services as follows:

Why Excel Services:

1. Business reports need version control
2. Excel needs server side help for sharing reports broadly to enable collaborative BI
3. Require better protection for excel and hence more user control

The other things I like about this is how it clearly shows the value of server side excel around scalability, security and then goes onto the API environment and why this can be useful to businesses. The session then focuses on the app building arena with Excel Services in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

How can this be useful for partners:

1. Build your average deal size in your funnel
2. Increase your relevance for customers around security, scalability and version control
3. Target the huge opportunity around Financial services who care hugely about all of the above in both big City Finance and the IFA environments

Enjoy!

Been looking for this for a while now, how good are we at documents on how to take your XFN scripts and play with your XML heebeegeebeees....well yes actually rather good. So I liked this site because it's simple:

Why doesn't more of our stuff start off with a nice 'Basics' overview - great to see the office team setting the standard. Check it out if you want to see the basics on Excel Services.

Enjoy!

I don't usually post this type of thing, but this is important for all customers and partner alike. Support the Open XML petition - many companies are trying to achieve greater interoperability between front end and back end offices - the Open XML standard that we are trying to drive along with Apple, Novell and others is trying to achieve ISO standards to make business easier for all. So why is this important:

- Ecma Open XML was developed through the collaborative efforts of leading companies such as Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, The British Library, Essilor, Intel, Microsoft, NextPage, Novell, Statoil, Toshiba and the US Library of Congress

- Ecma Open XML is backward compatible with billions of archived documents held by the private and public sectors

- Any company can freely implement and develop innovative products using Ecma Open XML

- Ecma Open XML enables interoperability, accommodates multiple languages and cultures, and supports technologies that enable people with disabilities to use computing devices

It takes just 10 seconds to enter your details at the link above.

Thanks!

I have been waiting to write about software passion for a little while now, and just recently have had two great examples of Software Passion in Business:

1. Attending the Partnering for the Future day at Microsoft Research Cambridge - we gathered a group of entrepreneurs together and spoke about the challenges in the industry and how we can address them together - check out a whole oodle of detail here on Steve's blog
2. Reading the Top Gear blog about the motor industry and passion in Motor Industry Execs - nice post here

So what does all this make me think about, and why am I posting this under Search and Business?

1. If you don't love what you do then go do something else - a bit like that Blue Monster
2. Whatever you are doing, do it with passion - it might be just putting up a shelf - but do it so you care if not why bother?

When I look at the software world there are people who play in the software sandpit who really don't care about your data and about what software does - whether that be those people who don't respond to customer calls for support when there is a security bug or those who are really after something else. If you are a partner or a customer make sure you do a few things before engaging with any business:

1. Check they are serious and passionate about what they do - buyer and partner beware, so how can you tell: do they give you a plan of how they can grow with your business plan, how will you be able to change the way you work with a given supplier so that you can meet industry or government guidelines - think compliance in Finance and or mobile working directives?
2. Check they are in it for the long term and will back you when the proverbial hits the fan - and if it does - can you get your information from a particular supplier format and into other freely available standards?

I guess the main thing is just to check that they care about what you do and if they don't then walk away. Some people just want a market to achieve another..watch out for them...'cos their best interests may not match yours in the short, medium or long term...

Just food for thought....information is valuable...work with people who think likewise and respect yours!