Rocky is Waaaay out of town this month so I’m going to do a session that is a bit free form ”Improving the security context of any network with Core IO adoption & Trends I want to Promote in SMB“
So why a bit free form well I could say to improve your security do the following 10 things and it would be a three minute session. My plan is much more serious and as we step through the four Core IO Maturity Phases we will examine why I think properly deployed and maintained Infrastructure is a security topic.
Come see if I can make a good argument 17:30, 1st April 2009. Microsoft Canberra Office, 44 Sydney Avenue Barton. Yes I’ll put the slide deck up here when I’m finished
Ok so I went to a Cloud Computing thing on Tuesday morning, which I will blog separately when I get the slide decks to jog my memory.
what I will say right away is how impressed I was about the briefing, finally a Cloud vendor not wanting us to rush to a cloud solution.
Anyway while there I won and iPod touch for filling in a eval form, while I was saying to the guys at my table that I didn't want any Apple polution in my house I must say I'm starting to think how cool an iPhone might be.
I still don’t understand the mechanics of minimum spend, to maintain accounts in the distribution channel… (this has been a topic in some of our community mailing lists since the event so I’m going to try to cover why I’m confused in another post.) ... and here it is. This has still come up in our SMB Community Group Lists even today.
I have been concerned about the minimum spend required to keep an account with some Distributors in the local market and how as an industry segment there is such wide variation, I had the opportunity to speak with a number of folk from Ingram Micro at Expotech and the answer I got to my question about the minimum spend policy left me wondering still. Let me recount some of the conversations and why I’m confused.
Firstly Synergistic Network Solutions sells time and skill, we only sell product in support of projects. Sometimes when we enter into longer engagements where we are providing advice the conflict prevents us from offering product. There maybe times when all our staff are in the kind of engagements where we can’t really offer products as a traditional reseller for several months. It is times like these when we are at risk of account suspension because we don’t trade through our reseller accounts.
Having clarified our terms of reference we understand there are rules and being suspended is in keeping with those rules, however from the perspective of sales pipe when we can’t get access to product and pricing we can’t quote for work and this means we don’t trade through our accounts. Quite the self fulfilling prophecy.
So what did people say when I asked this question…
I have been told the minimum spend requirement is to control costs, as I see it holding a record in a Data Base is a very near zero cost proposition. Can you explain the policy from a cost to the distributor perspective?
The answers were generally based on these main areas:
- Protection of channel, essentially non IT companies buying Christmas Presents;
- Cost of account management;
- Credit Card Processing cost;
- Cost of admin if paying by EFT
OKay then Synergistic Network Solutions sounds pretty IT focused, so the channel does not require protection from us;
If I have a logon to a pricing site and only engage with the web presence, I don’t see an Account Management cost;
Both payment costs are only realised when we actually order something, and if we sat above the buying threshold these costs would be the same if we payed by Credit Card or EFT.
So I’m still pretty confused about the policy and how it applies, plus I see this is still a hot topic in the channel so am kind of watching where this leaves Single Man SMB Focused companies.
One idea we had but discounted was to dump the price lists of our 5 Major Distribution Partners into an online store and add 2% plus a fee for credit card and drop shipment, that I suspect would solve our product flow issue but would be the thing the channel would need to be protected from. This is not in keeping with our business objectives so of course this is not in our plans.
To be clear Ingram Micro is not the only Disti that has a minimum spend requirement but they are the only ones I miss being able to quote through when our account gets suspended.
Perhaps we can form buyers groups to help with this but I’m sure there are large numbers of small businesses in our situation and I am still VERY CONFUSED
PLEASE EXPLAIN??
I’ve said some dumb things in my life and sometimes even to the media, so with some trepidation about saying things I might regret, I was chatting with Sholto Macpherson Editor of CRN Magazine at ExpoTech in Canberra. A day or so later I asked him for some advice about the media, I posed some questions and he graciously agreed to let me blog it. Here is the whole transcript of the media relations topic…
Good to talk with you on Wednesday, this can either be an idea for you to write or also happy to do it through my blog, but I think folk don’t really know how to deal with the media, at least I don’t. So how do we get the basics out there?
My questions would be… · How do I control what gets printed?
The short answer is, you can’t. It’s the difference between PR, whom you pay to put out a message that you have control over, and the media, which reports the facts as accurately as it can. At least that’s the theory. People talk to the media for a variety of reasons, but the reason why companies spend so much effort on launches, events, etc with the media is because audiences take more notice of what a journalist says than they do a paid-for ad. There are many other reasons which I’ll go into in an article. · Can I control what is and what is not on the record?
If the interviewee asks the journalist to keep his/her comments off the record, and the journalist agrees, then the journalist should honour that promise. Of course, like in any business, there are unscrupulous journalists, but generally you can feel certain that if you want to make a private comment it’s not going to appear as headline in the next issue. · Should I consider everything will be printed?
That’s a very good assumption and a useful guide to thinking about what to say, even though it will almost never occur. It’s like how the internet is one big magazine – only put online what you are happy for your mother to read. · Can I request to see an article before it is printed?
You can ask, but a journo won’t show. If every interviewee was able to see the article beforehand, inevitably they would want to make changes, and then the difference between journalism and public relations disappears. The media’s promise to its audience is to give an independent assessment of the topic or person in question. However, in some cases you can ask to see your quotes, which are the parts of the interview the journalist intends to use. These can only be checked for accuracy; it is not an opportunity to censor your own comments. · What tips would you give to deal with the media?
Well that is all we discussed so far as this was really a quick brain dump and of course I’d like to see an article about media in depth. Other questions I asked included…
Additionally publicity avenues · How do we get press releases picked up?
· What is of interest to you and not just self promoting drivel? · What style format etc is a good thing? Or don’t you care because you will edit the copy?
and of course I look forward to reading those answers in CRN in the fullness of time, it has made me think more about leveraging one of my Clients who just happens to be a Small PR Firm, so maybe I have a little bartering to do with Anita soon.
One last thing in a follow up email Sholto asked me what my answers might be since “– as a blog writer, you are in the media too! “
Well I don’t really think of my self like that, I’m really just a Techo with a big mouth, big opinions, and a tendency to use a reference to the Tism song “5 Yards” directed at my self when I behave badly.
Here are the basic rules for me: all answers to my original questions…
- I post to the blog you print it ;-D OK really I’ll often ask if I say “fred nerk said “ If you don’t like a post let me know I’ll replace it with *** David had a 5 Yards Moment *** (not happened yet)
- Everything is NDA unless I got it elsewhere first. Again If you don’t like a post let me know I’ll replace it with *** David had a 5 Yards Moment ***
- Even if I’m wearing a shirt / button that says “I’m Blogging this” probably not I tend to remember the things that stick in my mind, and chances are you will have said crap can we keep this between us by then. BTW it is more likely that I’m in a “nobody reads my blog” TEE-Shirt if truth be known, my only loyal reader is the Google search spider.
- Nope but since you set your RSS reader to update Mackie.is-a-geek.net every 5 Minutes you could be the one and only hit If you don’t like a post let me know I’ll replace it with *** David had a 5 Yards Moment ***
- Again not the media just a guy with a blog that VERY FEW people read.
Who am I kidding that is what we do in effect when we don’t produce good doco, Luckily Karl has made his Network Documentation Workbook available as an E-Book 
Wednesday night was the Ingram Micro ExpoTech event in Canberra (Sydney is Next Week)
So what was I expecting and what did I get... Well First off thanks for the prize from the jelly bean guessing competition, and just so you know I’ll be reprising (re-gifting) this at an up coming SMBiT Professionals – SYDNEY SBS 2008 build event.
So what are the things that stood out for me:
- I still don’t understand the mechanics of minimum spend, to maintain accounts in the distribution channel… (this has been a topic in some of our community mailing lists since the event so I’m going to try to cover why I’m confused in another post.)
- Trend Micro is not far from a very cool new feature in Worry Free Business Security 6.0.
- EMC now owns Iomega and naturally their low end NAS devices have their NFS feature set Certified for vmware. Hmmmm wonder about performance and sizing issues.
- DLink have released their Response Point based Phone System and it will be a closed channel which is really going to help ensure the product launches well. We are certainly going to be getting that application in and get the training done ASAP.
- AND lastly Sholto and I had a bit of a chat and of course I’ve had a couple of missteps with the media in the past, and would like to know a bit more about the relationship with a journalist, what is and what isn’t a fair expectation for what will appear in an article. Hmmmm I might see if he is up for a bit of a guest post or interview.