April 19, 2008
Rex Backman from the Response Point team just posted this to the Response Point mailing list, and graciously gave me permission to blog about it here.
Sypine is offering discounted prices for demo kit to Microsoft partners
for a limited time.
This is a great opportunity for our partners to purchase a demo unit -
savings of up to 40% - that is ideal for you to quickly set up and use
for your sales training, or use for live demonstrations in-house or at
your customer’s location.
For under $1,000, the demo kit has everything you need to get started
and see for yourself the advantages of adding this award winning new
communications system for small businesses to your product line.
To order your demo kit please visit our website at
http://www.syspine.com/wheretobuy.html to locate a Syspine distributor.
If you have further questions please email Syspine @ sales@syspine.com. When placing your order with our distributor please reference promotional code SYSDEMO.
If you would like to talk directly to Rex and a couple of developers from the Response Point team, they will be in New Orleans at the SBSmigration.com conference in May, Mother’s Day weekend.
|| posted by chris under business, game, migration, unified comm || comments (0) ||
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April 18, 2008
Just can’t quite put my finger on it…
|| posted by chris under business, it pro || comments (1) ||
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April 18, 2008
Oh, I knew the MVP Summit would be awesome. But it was awesome in ways I hadn’t counted on.
In no particular order, here’s what ROCKED…
- Getting to see MOM again.
- Steaks with Nancy and Crystal on Thursday night, and using some of our IT mojo to give a little something back to Nancy, who’s been the heart & soul of our little SMB community.
- Lorna Williamson singing “Son of a Preacher Man” at EMP.
- Ballmer’s speech on Thursday.
- Sprinting for the monorail’s last run.
- Sitting next to Nick Whittome on the very first day, hitting it off immediately, and proceeding to both chew bubblegum and kick ass all week long, even tho we were all out of bubblegum.
- Getting a chance to sit in on some Mobile dives. And meet Loke Uei, if ever so briefly.
- The anonymous dude who saw us chasing the cab we had just gotten out of, and stepped out and flagged it down. Saved my new Lumix camera and Treo charging cable. Damn, there must be something in the air or water in Seattle. People are really freaking helpful there!
- Andy Goodman’s sharp-eyed observation, which earned him my “Quote of the Week” award.
- Finding out what an amazing person and tireless SBSC PAL the Canadians (and the rest of us) have in Elisabeth Vanderveldt.
- Getting to vent on Groove to Groove MVPs, then hear others saying the same stuff during the Q&A for Ozzie’s talk.
- Meeting the EBS team.
- Lunch with Kevin Beares and some WHS MVPs, which included finding out about KB’s past as a member of the elite Army Rangers.
- Going more mobile than mobile, thanks to my Treo Bluetooth travel keyboard, which both kicked ass, and got lots of attention from anyone who saw the setup.
- The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5, which takes shots nothing short of breathtaking.
- The Robotics Studio Open Space session, which compelled me to install the software that very evening.
- Saving a complete stranger from a near-encounter with a roundhouse kick to his temple.
- Running after a cab to save Chris’ camera and charger. – Nick Whittome
- Riding, and subsequently getting thrown off, a mechanical bull. Also, the elbow scar to show around, which is all that really matters to folks from the UK. – Nick Whittome
- The first Windows Mobile Open Space session, for saying stuff that needed to be said.
- The BBQ at Nancy’s place on Saturday night. – Wayne Small
- Meeting all the cool new MVPs that really deserve the title. – Wayne Small
- The sheer openness and trust that the SBS team has with us in revealing plans YEARS in advance. – Wayne Small
- Nick taking pictures of Chris on the bus while he was out cold – Kevin Weilbacher (Note: I consider this more apt for the SUCKED list, but I was outvoted by my fellow MVPs. The bastidges!)
- Sharing room 2402 – Kevin Weilbacher (Note: Absolutely. Kev rocks!)
- Kevin Weilbacher successfully getting EVERYTHING on the list his wife wanted him to pick up from Pike Place Market, thereby assuring his continued survival.
- Watching Nancy’s daughter kicking the bootay of Guitar Hero III Mobile on Olli’s phone, ending “Woman” with a one-handed, over- her-head flourish! ROCK ON!
- The Miguel Jacquinto act at EMP. Well, and laughing about it with Nick.
- Nick’s bullriding should be on YouTube! – Elisabeth Vanderveldt
- The SBS Family = TRES cool group – Elisabeth Vanderveldt
- Wow if it wasn’t for meeting people like Chris and Nick the whole week would have SUCKED! – Elisabeth Vanderveldt
- Finally getting a picture of someone other than ME snoozing during a session, keynote, supper, bus ride, fire drill, etc. – Wayne Small
Here’s what SUCKED…
- Not being there when MOM broke her wrist in a horrible, freak accident. Wish I could have been there to help her.
- Trying to figure out the freakin’ Bizarro world of buses, shuttles, cars, and dirigibles that service Microsoft’s campus.
- Open Space sessions which were neither open, nor left any space for other folks to speak.
- Looking for the pucks…and coming up short.
- Egos.
- More egos.
- Chicken and salmon, after the 3rd day.
- Winning the WHS deep dive drawing, but then getting disqual’d because I wasn’t in the room. Also, Roger, Kevin, Steven and about 3 other people telling me about it for days afterward. Then getting a video of it. What’s next? A Ken Burns mini-series?
- No ferry during the 10p hour.
- The pockets on my windbreaker, which dribble stuff out when I sit down.
- The words “expected,” “everyone,” and “must.” Also, the intent behind them.
- That the things said in the first Windows Mobile Open Space session needed to be said.
- Hearing my friends uphappy about stuff that was said. - Wayne Small
- Being in Seattle ONCE AGAIN and not seeing it snow! - Wayne Small
- The number of times we heard the phrase “let’s take that offline” – Kevin Weilbacher
- The totally ghetto green plastic bag I was using for my “More Mobile Than Mobile” experiment. If I had found a stick to tie it to and sling over my shoulder, I was gonna alter my badge name to say Hobo Baggins.
But the very best thing for me, of all the things this week…
- Getting to hang out and spend a lot of time with Marina Roos, an absolute sweetheart who always seems to be looking out for others, even (and perhaps especially) when no one else is watching.
So to The Divine Ms. M and all the rest, thanks for making Summit both unforgettable and eye-opening.
*NOTE: If you were at Summit, post up your favorite/not-so-favorite things, and I’ll add them to the list. Please respect your NDA. Otherwise, the sky’s the limit!
|| posted by chris under beta, community, freebie, it pro, mobility, shoutout, thumbs down, thumbs up, travel || comments (9) ||
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April 15, 2008
Or maybe it’s just me.
Elisabeth, one of the SBSC PALs from the Great White North, led what can delicately be termed a rather spirited, standing-room-only Open Space session on Windows Mobile today. She actually led 2 of them, but I only attended the first one.
Lots of folks in there who are well-known in the Mobile community, like…
Chris De Herrera
Arne Hess & Chris Leckness
Jason Dunn
Amazingly enough, there was also a celebrity in the hizzay…
Who knew that Nick Lachey worked on the Windows Mobile team? C’mon…fess up! Somebody had to know!
This session was PACKED with a capital P!
One thing you didn’t see in the room?
Smiles.
I guess all the pent-up aggression made Elisabeth want to break someone in various and sundry ways.
At the welcome reception, after letting her use my Treo 750 to send an e-mail to THE Susan Bradley, Elisabeth proceeded to show me a few ways she could incapacitate me within the space of 3 seconds or less.
After the still-fresh-in-my-mind post-op pain of 2006 at the hands of a nurse who couldn’t pass a milkmaid’s test, I declined a full-on demonstration of what earned Ms. Vanderveldt black belts and a #2 ranking.
Yeah, I’ll just take her word for it.
|| posted by chris under business, clueless, community, hardware, it pro, kma, mobility || comments (0) ||
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April 15, 2008
Yes, it’s true.
I’m fully on Twitter now. As in hooked.
And, quite frankly, it’s pretty frakking awesome…even tho it took the BarCampBirmingham2 brain surgery for me to see it.
So if you wanna see the goings-on here at the Funcave and abroad, you can click this link to follow me.
|| posted by chris under community || comments (0) ||
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