Lessons from Microsoft Inspire

With Microsoft’s global partner conference, Microsoft Inspire, behind us now, I thought we would use this month’s #CollabTalk tweetjam to bring members of the community together to share their takeaways from this fantastic event, which took place this year at the Washington Convention Center in downtown Washington DC. This was my 8th time attending the event (formerly known as WPC), and 3rd time attending in DC. As a Microsoft partner, I wouldn’t miss this event for the world — and while I didn’t attend a single session, I view it as one of the best investments I’ll make this year in my business as it is an opportunity to connect with Microsoft sales, marketing, and product team members, as well as ISVs, SIs, and every other partner-type in the ecosystem. This is not necessarily an event for technology announcements (although there were a few), but an opportunity to make contacts, build your channel, and learn.

For this month’s tweetjam, our topic is “Takeaways from Microsoft Inspire 2017″ and will include an assortment of partners, MVPs (many of whom are also registered partners), solution providers, and community influencers who will be giving time and sharing their thoughts on the event and announcements. If you were unable to attend the event, you can always watch the vision keynotes that are now available on-demand (links for Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3), as well as check out the 10 highest rated sessions — and then join the discussion and share your opinions. Or just jump in and ask questions — this is an open, community-based discussion, so all are welcome!

Please join the community discussion on Thursday, July 27th at 8am Pacific using Twitter and the #CollabTalk hashtag, or through the dedicated tweetjam site at http://twubs.com/CollabTalk. This month’s tweetjam is sponsored by tyGraph, who are once again providing the awesome stats!

If you’ve never participated in one of these tweetjams, it’s pretty simple: anyone can jump in and share their thoughts, or just lurk in the wings and absorb the wisdom of the crowd. Either way, it’ll be a TON of content to consume in a single hour. You can follow the live session using the Twitter UI of your choice (Twitter.com, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Twubs, whatever). How it works is that I’ll post a series of questions every few minutes, and people will respond to Q1, Q2, Q3 and so forth with A1, A2, A3, always including the #CollabTalk hashtag with their answers. Feel free to reply as often (or as little) as you’d like, ask your own follow up questions, share relevant links, retweet others, and engage with the audience.

The questions we will discuss during the session include:

1. For those who attended, what were your 3 top takeaways from Inspire this year?
2. How does the announcement of Microsoft 365 impact your business?
3. How does the One Commercial Partner program change Microsoft field sales and partner strategies?
4. Will the ISV Cloud Embed program help Microsoft entice ISVs to build more business apps for the ecosystem?
5. With new apps, continued investment, and LinkedIn integrations, will FY2018 be the breakout year for Dynamics 365?
6. Between the Intelligent Workplace, AI, and Mixed Reality, how is Microsoft’s technology direction impacting your business?
7. What other announcements should Microsoft partners and customers pay attention to from Inspire 2017?

Of course, there will be side-questions, side-conversations, and wise-cracking throughout. This is open to the public, so please join in the discussion! The dialog is usually thought-provoking but also fun.

Participating on this panel (more names to be added):

• Toby Richards (@tobyrichards), gm of partner programs, ww channels & programs at Microsoft
• Debra Pfundstein (@DebPfundstein), director or marketing and channel development at Conquest Technology Services Corp
• Kati Quigley (@katiqu), senior director, global marketing and channel partner recruitment at Microsoft
• Vince Menzione (@vincemenzione),  founder of Cloud Wave Partners
• Jeffrey Schwartz (@jeffreyschwartz), editor of Redmond Magazine and editor-at-large for Redmond Channel Partner magazine
• Eric Overfield (@ericoverfield), Microsoft Regional Director, SharePoint MVP, and founder of PixelMill
• Rachel Braunstein (@rkbraunstein), digital marketing manager & podcast host for @mspartner at Microsoft
• Raymond J. Paganini (@raypaganini), ceo at Cornerstone IT
• Jon Rivers (@jon_rivers), social media disruption expert, founder of Marketing Monarchs
• Paul Solski (@paulsolski), managing director & founder of AIM International
• Randy Steinle (@RandySteinle), vp at Onsupport Corp and president of IAMCP-US
• Jeff Shuey (@jshuey), founder and managing director at NuNalu, president of IAMCP Seattle
• David Gersten (@dsgersten), vp of sales and marketing at Bond Consulting Services, and secretary, west region chair for IAMCP US
• Melanie Gass (@msftprincess), territory channel manager at Microsoft
• Barb Campbell (@AllianceCoach3), chief of strategic alliances and partners at Campbell Consultants, Ltd
• Stacy Deere-Strole (@sldeere), SharePoint MVP and owner of Focal Point Solutions
• Heather Newman (@heddanewman), co-founder and cmo of ContentPanda
• Robert Toro (@SharePointToro), SharePoint practice director at Slalom
• Ryan Schouten (@ShrPntKnight) senior SharePoint architect and evangelist at ZAACT
• Doug Hemminger (@DougHemminger), SharePoint MVP and evangelist with SPR Consulting
• Eric Klauss (@eklaussmentor), principal at PartnerSource Solutions and president IAMCPSoCal
• Brad Orluk (@bradorluk), enterprise solution architect at Nintex
• Jenny Kordell (@jennykordell), community manager of global Microsoft Partner Community (#MPN) at Microsoft, liaison to IAMCP & IAMCPWIT
• Francois Pienaar (@fhpienaar), sales executive at Mint Management Technologies
• Shane Young (@shanescows), SharePoint MVP, principal consultant for Bold Zebras, and coo of Rescoper
• Dux Raymond Sy (@meetdux), Microsoft Regional Director, SharePoint MVP, and CMO of AvePoint
• Nyasha Tunduwani (@siyana), founder and technology solutions advisor at Real Impact Technology Consulting
• Adam Levithan (@collabadam), Office 365 MVP and senior product manager at Exostar
• Maarten Visser (@mvisser), founder and product manager at Meetroo, business architect at Connected Services
• Nick Brattoli (@Byrdttoli), founder and lead consultant at Byrdttoli Enterprise Consulting
• Tobiasz Koprowski (@KoprowskiT), Data Platform MVP, independent consultant
• David Willis (@Exclaimer), senior marketing executive at Exclaimer
• Noah Sparks (@noahsparks), Office Servers and Services MVP, community igniter and strategy manager at Brainstorm
• Melinda Morales (@trulymelinda), solution consultant at 3Sharp
• Eric Riz (@rizinsights), SharePoint MVP and ceo of Empty Cubicle
• John White (@diverdown1964), SharePoint MVP and cto at UnlimitedViz Inc.
• Theresa Eller (@SharePointMadam), SharePoint administrator at PinnacleART
• and your host, Christian Buckley (@buckleyplanet), Office Servers and Services MVP, founder & ceo of CollabTalk LLC

If you would like to join our panel, please drop me a line. Otherwise, everyone is invited. And if you can’t make the time – don’t worry. I’ll capture the entire discussion in Storify and post the link to the various social feeds. Watch my Twitters via @buckleyplanet for updates.