April 21, 2010
The Death Of My Business
|| posted by chris under business, clueless, epiphany, kma, nostalgia, thumbs down || comments (4) || ||
March 5, 2010
EBS Has Left The Building
Instead of my typically convoluted Funcave windup involving some theoretical physics, Bluetooth and comic book lore a la “The Big Bang Theory,” I’ll just come right out and say what’s up this time:
Essential Business Server = DEAD
That’s officially official as of right now, which should be 8:00 a.m. Pacific Standard time on March 5th, 2010. So what does that really mean?
In the immediate term, it means there will be no v2 of Essential Business Server. Not ever. Which is a damned shame, because v2 was looking completely and totally badass.
|| posted by chris under beta, business, clueless, hardware, it pro, kma, mid-market it, migration, nostalgia, opinion, rant, rx, shoutout, thumbs down, thumbs up, time, travel, virtualization, webcast || comments (2) || ||
February 23, 2010
Goodbye Kitty
Just when I thought my trip last Sunday couldn’t get any worse, upon arriving at the Silver Cloud in Redmond at 2a in the morning, I saw this at the far end of the check-in counter…
First, I thought “Cool! Kitty’s finally getting his props.” Then I looked a little closer…
|| posted by chris under freebie, nostalgia, rx, thumbs down, travel || comments (2) || ||
September 11, 2009
Never Forgive. Never Forget. Never Again.
|| posted by chris under epiphany, nostalgia, rx, thumbs down || comments (1) || ||
August 26, 2009
Changing The Future
Last week, I had the good fortune to attend CMP’s XChange’09 event in Washington, DC. As a vendor-centric show, this kind of event gives solution providers like my company the opportunity to see new offerings from various vendors, give feedback, and forge business relationships that can mutually benefit our companies.
But this year, one of the initiatives taking place during XChange’09 really made me, and a whole lot of others, sit up and take notice.
CMP Media partnered with Microsoft and the Framsyn Initiative to sponsor Channel@Work, a program that sponsored a large group of young people from all over the country who expressed an interest in IT careers to attend XChange. The goal was to give them an opportunity to be mentored by industry veterans, and give them a boost into the IT field.
Activities included team-building, computer-building, direct interaction with executives from IT companies, and the ability to engage with the rest of us delegates. At breakfast one morning, I got a chance to talk with a young man named Che. He told me about his job as a junior network administrator, the kinds of things he’s learned how to do from that job, and his goals for the future. I talked to him about the importance of keeping both his resume and skillset current, of picking and choosing certification exams that give the most options for huim in the future, and the importance of learning not just a given product release, but really understanding the underlying concept about how and why something works.
As part of this program, these young people were working toward completing Microsoft’s 70–653 exam TS: Windows Small Business Server 2008, Configuring, which earns not only an MCTS, but also a Small Business Specialist designation. Both of those achievements will immediately give those young people value to potential solution provider employers like me who focus on the SMB segment.
When the video above was played during the ARC awards dinner on the final evening of XChange’09, I was literally moved to tears. Seeing those kids so eager to learn and hungry for knowledge took me back to when I first started my IT career, and it made me remember how thankful I was and still am to all the people who first believed in me and gave me an opportunity in the industry, within which I’ve thrived for the last 15 years.
I truly believe that if the IT industry is to improve as a whole, it will come from mentoring programs like Channel@Work and others like it convincing young people that an IT career is one that can offer them the kind of fulfilling, rewarding life’s work that we all hope to find, and giving them the initial opportunity to find success.
|| posted by chris under business, freebie, hardware, it pro, media, more cowbell, nostalgia, rx, shoutout, thumbs up, travel, webcast || comments (4) || ||
