I have a dog in this fight. In graduate school my MBA concentration was in project management from a construction industry vantage point (fortunately my skills easily transferred to IT and the rest is history). So when Smartsheet announced its first ever user conference, I marked it as a must do. It was time well spent and, yes, I’ll yelp that I will repeat. Heck 1,000 attendees can’t be wrong (note this was an IT Pro audience with 55% self-selecting as super users).

(By Karl Palachuk)

Way back in 1993 I found myself in charge of a program to take an entire service business built on Cobol, EBCDIC, and HP-3000 mini computers and create a new system based on Windows Server and SQL. In addition to managing an entire staff of people who ran the entire operation, I managed two COBOL programmers, on SQL programmer, and an outsourced development company that built the new systems based on a 300 page design document I put together.

As promised, my intentions are to keep the MSP Navy in the news cycle concerning the recent hurricanes (Harvey, Irma). Houston MSP Tim Looney started it here and has been joined by fellow MSP Ken Dwight to do good post-Harvey.  Closely-related was the relief coordination via the IAMCP here. 

This update concerns Irma that hit Florida recently.

People take a great deal of pride in their work, and they want their efforts to be as meaningful to employers and society at large as they are to them, on a personal level. But having more authority, more responsibilities, and a friendlier boss doesn't cut it these days. You'll find out soon enough that there's only so much you can do, as an executive, to keep employees running on all cylinders and happy on the job, before you turn to office interior design.

I’m blogging to you about an important tech policy issue—and to ask you to take a quick action to show your support because you are an important partner to Microsoft.

About 34 million Americans lack access to affordable, reliable broadband. This especially hurts rural businesses and communities. It also limits opportunities for our own businesses—and the growth of the tech sector overall.

Innovative technology now exists that can carry broadband on

by Shari Parsons Miller

An open-plan office space layout has pros and cons both for a firm’s personnel and its bottom line. In an open-plan work environment, there are no distinct rooms or fully enclosed spaces. Instead, workstations are positioned together -- sometimes separated by short screens or panels -- within one exposed floor plan. The openness may improve communication and collaboration among your workers, but it also may reduce concentration and productivity.

Sales training is one of the most important investments most companies make, because it allows them to close the gap between current performance and potential performance. Nevertheless, around 80 percent of respondents to a recent study by the Rain Group Center rated their own training as being between average and poor.

You've heard about all the amazing benefits of content marketing. You want to jump in. But . . . how? Here's how.

Jayson DeMers

Founder and CEO, AusienceBloom

By now, you've heard about all the amazing benefits of content marketing. You know that with the right strategy, you can earn more traffic, build a better reputation and see compound growth in both areas over time without greatly increasing your budget.

Readers will recall the popular Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community (SBSC) partner program last decade. Beatrice Mulzer and I did a couple books on the topic, in particular focused on passing  the MCP certification exams. One of the players in that motion was Microsoft executive Francois Daumard (who worked with the SBSC program 2007-2011 and still admires the SBSC partner loyalty). This piece is about where is Francois now?!?!?

Ready to level up your working knowledge of business? Here’s what to read now — and next.

Business 101, with Nilofer Merchant

First, read these 2 foundational books…

1. The Change Masters
Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Free Press, 1985

By: Gloria Kopp

 If you're often finding that projects are being delivered late, rushed to be completed or just not up to the standard you're expecting, you and your team could benefit greatly from the creation of a clear, organized workflow. Your workflow defines the patterns and processes by which you bring a project from conception to completion, and helps ensure that you don't experience these setbacks that exist when there's no organization behind the production process. Follow these steps to start putting together a workflow that is tailored to your team and the projects you're working on, and watch the levels of quality and speed in your work soar.

Five years ago this month, Microsoft announced the end of the popular Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) product family. A minor announcement made over the slow July 4th holiday weekend in 2012 was rapidly picked up by the community and everyone had an opinion. SBSers were given an 18-month runway to retire/migrate or otherwise mitigate the drop dead date of SBS (December 31, 2013).