Focusing on Microsoft Partners

With the annual Microsoft partner conference, Microsoft Inspire, now behind us, it is time for the community to once again gather and discuss our takeaways from this year’s virtual event, including product announcements, program changes, and partner impacts — both real and perceived. The October 3rd rollover to the revamped partner network, now the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program, is rapidly approaching, and with it changes to partner competencies, incentives, and licensing, with a heightened focus on customer success and market impact.

In the next #CollabTalk TweetJam taking place on Tuesday, July 26th at 9am PDT (UTC -7), the community will once again join forces and have a focused discussion on the topic of “Navigating the Microsoft Partner Ecosystem” to discuss our thoughts on these new program changes and all of the announcements made during the Ignite event this month. In this 1-hour Twitter-based panel discussion, we’ll bring together MVPs and Regional Directors, community experts, partners, consultants, and practitioners to share their perspectives on this important topic.

Anyone can join this community discussion using Twitter and the #CollabTalk hashtag or your favorite Twitter platform. You don’t even need to be an “expert” to participate in the online conversation. Anyone can ask questions, comment on the questions posed, or just “lurk” in the background. These online discussions are open to anyone — you do not have to be on the panel to participate.

As always, this month’s tweetjam is being sponsored by tyGraph and AvePoint. Thanks for your support!

If you have 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, 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, re-tweet others, and engage with the audience.

The questions we will discuss during the session include:

1. What are the top issues facing Microsoft partners in 2022?
2. What have been the benefits to your business from joining Microsoft’s partner program?
3. What were your biggest takeaways from last week’s Microsoft Inspire 2022 event?
4. How does/will the overhaul of Microsoft’s partner program (now the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program) impact your business?
5. How will the streamlining of competencies, replacing Gold/Silver status with Solution Partners and six solution areas, impact your business?
6. How is your communication / collaboration with Microsoft, and in what ways could it be improved?
7. What are your recommendations or best practices for new partners who are joining the Microsoft ecosystem?

As always, 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 always thought-provoking and fun.

Participating on this panel (so far):

• Suzanne George (@spgenie), Microsoft Regional Director, MCTS, and partner – modern workplace & experience leader at PwC
• Paul Solski (@paulsolski), managing director & founder of AIM International
• David Patrick (@DavidEPatrick),  Office Apps & Services MVP, user group organizer, subject matter expert with DSA, Inc.
• Jeff Shuey (@jshuey), principal product manager at Oracle, co-founder of IAMCP Seattle
• Wes Preston (@idubbs), SharePoint MVP, evangelist,  and owner at TrecStone
• Corey Roth (@coreyroth), Microsoft MVP, vp of engineering at UnlimitedViz and tyGraph
• Adam Ball (@AdamCBall), co-founder of COUCUG, Teams and Skype for Business MVP
• Eric Overfield (@ericoverfield), Microsoft RD & SharePoint MVP, founder of PixelMill
• David Drever (@DavidMDrever), Office Apps & Services MVP, senior manager and enterprise architect at Protiviti
• Paul Swider (@pswider), cto at RealActivity, and enterprise SharePoint strategist
• Eli Robillard (@erobillard), SharePoint MVP, musician, fly-fisher, collaboration technology guy
• Marc Anderson (@sympmarc), SharePoint MVP, co-founder and president of Sympraxis Consulting
• Fátima Blancas Velázquez (@JaydithBV), M365 Apps & Services MVP and ceo of iTProve Corporation
• Matthew McDermott (@MatthewMcD), director of product management at Spanning Cloud Apps
• John White (@diverdown1964), dual SharePoint and Data Platform MVP, cto at UnlimitedViz and tyGraph
• Dwayne Natwick (@DwayneNcloud), Azure MVP, global principal cloud security tech lead / cto at Atos
• Jason Himmelstein (@sharepointlhorn), former SharePoint MVP, principal program manager at Microsoft
• Stacy Deere-Strole (@sldeere), SharePoint MVP and owner of Focal Point Solutions
• Eric Riz (@rizinsights), SharePoint MVP and ceo of Empty Cubicle
• Mike Fitzmaurice (@mikefitz), vp of north america and chief evangelist for WEBCON
• Kevin McDonnell (@kevmcdonk), M365 Apps & Services MVP and head of practice – modern workplace at CPS
• Fabian Williams (@fabianwilliams), former @OfficeDev @VisualStudio & @XamarinHQ MVP, senior program manager on the Microsoft Graph team
• Hal Hostetler (@TVWizard), Microsoft MVP and senior field engineer and social media coordinator for Roland, Schorr & Tower
• Nick Brattoli (@Byrdttoli), Microsoft MVP, founder and lead consultant at Byrdttoli Enterprise Consulting
• Dan Usher (@binarybrewery), Office Apps & Services MVP and principal at Booz Allen Hamilton
• Mike Maadarani (@mikemaadarani), Office Apps & Services MVP, cloud solution architect at MCM Consulting
• Susan Hanley (@susanhanley), M365 Apps & Services MVP, business analyst and information architect, governance and IA expert, owner of Susan Hanley LLC
• Becky Bertram (@beckybertram), M365 Apps & Services MVP, MCT, and owner of Savvy Technical Solutions
• Ed Senez (@edsenez), president at UnlimitedViz and tyGraph
• Mike Holste (@Mike_Holste), product marketing manager at Microsoft
• Kirsty McGrath (@kirstymcgrath13), Office Apps & Services MVP and managing director at OnPoint Solutions
• Ben Stegink (@benstegink), SharePoint, Office 365 and Azure consultant, owner of Intelligink, LLC
• Norm Young (@stormin_30), Office Apps & Services MVP, director of collaborative analytics at UnlimitedViz
• Tobiasz Koprowski (@KoprowskiT), Data Platform MVP, founder and consultant at Shadowland Consulting
• Matt Varney (@thevarnish), intranet manager at KCTCS
• Virgil Carroll (@vcmonkey), head monkey at High Monkey
• Paul Keijzers (@KbWorks), a Microsoft Teams and Office 365 specialist, and the founder of  KbWorks
• Ragnar Heil (@ragnarh), Office Servers & Services MVP and Microsoft alliance manager EMEA for Metalogix
• Paul Soliman (@heypaulroots), Business Applications MVP, co-founder of Banyanichain, CEO of Hacktiv
• Martina Grom (@magrom), co-founder of atwork.at, Office 365 MVP and Microsoft Regional Director
• Sascha Fredrich (@saschaF80), IT consultant of Microsoft solutions at bei Bechtle AG
• Alistair Pugin (@alistairpugin), (dual) Azure and Office Apps & Services MVP and chief technology officer at NBConsult
• Liam Cleary (@helloitsliam), SharePoint MVP, principal of SharePlicity
• Shari Oswald (@shortcutshari), co-founder and productivity evangelist at PowerUP! Learning
• and your host, Christian Buckley (@buckleyplanet), Microsoft MVP & RD, #CollabTalk founder, brand alliance director at AvePoint

If you would like to be included on one of these panels, please drop me a line via email, LinkedIn, or Twitter. And thank you again to tyGraph for your support of these CollabTalk tweetjams! And finally, if you are interested in being a sponsor of a future tweetjam, please contact me.

We’ll be back on Tuesday, August 23rd with another CollabTalk TweetJam on the topic of “Improving the Employee Experience with Viva Engage” so be sure to follow me (@buckleyplanet) for news and updates.