Monthly Archive for July, 2010

Tips for using LinkedIn

Published on July 27, 2010 in Computers and Internet. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Today’s guest blog post comes courtesy of Gareth Edwards of Arrowsmith Marketing, and is all about how to effectively use LinkedIn.

Take it away Gareth!

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“People often ask me for some tips on using the social networking LinkedIn more effectively to keep in touch with contacts and help drum up business. Here’s my advice.

  • Make sure that your profile is up to date.  Add in all educational establishments and places of employment.  It helps old colleagues find you.  Focus on your summary and specialities to highlight what you have done for people and what you are good at.
  • Change your “professional headline” so that it reflects what you do (to help clients) not just your job title.

Mine went from “Director Arrowsmith Marketing” to “Online marketing advisor. Helping businesses tell compelling stories about what they do to the people that matter”.

It might be a bit long but it does stand out.

  • Use the “network activity” field to tell people what you are up to and what you know.  All of your followers have the opportunity to see it and they get update emails too.  If you say something of interest they will comment or call.
  • Link it to your Twitter account if you have one.  That way you get the opportunity to talk to more people and save a bit of time doing it.
  • Use the “Add Connections” option (Contacts>Add Connections) to let LinkedIn automatically find people you might already know on the service by checking your email address book.
  • When you meet people at networking events, check to see if they are on LinkedIn afterwards and if so, connect with them.
  • Display a LinkedIn icon and/or text link in your email signatures and on your website so that people can keep in touch with what you are up to.
  • Join Groups on LinkedIn and participate in discussions and answer questions.  That way you get your name about more and get access to more potential contacts.

There are loads of groups like “Black Country Business Group and Forum”, “Federation of Small Businesses” and “Finance and Accountancy Professionals UK”

  • Be proactive.  You can search for people, companies and groups quite easily.  It is possible to find potential customers on LinkedIn – though you may have to pay the premium services to get in touch if you aren’t connected by friends or friends of friends.

I Hope that helps!

If anybody has any specific queries, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me via e-mail, or connect to me on LinkedIn, and I’ll do my best to help!”

***

Thanks Gareth! I’ve just updated my own LinkedIn page based on Gareth’s tips. Are we connected on LinkedIn? If not, why not reach out and do so!

 

Reporting from WPC10 – Microsoft Infrastructure Video Showcase

Published on July 23, 2010 in Computers and Internet. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

My final blog about the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2010, which finished a week ago in Washington, DC, but, as anyone who has attended can attest to, can take the whole of the following week (and beyond!) to digest!

As part of WPC, members of Microsoft Core Infrastructure Marketing team recorded short, 10-15 minute videos on a variety of topics for partners to watch as an extended experience of WPC.

There is an excellent opening video by Danielle Aronstam of Microsoft entitled “Top 10 Most Valuable Resources for Infrastructure Solution Partners”, and David Fabritius also recorded a great video around Small Business Server “7” and “Aurora”, amongst the videos on offer.

All of the videos can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/showcase/en/us/search?phrase=coreinfra

 

Reporting from WPC10 – Facebook and Windows Live Messenger Integration for Outlook

Published on July 20, 2010 in Computers and Internet. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

In my blog post on Windows Phone 7, I talked about the blurring line between Consumer and Business technologies. The technologies that people were using at home are rapidly becoming expected within the work environment. Never has this been more evident than with the Social Networking site, Facebook.

I myself started out using Facebook purely as a personal connector – friends and family only. Very quickly, Business colleagues started to get added as “friends”, then vendors, and now I find Facebook being a Business Tool with a person slant, rather than the other way round.

So it was good to hear the announcement at WPC10 in Washington DC that Microsoft Outlook 2010, and the Outlook Social Connector plug-in, has received an update to allow Facebook integration!

If you’re not familiar with the Microsoft Outlook Social Connector – it’s a free plug-in for Microsoft Outlook 2010 that allows you to keep track of your friends and colleagues activities on Social Networking sites such as LinkedIn and MySpace, from within Outlook itself. There’s a great blog article over at MSDN talking about the benefits of the Outlook Social Connector and how to set it up.

The first social connector of real use (because let’s face it, how many Business contacts to *you* have on MySpace?!) was for LinkedIn. Once installed, it automatically connected your Outlook Contacts to those on LinkedIn – downloading Status Updates for you to see from within Outlook directly – and created a separate contact list with any of your LinkedIn contacts that were *not* already Outlook contacts, making them all accessible from within Outlook (as pictured right).

The Facebook connector (available for download here), once installed, adds the ability to see Facebook Status Updates for your contacts directly from within the Microsoft Outlook e-mail pane – you can expand or minimise the “More Information” panel from any e-mail as you like.

There was also the announcement of the release of a Microsoft Outlook Social Connector for Windows Live Messenger – you can grab the download here. It serves a similar purpose, although the majority of my own Live Messenger contacts don’t typically use Status Updates – although Microsoft are trying to turn that platform into a more Facebook-esque Social Networking site over the coming months.

With all of these Social Connectors, you can also request a new connection for any existing Outlook contact to Facebook, LinkedIn or Live Messenger directly from within Outlook itself. Simply click the + icon and choose the Social Network. Neat feature!

The addition of the Facebook and Live Messenger integration for Outlook 2010 is a useful one. Outlook is the majority of people’s “home base” for working from – so any tool that makes it both easier to connect to contacts to deepen the relationship, and to keep up to date on existing contacts in one location, is a bonus in my book!

Now the one social networking site most people would also love to see an Outlook Social Connector for is, of course, Twitter. Will we see one anytime soon? I wouldn’t hold my breath – but it’d be nice wouldn’t it?

 

Richard Tubb is an IT Business Consultant who works with ambitious IT companies who want to grow their businesses in a scalable and sustainable way. He is also a Microsoft UK Small Business Specialist Partner Area Lead (PAL) and the elected chair of the CompTIA UK Channel Community. You can e-mail him at richard@tubblog.co.uk or connect with him via Twitter and LinkedIn.

Reporting from WPC10 – Next Versions of SBS Announced

Published on July 17, 2010 in Computers and Internet. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

Two of the biggest announcements coming out of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2010 in Washington, DC, at least from an SMB perspective, are the announcement of the next versions of Small Business Server.

I say versions, because in addition to SBS 7 – the successor to SBS 2008 – Microsoft announced their much rumoured Hybrid Cloud Server – codename “Aurora”.

First SBS 7. Based on the Server 2008 R2 technologies, it will include Exchange 2010 and Sharepoint Foundation Server 2010. Beyond that, it “felt” a little bit like Server 2008 – no real compelling reason for people to get excited or consider an upgrade, unless forced to do so by a hardware refresh. I’m sure more details will come out over the next few weeks, but SBS 7 really felt overshadowed by the announced of Aurora.

Aurora is aimed at those Small Businesses who don’t currently have a server, and perhaps can’t afford the step up to one. It is somewhat based on Microsoft Home Server (codename “Vail”) and allows 25 users with no CAL’s required. There will be an migration White Paper (if not a direct path) to SBS 7 for when your client grows beyond 25 users.

The best way to describe Aurora is a Domain Controller, limited to 25 users, with File and Print Sharing capabilities, but with add-in’s for external services such as Sharepoint and E-Mail hosting in the Cloud. There will be a published API for 3rd parties to develop these add-in’s – and Diskeeper, Level Platforms and Symantec all showed off their own Add-In’s integrated into the Aurora console. It is 64-bit, and you can install LoB applications directly onto the server.

Basically, an ideal middle ground for clients who need local authentication and File/Print Sharing for an LoB, but want to run services such as e-mail in the cloud.

Going forward, I’d fully expect a flood of add-in’s from Hosted Exchange providers, including Microsoft’s own BPOS service.

On the Domain Controller and File/Print Share front, Aurora allows clients to connect to it by way of an application installed on the client. Supported clients include Windows XP, Vista and 7 clients – both Business and Home SKU’s (yes, you read that right) – as well as Apple Macs.

Management of Security and File/Print resources are made really simple. There are no mention of ACL’s, just access to or the blocking of resources. You can see a screenshot of the Aurora Dashboard here – courtesy of Guy Gregory, who joined me at the Aurora Chalk’n’Chat session.

The Windows Home Server Client Backup feature is included – meaning that Aurora will automatically back-up any connected client workstations based on parameters you have specified. Expect an Off-Site Backup Add-In from a 3rd party in due course.

On a side note, SBS 7 will *not* include that automatic backup feature. Judging by my conversations with the Home Server community, that is probably because the software doesn’t scale well beyond 10 PC backups. I could be wrong though.

Aurora can be run headless i.e. No Monitor, KB or Mouse required, so it is ideal for those small offices where the server is hidden away in the Stationary cupboard, and it can be managed either via RWW or through a management application on any workstation.

Talking of RWW, a Remote Application is included to allow external access to server applications or RDP to Computers, and there will be a facility for companies that aren’t ready to own their own domain to have an intermediate Microsoft remote access domain – i.e. clientname.remoteworkplace.com.

Price wise, expect Aurora to come in between the current price of Windows Foundation Server (which in hindsight, was nothing more than a product to plug the gap in the market before Aurora was released) and the existing price of SBS 2008. Release date is optimistically this Autumn.

I had an opportunity to see Aurora first hand, and it appeared to be everything it has set out to be – a simple to setup, Hybrid-Solution that will serve as a great stepping stone to help micro-clients take their first step on the server ladder. The product team are clearly excited about it, and it showed.

So the march towards the Cloud continues! Personally, I think Aurora is a great addition to the Microsoft Server portfolio, giving us as IT Companies and additional option to present to clients with needs below 25 seats.

Time will tell how well 3rd Parties start to produce Add-In’s for Aurora, but if you’re anything like me, after you’ve read this article you’ll be making a phone call or penning an e-mail to all your existing Cloud Vendors to ask them *when* and not *if* they are writing Aurora add-in’s!

 

Richard Tubb is an IT Business Consultant who works with ambitious IT companies who want to grow their businesses in a scalable and sustainable way. He is also a Microsoft UK Small Business Specialist Partner Area Lead (PAL) and the elected chair of the CompTIA UK Channel Community. You can e-mail him at richard@tubblog.co.uk or connect with him via Twitter and LinkedIn.

Reporting from WPC10 – Windows Phone 7

Published on July 14, 2010 in Computers and Internet. 2 Comments

One of the recurring themes of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2010 here in Washington, DC seems to be the acknowledgement that the line between the consumer and business technology worlds is blurring. One of the most obvious areas this is happening is within Mobile Phones. When I attended the Windows Phone 7 keynote presented by Andy Lees, Senior Vice President of Microsoft Mobile Communications Business, to learn about the next wave of Windows phone innovation, one of the statistics that Andy mentioned was the fact that 80% of Mobile Devices used in business were not sourced by the business, but by the individual.

That statistic would make sense to any SMB IT Consultant who has ever had a client go out and buy a Blackberry off their own back, then throw it at their IT guy to make it work with SBS!

During Steve Ballmer’s keynote, Ballmer all but admitted that Microsoft had made a pigs ear of their attempt to keep up with Apple (or another mobile provider, as he called Apple) but that Windows Phone 7 had been written from the ground up in an attempt to improve the situation.

So what’s Windows Phone 7 like? Well it’s built on the same technology that you’ve seen (or not seen, if you’re a UK Partner) in the Microsoft Zune HD. It looks and feels very crisp and modern – no Windows Mobile v6 error messages or interface anywhere.

It’s all touch screen, swiping and pinching, ala the Apple iPhone. There is no longer a start menu. The interface has a very Social Media centre bent. Much like my own HTC HD2 with it’s HTC Sense interface, the Windows Phone 7 interface automatically connects to Social Media sites such as Facebook and pulls down status updates, merging them into a single view along with e-mails, contact details, links to Bing, and so on – so you can see a ton of information about any of your contacts in a single place.

There are some *very* cool media components – and the home screen itself (pictured left) is full of moving tiles. If you watch the Phone long enough, status updates from your main contacts flow into view. Neat.

There is a big emphasis on being able to access information from within any application. You could be in e-mail and want to view somebody’s Facebook status update – so instead of heading to the Facebook app, you swipe left and it’s there. Or you click on an address and Bing displays a map, and so on. The pictures hub, for instance, shows locally stored pictures but also pulls in folders from Facebook and Flickr. This is a really nice feature and timesaver.

By the way, Bing is featured heavily. Just about every external link you’ll click on will take you to a Bing site, but there are some great features contained within – such as the ability to find local restaurants, make bookings directly, and so on.

There is integration with Xbox Live too. Not much details about how Windows Phone 7 will be used as a gaming platform, but your Xbox live avatar and all the statistics are pulled through to the phone – so that opens some possibilities for gaming going forwards.

The Microsoft Office integration is much stronger. We were showed demo’s of an e-mail containing a Powerpoint presentation and an Excel spreadsheet, where the attachments were opened directly on the ‘phone, edited, and automatically sent back to the recipient updated. Very impressive and a fantastic feature for business users on the road.

Likewise, support for Calendars is much stronger too. You can differentiate between personal and business appointments easily – send “I’m running late” messages at the touch of a button, and see availability for meetings and schedule meetings quickly.

At the end of the keynote, we were given a demonstration of how it easy it is to develop an application for Windows Phone 7. It didn’t seem *that* easy to me, as a non-Developer, but with any luck this emphasis on improved 3rd Party apps will see a much stronger App Store than the truly pathetic Windows Marketplace that we currently have!

So in conclusion, Windows Phone 7 looks to embrace the idea that the Consumer and Business world is merging together, that the cool technology people use at home is the same technology they want to use at work, and Windows Phone 7 *does* look cool, make no mistake about it – and there have been some very positive press comments to re-inforce this (see picture at left).

Release date for the first Windows Phone 7 devices is expected to be this Autumn, but it was announced selected Developers would be shipped test units starting 19th July, and anyone can download the free Developer kit from at http://developer.windowsphone.com straight away.

So I’m chomping at the bit to try an Windows Phone 7 device, but they are not available for a while yet. However, thanks to Microsoft I was lucky enough to procure a Microsoft Zune HD – a device not available in the UK (in fact, if you even try to visit the Zune HD link in the UK, you’ll be redirected) – but a device which has pretty much the same interface as Windows Phone 7 albeit without the, erm, Phone bits! Once I’ve had a chance to play with it, I’ll post some pictures and my opinion!