What Happened to SMB Nation?

• Workshops. We host a workshop every two (2) weeks on average annually. That’s a lot of motion to roll-out approximately 26 events in 12-months. It keeps us busy. Our events average 100-attendees. The topics, typically presented by Grant Thompson are technical first, moneymakers second. Our customers have a high bar about learning something they don’t know (and how can I make money from it). I’ve yet to see Grant stumped so I think we’ve reached that goal. In the second part of the year, you can look for a “Tour de Cloud” workshop tour highlighting Azure and security topics. Anyone up for analytics? Lemme know.
• Webinars. We host 30+ webinars per year. Backing out holiday weeks and fishing season, it’s a once-a-week cadence. We work closely with our community sponsors to provide insightful content and not just speeds and feeds. It’s a tough conversation to have but we’ll keep pushing for your best interests.
• Content. I personally write 100+ blogs per year. It’s harder than it looks. Try it sometime. 
• Newsletter. We publish 48-editions of the newsletter every year. ‘Nough said. 

Here is a Throw Back Thursday (TBT) pic of me in high school. I’m with Charles Wohlforth and we were entrepreneurs. We would both go by Dean Whitter (stock brokerage) and invest in options before school. I imported digital watches into Alaska. Charles had other business endeavors including writing articles. Needless to say we both have changed since high scool! 

Culture!

The times are changing and so are we. We honor the geeks in our workshop and webinars. But increasingly in our digital avenues we are telling a different story about either starting up (something new) or starting over (reinventing yourself). It’s one of those times in our industry. A recent article in the New York Times had the former AT&T chairman commenting that his landline business disappeared in three years – PUFF! Few would deny time are changing. Some critics have commented that SMB Nation has lost its way. We’d prefer to say we’re headed in a new direction. Change is necessarily disturbing. But we take comfort in these comments this week from Jeff Bezos at the Code conference.

"As a public figure, the best defense to speech you don’t like is to develop a thick skin. You can’t stop it. If you’re doing anything interesting in the world, you’re going to have critics. If you can’t tolerate critics, don’t do anything new or interesting."
- Jeff Bezos

So here’s hoping you’ll pivot with us and lead the parade. See you on the other side!

PS - Here is a partial list of the workshops we delivered over the past few years. I'm not listing closed events (where we acted as a event manager) or our annual Geek Picnic, etc. :) 

2016 Office 365 and Windows 10 Roadshow for MSPs/CSPs/Resellers (1H2016: http://2016roadshow.smbnation.com/cities/)

1. Redmond
2. NY
3. Atlanta
4. Chicago
5. Washington DC
6. Charlotte
7. LA
8. SF
9. Phoenix
10. PLUS Additional Nine (9) Cities in 2h2016!

Office 365 Resellers/MSP Tour 2015: http://o365tour.smbnation.com/cities/

1. Bellevue
2. Silicon Valley
3. LA
4. NY
5. Chicago
6. Dallas
7. Washington DC
8. Charlotte

2015 Windows 10 launch events for resellers/MSPs  (5 events):

1. New York City, New York – June 2nd 2015
2. Los Angeles, California – June 9th 2015
3. Redmond, Washington – June 16th 2015
4. Fort Lauderdale, Florida – June 23rd 2015
5. Austin TX – June 25th 2015

2014 Worldwide Modern Tour  (24-cities in 23-countries: http://moderntour.smbnation.com/cities/ )

1. Auckland, New Zealand 3/27/2014

2. Bangalore, India 6/10/2014
3. Cape Town, South Africa 5/22/2014
4. Dubai, United Arab Emirates 5/8/2014
5. Dublin, Ireland 4/23/2014
6. Hong Kong, China 3/21/2014
7. Istanbul, Turkey 5/13/2014
8. Johannesburg, South Africa 5/20/2014
9. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 3/17/2014
10. Madrid, Spain 5/6/2014
11. Manila, Philippines 3/19/2014
12. Mexico City, Mexico 4/1/2014
13. Milan, Italy 6/13/2014
14. Mississauga, ON, Canada 6/4/2014
15. Montréal, QC, Canada 6/6/2014
16. Moscow, Russia 5/22/2014
17. Prague, Czech Republic 5/21/2014
18. Reading, United Kingdom 4/1/2014
19. Sao Paulo, Brazil 3/20/2014
20. Singapore, Singapore 3/14/2014
21. Stockholm, Sweden 5/27/2014
22. Sydney, Australia 3/25/2014
23. Taipei, Taiwan 4/29/2014
24. Warsaw, Poland 6/4/2014

2013 Windows XP EOL “Million Mile" Tour (44-workshops in 22 cities)

• More information here: http://www.smbnation.com/content/news/d-h-distributing-sponsors-windows-xp-migration-million-mile-tour