Wet String and Sellotape : Offtopic

So why: 'Wet String and Sellotape'...?

Mike P — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:12:02 GMT

So it's probably worth a post to enlighten a few of you on the new title I have decided upon for this blog. There have been a few people who have impacted me whilst I have been working in the IT Industry and I love hearing new phrases that different people use around the world to really simply explain what they like, love and enthuse about. Most of these can be fantastic passive interrupts to help you to steer meetings on track and or help people to stay to the point. These are some of the phrases that still ring in my head and I try to keep on remembering when talking to partners and customers about what we do:

'Mike I don't care if it's wet string and sellotape as long as I can make money from it and or it saves me money elsewhere!'

So the big learning is really very very simple but how many times do we hear presentations or meetings that place all the emphasis on the 'what' and less on the impact or value?

Other great phrases that have stayed with me include:

'I need to know it's like selling £5 notes for 50p'

'We were born with two ears and one mouth lad remember that!'

'Have you ever been asked to do a comedy show on TV? ....no...that might be because your jokes aren't really that funny'

So what can you expect going forward from this blog. Well it will be straight talking, have more of a global outlook as I head on my travels, so far in the diary I have Canada, Wastern Europe, Central and Eastern Europe and of course Seattle when I finally arrive!

I hope you enjoy my musings!

Moving on...

Mike P — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:53:45 GMT

For a number of years now I have had the huge opportunity of working with a very talented bunch of folks in Microsoft UK and the UK technology market. Whether it was in my early days in Microsoft UK in the Enterprise customer space or later on in the Small and Medium Partner world I have had a fantastic time helping partners to drive more business from the days of the XP launch and the first version of SharePoint to the heady times of Security, High Performance Computing and Enterprise Search.

Over the last four years I have worked with partners who are new to Microsoft and have helped them to build successful practices on Microsoft technology. I have now been given the opportunity lead the team worldwide and will be relocating to Redmond next week to work in the Worldwide Partner Group. It's often a cliche to say 'it is with mixed emotions that...bla bla bla' but I have to say I am sad to be leaving the UK and hugely excited to be heading off to pastures new. I am not a huge fan of leaving do's and so will be slipping out the door quietly.

This does of course mean that my insight into the Enterprise Search and HPC spaces will be dwindling as I wont have the luxury of working on those areas full time. I am therefore going to change the blog so that it becomes a discussion area for technology evangelism and how that impacts our partners and customers.

I hope you have enjoyed the show and I look forward to working with you all in the future!

Inbound to Houston...check out digital WPC from your sofa

Mike P — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:08:27 GMT

I am lucky enough to be heading over to Houston along with around 500 partners from the UK and a host of Microsoft folks to learn what we have in store for partners next year. I always get a huge buzz from these types of events and feel energised as a result, I know from speaking to many of you - you do too.

Our conference is now hosted online too and you can watch keynotes either live or on demand - really nicely built site for you web devs out there - check it out by clicking on the image above.

Hopefully see you in Houston!

Offtopic - love cars?

Mike P — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:11:51 GMT

Love cars?

Check out this blog: http://jalopnik.com/

Just fab!

SharePoint Seattle Conference - UK Party Information Here!

Mike P — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:41:20 GMT

Roll up Roll Up all UK attendees of the Seattle SharePoint conference - we have confirmed the venue and timing for the UK soiree - an evening of sophisticated discussion, sporting activity and of course fine food and refreshment!

Date: Monday 3rd March - 6pm until midnight

Location: Garage Billiards click to get the precise map

Dress Code: Whatever you Like :)

Note: Please bring a form of UK Government issued ID

Please come along and meet the UK MOSS team - we look forward to hosting you!

New Microsoft Action Pack - details here!

Mike P — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:44:38 GMT

24,000 of our 34,000 Registered Partners currently subscribe to Action Pack, our quarterly toolkits of software and sales and marketing materials. These are created to help our partners stay competitive, meet their sales goals and grow their business. So what is in the new action pack?

New Rules and how you get it:

To enhance the value of Action Pack, from March 1^st, all of those renewing their subscription must take a course and pass an assessment to renew. Partners must take one specific Microsoft online course from the required Partner Learning Centre course list and complete its associated assessment with a minimum score of 70 per cent. To continue receiving Action Pack, partners must pass an assessment every two years. Courses are all 100% subsidised and take no more than 60 minutes. The assessments will take no more than 30 minutes to complete.

If this might be of interest to your readers, in your blog posting would it be possible to highlight the following:

1. All information regarding the Microsoft Action Pack resides at: www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/actionpack

2. We have made available to partners a enrolment and re-enrolment guide from: www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/actionpack

3. If partners have a query regarding their Action Pack subscription, they should call: 0870 60 70 700 (press option 1)

Enjoy!

Opportunity Of a Lifetime - Play at Wembley...?

Mike P — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:55:51 GMT

Quick post - do you fancy a dream come true by playing on the hallowed turf at Wembley? We had a channel team last year and raised over £59,000 for the Wooden Spoon Charity.

Fancy taking part then....send a mail to Donna Chubb @ i-dchubb@microsoft.com with your bid - the top 15 bids will get to take part!

Offer closes this week - top 15 win, charity is the NSPCC, starting bids at £500.

The Future of Web Search

Mike P — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:16:57 GMT

A very simple post here, amazing work from the Microsoft Live Labs team - simple and really cool graphics using Silverlight. I love the following:

The Halo skin (okay so I am a sucker!)
The graphics around the different types of content search
The accuracy and speed

Try it out for yourself, I suspect this is all powered from the same www.live.com search that is hugely revamped over the last few days - check out the mapping functionality which is such a huge step change on where we and the market have been, below a sample query:

Nice work :-)

Solid work ethics and the big picture - don't confuse the two...

Mike P — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:48:57 GMT

Hmmm ever felt that someone is putting their heart and soul into something but don't quite see the big picture?

Made me smile, thanks to Jon at TBS for sending through!

My favourite books...

Mike P — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:49:48 GMT

Thought I would share my favourite books with you all:

Social Intelligence - Daniel Goleman
How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
Fish! - Stephen C. Lundin
The Art of War - Sun Tzu
Good to Great - Jim Collins

All well worth a read and fantastic books!

Enjoy!

Top Stuff I have seen recently..

Mike P — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 13:16:00 GMT

Made me smile:

How to tell if your boss is nuts: saw this from the brilliant Execupundit blog: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/bing/0706/quiz.crazybosses.fortune/index.html

Think I might be lucky having read some of those weirdo options to tick!

Things that make me smile...World Communications Awards...:-)

Mike P — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 21:16:28 GMT

So there I was working away and an e-mail from the World Communications Awards dropped into my inbox - so I had a quick look and the irony was amazing!

Made me smile - happens to us all!

Simple blogging - great tool to use...Live Writer beta 2 goes public!

Mike P — Thu, 31 May 2007 10:31:39 GMT

So having written this blog for a few months you try out all types of blogging tools to help make writing posts easier. So far I have used all the following:

Blog r'Mail
Community Server directly
Live Writer all betas

The one I keep coming back to is Livewriter - not because it is ours but merely because it is the one that allows me to do the following simple and easily:

Insert photos
Tag posts
Save drafts of posts
Quickly add hyperlinks
Quickly insert video (watch out for those posts to come!)

Now most of the blogging tools out there do all of the above - but the way in which LiveWriter allows you to 'just get on with what you need to' makes it the one for me to use. If you haven't tried it, there is a new beta 2.0 out today - click on the download link below to check it out:

Enjoy!

Microsoft Surface: Coolest piece of Microsoft Technology for a decade?

Mike P — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:36:00 GMT

Click on the picture above and enjoy....least said the better....seriously cool technology with amazing potential....think I need a new dining able... :)

Overtime for mobile mail users?

Mike P — Mon, 28 May 2007 17:58:44 GMT

Was trawling around a few blogs and came across this interesting article on Over-Time Pay For Reading E-mail on Your Blackberry at Home now it does strike me as amusing for the following reasons:

Surely if this is legal advice from am esteemed law professor, then I should be charged for each 6 minute increment I check out the blog? Don't tell me the world is going soft and we are now getting benevolent lawyers - I will see parking attendants in central London hugging babies next!
A very interesting view that an employer providing the ability to work flexibly and remotely should then be charged for that benefit contribution by the very employee they are trying to help...?

Please tell me someone hasn't forgotten the best button on these devices:

Hmmm seems someone forgot to tell the plaintiff in the above case that a little two way flexibility was a good thing?

Enjoy!