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Jan 27 |
Business Guidance Pearls Mentoring Opportunity
Posted by Philip Elder on 27 January 2015 09:30 AM
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Original Here: MPECS Inc. Blog: Business Guidance Pearls Mentoring Opportunity Our blog post on Some IT Pro Business Guidance Pearls has generated a _lot_ of questions! Thank you for that. :) So, how about this? Third Tier has a special on a block of 3 hours that ends in a few days. Drop in to the Third Tier Help Desk, register, and purchase a time block. From there, open a ticket: Business Guidance Pearls Mentorship. I would pick up the ticket and get in touch about scheduling our time together. The structure would be:
I was very fortunate to have a former employer that worked very hard to teach me how to run an I.T. business. By “run” we’re talking about a lot more than just the bookkeeping and cash flow aspects. Believe me when I say this, you’d not regret any minute spent. We’d look at the big picture right through to the details to facilitate growth in your I.T. Pro practice. Philip Elder Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen ASP Project Read more » | |
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Oct 3 |
Attitude and Gratitude
Posted by Reprinted Article on 03 October 2013 02:52 PM
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To date I don’t believe I’ve ever crossed the line into political commentary. No, this is not about what is happening South of the border (being in Canada that). This is about our own little world here in St. Albert. We have been supporting the St. Albert Youth & Community Centre for quite a few years now. In fact, we did what we could for them in the way of time and product as the service they provided to the youth of St. Albert touched very close to home for me. AttitudeThe attitude is in how we take full and complete responsibility for what we do in our business, in our community, and within our own personal lives. This attitude seems to be a direct antithesis to the prevalent “blame anyone but me” we see in the news, politics, and unfortunately in business. We seem to live in an era where the word “responsibility” is a four letter one. The local St. Albert administration pulled a significant chunk of the Youth Centre’s (YC) funding last year. So, when the YC got into a bit of a spat with the landlord over who should fix the very leaky roof (not drips but _gallons_ the standoff ended with the YC needing a new home. When the City Council pulled funding last year the YC decided to keep in trying to serve the Youth of St. Albert. They worked very hard to build funding from other sources to replace the well over $110K they lost from the City. Unfortunately, due to the pulled funds when the row with the landlord came to a finish the YC did not have sufficient funds in place to find a new location. The City Council’s and Mayor’s spin on the loss of the YC was sad to see. At no point did this council or mayor take responsibility for the fact that they pulled the funding needed for the YC to survive in a new location. It was the landlord’s fault that the YC needed to close. We picked up the last of their equipment this Monday as they closed up shop. It was a sad day for the both of us but most especially for the youth that no longer have a safe place to go. And, it was a first-hand experience of how folks in politics can seemingly spin anything to defer responsibility for something they were a party to. This truly saddens me as well. GratitudeAnd finally, when we receive a referral either from a client or fellow IT Provider we make a point of offering some form of thanks. Gratitude, that is being thankful for the business referred to us is a very important thing. Folks did not have to reach out to us in the first place or could have gone somewhere else with the business. Thus, when we reach out and bring another IT firm, or specialized service firm, or whatever they may be doing into the mix one would expect at least a “Thank you” or even a small finder’s fee to toss in the company coffee fund. When that does not happen then what are we to think? Suffice it to say we would probably be taking those kinds of needs to another company a lot more willing to “partner” in the true meaning of the word. Author’s node: Yeah, it’s been a bit of a tough week. Thanks for reading. Our clients and you make things all the more worth it to keep plugging along. :) Philip Elder Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen Read more » | |
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Oct 3 |
Attitude and Gratitude
Posted by Reprinted Article on 03 October 2013 02:52 PM
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To date I don’t believe I’ve ever crossed the line into political commentary. No, this is not about what is happening South of the border (being in Canada that). This is about our own little world here in St. Albert. We have been supporting the St. Albert Youth & Community Centre for quite a few years now. In fact, we did what we could for them in the way of time and product as the service they provided to the youth of St. Albert touched very close to home for me. AttitudeThe attitude is in how we take full and complete responsibility for what we do in our business, in our community, and within our own personal lives. This attitude seems to be a direct antithesis to the prevalent “blame anyone but me” we see in the news, politics, and unfortunately in business. We seem to live in an era where the word “responsibility” is a four letter one. The local St. Albert administration pulled a significant chunk of the Youth Centre’s (YC) funding last year. So, when the YC got into a bit of a spat with the landlord over who should fix the very leaky roof (not drips but _gallons_ the standoff ended with the YC needing a new home. When the City Council pulled funding last year the YC decided to keep in trying to serve the Youth of St. Albert. They worked very hard to build funding from other sources to replace the well over $110K they lost from the City. Unfortunately, due to the pulled funds when the row with the landlord came to a finish the YC did not have sufficient funds in place to find a new location. The City Council’s and Mayor’s spin on the loss of the YC was sad to see. At no point did this council or mayor take responsibility for the fact that they pulled the funding needed for the YC to survive in a new location. It was the landlord’s fault that the YC needed to close. We picked up the last of their equipment this Monday as they closed up shop. It was a sad day for the both of us but most especially for the youth that no longer have a safe place to go. And, it was a first-hand experience of how folks in politics can seemingly spin anything to defer responsibility for something they were a party to. This truly saddens me as well. GratitudeAnd finally, when we receive a referral either from a client or fellow IT Provider we make a point of offering some form of thanks. Gratitude, that is being thankful for the business referred to us is a very important thing. Folks did not have to reach out to us in the first place or could have gone somewhere else with the business. Thus, when we reach out and bring another IT firm, or specialized service firm, or whatever they may be doing into the mix one would expect at least a “Thank you” or even a small finder’s fee to toss in the company coffee fund. When that does not happen then what are we to think? Suffice it to say we would probably be taking those kinds of needs to another company a lot more willing to “partner” in the true meaning of the word. Author’s node: Yeah, it’s been a bit of a tough week. Thanks for reading. Our clients and you make things all the more worth it to keep plugging along. :) Philip Elder Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen Read more » | |
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Aug 28 |
Some Thoughts on Microsoft in the SMB Space
Posted by Reprinted Article on 28 August 2013 06:31 PM
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If one approaches this post from an emotional level, that is built on all of the angst, struggles, and pain born of the Cloud drums out of Microsoft, that is their message but also the many products and services cancellations, over these last three or so years then it would not be hard to go down a very not-so-happy path. So many bridges between Microsoft and us IT Solution Providers that work on the front lines of the SMB IT space (by our definition SMB is 1-75 seats or so) have been burned or even out-right blown up. Many of us have struggled with the angst over where we were going to take our business and what kind of business model we would have two, five, and even ten years down the road. After all, we are in it for the long-haul right? Why We Do ITThis post is more a reflection of the SMB IT Provider that is in the business out of passion for the products and services we get to work with. But, most especially for the joy it brings us to have a set of very happy clients on the other end of our IT practices. That is our greatest reward. That is clients whose businesses are in the business to make money and do so as efficiently as possible on their IT because of what we do for them. For us, the reality has come home to roost that Microsoft is much less a partner today than a competitor. Yes, we are still building our solutions on the Microsoft stack and will continue to do so. Our solutions absolutely rock utilizing the products we do. We will continue building solutions that our competitors, like Microsoft and other large IT Solutions providers, could hardly hope to develop for their clients. Why? Because we as small business IT Solutions Providers live, breath, and work in the SMB Trenches. We understand small business in a way that a Gartner Survey or any other such knowledge peddlers could never hope to. This is because we _are_ a small business. We small businesses are _not_ consumers, pro-sumers, or any other such "consumer" of goods and services. We _produce_ products and services for others to consume. Or, we develop and sell products and services for other businesses to utilize in their _production_ of goods and services (Business to Business). Microsoft's Value in SMBSo, what value do we see in Microsoft in today's SMB IT marketplace?
We are of the opinion that the current wave of Microsoft products, with the exception of Office 2013, are probably some of the best that we've seen in years. Yes, mousers cried foul over the loss of the Start Button in Windows 8. But keyboarders never missed it. :) And yeah, there is a bit of a training struggle for folks to understand that there are two "rooms" if you will in Windows 8. Microsoft "Partner"With all of the changes that we've seen in Microsoft over these last two to three years we really have to wonder where they are going to be in two, three, or even five years. Sadly the reality that the desktop PC is not really going to disappear in a business setting does not seem to phase anyone in stratosphere management at large corporations like Microsoft. :( To top it all off, IMNSHO, the server is _not_ going to disappear in the SMB space. Nor will the need for on-premises mail. However, with the advent of so many failed/bad Microsoft product updates lately on so many products, some bringing down Hyper-V Failover Clusters, one really has to wonder how far off the vision has gone from providing a rock solid on-premises product experience from RTM to retirement? Hopefully the bad patching situation that has been happening lately is only temporary and Microsoft moves some development back into actually testing those updates before deploying them to the world. After all, being in business is about the products and services right? It's about providing the best possible value to the end-customer/client isn't it? Can folks _really trust_ a company to provide a great Cloud experience when it seems like the on-premises products and services may be on their death-beds? Why develop patches and _test_ them if there is no will to keep the on-premises products alive? And that begs this question: Can we SMB IT Solution Providers trust a company that has not come right out and said it, but has essentially drummed the message all the more clearly in these last 12-18 months that the "end is nigh" for the SMB IT Solution Provider? SMB belongs in the Cloud after all. Right? Be straight with us. Be clear with us. If we knew where we truly stood as a "Partner" of Microsoft we would be better able to make decisions about where we are and where we need to go in the new era of competition _with_ Microsoft. Trust is based on honesty between the parties. The messages out of Microsoft have been so mixed, and sometimes outright confusing, these last few years that one is never sure where we stand anymore. Most certainly we need to be very aware, and wary, of what is happening both within the companies that produce the products we utilize and then within the product groups themselves. Business OpportunitiesOn the flip-side the current state of SMB IT can provide an awesome opportunity for us to advance our on-premises and hybrid solution sets and skillsets. While it may seem daunting at first, we can indeed continue to build our SMB IT practice and triumph despite the naysayer's constant messages! And, perhaps in the midst of all of this we could end up growing our businesses into that Microsoft Partner Competency holder that would get noticed and direct Partner support (note the absence of the quotes). In the end, we may not reach those competency levels and/or even get noticed. But, we can go home at the end of the day, maybe work a bit in the evening for our clients, knowing full well that there is a great group of folks, our clients, on the receiving end of our products and services that are very happy with us and what we do. And that my friends is why, for the most part, we can sleep well at night eh? ;) Well, maybe most nights. We are, after all, small business owners so the occasional sleepless night is a prerequisite! :D Thanks for reading. Philip Elder Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen Read more » | |
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Aug 28 |
Some Thoughts on Microsoft in the SMB Space
Posted by Reprinted Article on 28 August 2013 06:31 PM
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If one approaches this post from an emotional level, that is built on all of the angst, struggles, and pain born of the Cloud drums out of Microsoft, that is their message but also the many products and services cancellations, over these last three or so years then it would not be hard to go down a very not-so-happy path. So many bridges between Microsoft and us IT Solution Providers that work on the front lines of the SMB IT space (by our definition SMB is 1-75 seats or so) have been burned or even out-right blown up. Many of us have struggled with the angst over where we were going to take our business and what kind of business model we would have two, five, and even ten years down the road. After all, we are in it for the long-haul right? Why We Do ITThis post is more a reflection of the SMB IT Provider that is in the business out of passion for the products and services we get to work with. But, most especially for the joy it brings us to have a set of very happy clients on the other end of our IT practices. That is our greatest reward. That is clients whose businesses are in the business to make money and do so as efficiently as possible on their IT because of what we do for them. For us, the reality has come home to roost that Microsoft is much less a partner today than a competitor. Yes, we are still building our solutions on the Microsoft stack and will continue to do so. Our solutions absolutely rock utilizing the products we do. We will continue building solutions that our competitors, like Microsoft and other large IT Solutions providers, could hardly hope to develop for their clients. Why? Because we as small business IT Solutions Providers live, breath, and work in the SMB Trenches. We understand small business in a way that a Gartner Survey or any other such knowledge peddlers could never hope to. This is because we _are_ a small business. We small businesses are _not_ consumers, pro-sumers, or any other such "consumer" of goods and services. We _produce_ products and services for others to consume. Or, we develop and sell products and services for other businesses to utilize in their _production_ of goods and services (Business to Business). Microsoft's Value in SMBSo, what value do we see in Microsoft in today's SMB IT marketplace?
We are of the opinion that the current wave of Microsoft products, with the exception of Office 2013, are probably some of the best that we've seen in years. Yes, mousers cried foul over the loss of the Start Button in Windows 8. But keyboarders never missed it. :) And yeah, there is a bit of a training struggle for folks to understand that there are two "rooms" if you will in Windows 8. Microsoft "Partner"With all of the changes that we've seen in Microsoft over these last two to three years we really have to wonder where they are going to be in two, three, or even five years. Sadly the reality that the desktop PC is not really going to disappear in a business setting does not seem to phase anyone in stratosphere management at large corporations like Microsoft. :( To top it all off, IMNSHO, the server is _not_ going to disappear in the SMB space. Nor will the need for on-premises mail. However, with the advent of so many failed/bad Microsoft product updates lately on so many products, some bringing down Hyper-V Failover Clusters, one really has to wonder how far off the vision has gone from providing a rock solid on-premises product experience from RTM to retirement? Hopefully the bad patching situation that has been happening lately is only temporary and Microsoft moves some development back into actually testing those updates before deploying them to the world. After all, being in business is about the products and services right? It's about providing the best possible value to the end-customer/client isn't it? Can folks _really trust_ a company to provide a great Cloud experience when it seems like the on-premises products and services may be on their death-beds? Why develop patches and _test_ them if there is no will to keep the on-premises products alive? And that begs this question: Can we SMB IT Solution Providers trust a company that has not come right out and said it, but has essentially drummed the message all the more clearly in these last 12-18 months that the "end is nigh" for the SMB IT Solution Provider? SMB belongs in the Cloud after all. Right? Be straight with us. Be clear with us. If we knew where we truly stood as a "Partner" of Microsoft we would be better able to make decisions about where we are and where we need to go in the new era of competition _with_ Microsoft. Trust is based on honesty between the parties. The messages out of Microsoft have been so mixed, and sometimes outright confusing, these last few years that one is never sure where we stand anymore. Most certainly we need to be very aware, and wary, of what is happening both within the companies that produce the products we utilize and then within the product groups themselves. Business OpportunitiesOn the flip-side the current state of SMB IT can provide an awesome opportunity for us to advance our on-premises and hybrid solution sets and skillsets. While it may seem daunting at first, we can indeed continue to build our SMB IT practice and triumph despite the naysayer's constant messages! And, perhaps in the midst of all of this we could end up growing our businesses into that Microsoft Partner Competency holder that would get noticed and direct Partner support (note the absence of the quotes). In the end, we may not reach those competency levels and/or even get noticed. But, we can go home at the end of the day, maybe work a bit in the evening for our clients, knowing full well that there is a great group of folks, our clients, on the receiving end of our products and services that are very happy with us and what we do. And that my friends is why, for the most part, we can sleep well at night eh? ;) Well, maybe most nights. We are, after all, small business owners so the occasional sleepless night is a prerequisite! :D Thanks for reading. Philip Elder Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen Read more » | |
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Aug 27 |
Our Value to Our Clients is in Our Knowledge and Experience
Posted by Reprinted Article on 27 August 2013 01:51 PM
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(Posted to the SBS2K Yahoo Group) When we look at SBS 2003 and the growth in product and features over its lifespan we have an idea of how the single box will perform. SBS 2008 and Exchange 2007 we encountered an exponential growth in the need for disk I/O due to Exchange and RAM due to both Windows Server (Vista code) and Exchange. Move to SBS 2010 and Exchange 2010 and if we were keeping an eye on the various product groups and their direction for the product we would have seen _before_ SBS 2011 STD ever RTMd that Exchange 2010 was designed to run on one SATA hard disk with everything in RAM. We would have then planned our deployments, both physical and then virtual as that became much more common, around the server products built-in. The key to any single host design or cluster design is in what will be running on top of them. Obviously, but maybe not? Here, our experience comes into play if we have been taking the SBS product and tearing it apart for the last ten years and three major product iterations. The inner-workings of SBS, Exchange, Active Directory, Group Policy, SharePoint, and so many other server feature sets were there for us to explore. Not only that, Microsoft gave us a really solid template to carry forward into our now stacked solution sets.
Provisioning the above has not changed in a sense. We need to augment our host configuration for the extra 15GB of OS space per VM perhaps. But, for the most part our physical hardware will be similar in nature to what we would deploy for previous versions of SBS Standard _given the products running in the suite_. The key in all of this is knowing how the various server products will behave given certain workloads. SQL has an I/O tester. Exchange has a load tester called Jetstress. Those two utilities can help us understand what our small, medium, and large clients can expect for a given server topology. They can also help us to deliver a solution tailored to their specific needs. Having a lab is key to getting to know the products and how to put them together. Testing _every_ solution that goes out the door before actually setting up the client’s own solution set is also critical. Knowledge is key to our value to our clients. Lose that and we’ve pretty much lost the game. It takes lots of time. It can take a lot of money. But, in the end training and grinding away at configurations in a lab is key to our client’s success and to ours as well. Philip Elder Chef de partie in the SMBKitchen Read more » | |
