Simplex-IT BizBlog

Bob here, reporting from sunny (-ish) but not warm, Columbus Ohio.  Kevin and I are attending Level Platforms Road Show event, an annual travelling circus that Level Platforms (supported by several other vendors) puts on annually.

It’s my fourth such event.  It’s Kevin’s third (newbie).

Some info for some of you might be in order.  Simplex-IT is what is known as a “Managed Service Provider,” or MSP.  A key component of that concept is automated monitoring and managing of the networks of our customers.  Level Platforms is the tool we choose to work with.

I’m actually a Council member for Level Platforms (yeah, they were desperate, lost a bet…the mind boggles), and Simplex-IT has been working with LP for over four years.  One of the reasons we’ve stuck with them is the product just keeps improving with a steady stream of updates.

Anywho, not the main point.  The best part of these events is the chance to sit down with other MSP folks, and trade experiences and perspectives.  As many of you know, we’re very proud of our marketing, but I’d like to streamline some of the monitoring we do for some of the infrastructure devices, such as switches and the like.  So one minute I’m talking about our Marketing processes with several folks closely listening.  The next I’m just as focused hearing about SMNP configurations.

The bottom line is this.  Any opportunity I get to exchange experience and methods with smart people, boy, am I there.  If you’re a Level Platforms Partner (or are considering becoming one), you should check these events out.

And if you’re not, consider how you can find a way to exchange ideas with similarly minded folks.

You’ll notice I didn’t mention the word “competition.”

Honestly, for these types of events, I don’t believe in it.  Go figure.

Bob here.  Even though Office 365 is going strong, there are still a lot of folks on its predecessor, BPOS.  And although anti-spam protection is included with BPOS, it’s not the clearest thing in the world to configure.

I stumbled on this site recently, BPOS Tutor, that includes a nice 90-second video that shows how a BPOS administrator can easily add email addresses, domains and IP addresses to black/white lists.  Pretty straightforward.  And you can find it here.

Bob here.  In 2007, Simplex-IT was started with two employees. At this point, we currently have five full-time employees and four part-time employees. An unstated goal of ours has always been a high ratio of folks providing service (the technical folks) versus the sales and support people.

So it’s taken me a while to get comfortable with adding a support position to the organization. To date I’ve taken personal responsibility for billing, reporting, trying to maintain project timelines, vendor relationships, payables and the like. So far, so good.

But I can tell that’s not going to last for long, therefore I’m creating a new position within the organization. Tentatively titled “Office Manager,” this position is still somewhat under construction. However at the least it will have the following responsibilities:

• customer billing
• accounts payables
• Accounts Receivable
• verify technicians schedules and ticketing

Salary is commensurate with experience (whatever the heck that means). The ideal candidate needs to be able to work with a wide variety of people, must have attention to detail, and be able to work on many projects daily. In addition, basic computer skills including Microsoft Office are a necessity. This position is neither a gopher nor a secretary but a critical piece of this organization.

If you’re interested, send me a resume along with salary requirements to Bob@simplex-IT.com.

Ok, I’ve been a geek most of my life.  If anybody starts talking about geek nostalgia (usually starting a conversation with something like “My first IT job we used paper tape to load a program into our 16k minicomputer while dinosaurs roamed the Earth,” I’ll jump right in.

But I’ve come to realize the importance of talking about business.  About understanding business processes and needs.

And it’s a skill that’s still sorely lacking in the IT world these days.  And in my mind it’s the best skill set any IT professional can develop in terms of increasing their worth to their organization (or client, in the case of consultants).

I’ll be speaking at the Ohio North SQL Server User Group on Tuesday 3 January about this very topic.  Click here for more information, and to register.

The meeting is free, open to the public, and there will be pizza, plus a couple raffle prizes (at least 2 copies of Windows Ultimate!).

This is our way of saying “thanks” to the 25 or so people who joined us at the fundraiser a couple of weeks ago.  And to thank my wife for giving me something as a Christmas present that was earlier given away as a raffle prize.

Thanks again to Microsoft and Life Equity for adding some additional raffle prizes!

Here’s a quick video combining both topics.

Ok, this is thanks to our bud Dan Hanson over at GreatLakesGeek.com.

Don’t know what to get that Microsoft geek who’s on your list, but you really don’t want to spend anything on?  We’ve got you covered!

It seems that Microsoft has put up 7, yup 7 free technical eBooks for downloading.

Yup, they're free!

Now, these are pretty good books.  Each of them are decent sized, and worth perusing.

And the topics cover a wide range of topics, including:

• IT Careers
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Virtualization
• Office 365
• SQL Server 2008 R2
• SQL Server “Denali” (the new version!)
• Deploying Windows 7

 Good stuff!

Click here to get your copies (oh, and check out the poster showing creating snapshots in a Hyper-V environment)

Bob here.  Over the past couple years, I’ve tried a lot of different marketing techniques. E-mail, postcards, social media, mailing lists, blitz contains, smoke signals, phone campaigns and more.

Some things work. A lot of other things, not so much. But I do think that we’ve developed a pretty good program that’s working for us. It’s relatively low-cost, relatively measurable, and seems to generate an appropriate amount of business for us.  It’s a combination of blogs, email, FaceBook, LinkedIn, mail, phone, YouTube and shoe leather.

In discussions I’ve had with other business owners, both in and out of the IT business, there’s always been a keen interest in just how we do this. And, as you can see from this YouTube video (recorded from an online meeting I gave to about 75 similarly positioned IT firms back in June), I’m always willing to share our methods and madness.

And it recently occurred to me that some non-IT folks might want to hear what we do.

So here’s my offer. If you’d be interested in hearing what we at Simplex-IT do for our marketing programs, drop me a line. If enough people are interested on this, I’ll put together an informal get-together where I’ll review our programs, and have some open discussion on what works and what doesn’t in this fun economic time.  Obviously, no cost or anything.

What are we selling? Nothing. But I’ve had enough conversations with folks to know that this is a tough topic. And I thought it might be worthwhile to hear from someone who’s not selling something.

So, if you’re interested, e-mail me at Bob@Simplex-IT.com, and let me know! Operators are… Well, actually we don’t have any operators. But if we did, rest assured they’d be standing by.

Bob here. As you know, we are a Microsoft Partner. Until recently, we’ve resisted the temptation to going for the larger scale (and somewhat expensive) higher-level partnerships, not only with Microsoft but other vendors as well. In many cases, these vendor partnership programs are little more than marketing strategies, helping to get logos and implied skills out more. So you might say I’m a little jaded in terms of partnership programs.

Well, I was. Now that Simplex-IT is a Silver Partner with Microsoft, I am firmly convinced that the only way a company has a remote chance of successful IT project implementation is to use a Microsoft partner.

Okay, I have to confess. That was a bit jaded, even by my standards<g>.

So why did we finally decide to go with the deeper Microsoft partnership? The key issue with the partnership is demonstrating the competencies that go with it. In our case we chose two competencies: “Server Platform” and “Portals and Collaboration.”

When you consider competencies, at least with Microsoft, you’re really talking about two things. Knowledge and Experience.  Knowledge is determined through employment of certified individuals, and experience is determined through your customers admitting to both knowing you and engaging you in projects that fall under the competencies.

Yeah, yeah, yeah… There’s money involved too (isn’t there always?).  But honestly, that wasn’t the most important issue.

Actually, on review we found that we already had both requirements under our belts. It was simply a question of formalizing the experience by contacting customers and asking them to share with Microsoft their experiences. Thankfully, we have a lot of great customers out there, and many of them still think (for some strange reason) that we know what we’re doing<g>.

So literally it took us about two or three days to get these two competencies. And my suspicion is that before the years over will probably add a couple more under our belts as well.

Are we a different company because of this? Of course not. Are we going to hold this over everybody’s heads, pretending that this makes us somebody special? Again, of course not. Over the past several years, I’ve made the interesting transition from technician to business owner. And during this process one thing stands clear. The most effective way to communicate the quality of work and the dedication ain’t in marketing, advertising, certifications, or partner logos. It’s getting the prospective customers to talk to your existing customers.

At least that’s work for us so far.

Bob here.  Ok, this is our first real “contest.”  And we sort of added it on a whim, truth be told.  But I thought it might spice up the eNewsletter a bit.

Apparently I was right.  The amount of click through traffic doubled for the first day.  We received over 20 responses specifically to the contest.

First, the questions (and answers):

1. What is the most frequently used command in Windows Explorer?  (Answer:  Paste)
2. Where did we first hear about the Office 365 eBook?  (Answer:  Benoit Hamet’s Blog)
3. Why did the kittens stop their Light Saber battle?  (Answer:  because the guy was on the phone)

 As to the answers, sorry Matt, “Because the Chicken crossed the road” didn’t quite cut it.

 Of the first 5 people (Teri, Christopher, Scott, Ann and Bruce), Ann ended up being the winner of the $50 Amazon gift card!

Bob here.  I’m not one to resist a bargain.  Ok, actually I am, but not in this case.  When I heard that HP was discontinuing production of their TouchPad line of tablets (click here for details) after only 7 or so weeks on market, I leapt into action.  Ok, actually, I did nothing.  But when I heard that HP was selling them for around $100 apiece (down from about $500), ok, now that got my attention.

Yesterday, my TouchPad appeared.  The first thing, of course, was get it connected to Office 365.  And that’s what this blog entry is about.  Keep in mind that the TouchPad is based on the webOS, both of which were given HP buh-bye.  But connecting to Office 365’s email is pretty simple.  You go through these steps:

First, you’ll need to know the actual server that your Office 365 account is hosted on.  To do this, go to a workstation (something with web access):

• Log onto Outlook Web (www.Outlook.com) with your Office 365 credentials
• Click on “Options” in the top right
• Select “See All Options…”
• Click on “Settings for POP, IMAP, and SMTP access…” in the middle left of the screen
• Under “SMTP setting” you’ll see a “Server name:”
• That gibberish to the right is the server name “pod51022.outlook.com” as an example.  Right that down!

(Ok, now we’re working on the TouchPad)

• Ok, hopefully you’ve set up the internet access already (or this will be a short trip)
• Tap the launcher icon (bottom right)
• Tap the “SETTINGS” tab on the upper right
• Tap the “Accounts” icon
• Tap the “Add an Account” button
• Tap the “Microsoft Exchange” button
• Tap the “Manual Setup” button
• For the manual setup, you’ll be asked for 5 things:
  • Email Address:  That would be your email address.
  • Server:  “https://”  and the server for your email account (see note above).  So using that example it would be https://pod51022.outlook.com
  • Domain:  Leave blank
  • Username:  You email address
  • Password:  that would be your password.
• Tap “Create Account” to finish.  This should take maybe a minute.
• By default, email, contacts, address lookup and calend are synchronized.  Change that as you will, then click “Create Account.”

Famous last words, you’re done.  Pretty simple, huh?  Hopefully this was helpful!