Well, it's been a crazy two and half weeks of business and vacation travel. After an excellent quarterly meeting with our Marketing Master Mind Group in Del Mar, CA, it was off for a week of relaxing vacation on Cape Cod with my family. We had a blast, and despite the poor summer weather up to that point, we actually had some nice hot sunny days. The kids were very happy. I was very happy, because the beach cottage surprised us all with high speed broadband service this year, so I actually got to do some quality work as well, which actually helps me to relax, when I can leisurely work on things that I need the piece and quiet of a remote location to do. I know, it was vacationa nd I should not have been working, but as I said, I enjoy it. I love what I do and don't mind doing it while I'm vacationing, especially when I have my family close at hand.
Taking a page right out of the book of plays for the "no rest for the weery" crowd, I was home for a whopping 40 hours and I was off to Las Vegas to the annual IT industry conference, Breakaway, put on by CompTIA. I have been attending this annual conference for many years and find it to be a huge source of inspiration, education and early insight into emerging technologies that will benefit our clients. This year, I was very excited to see all the changes that have been ushered in by the new leadership team at CompTIA. I have always said that the time and money invested in attending Breakaway comes back in multiples and my expections for this year were very high, given all that I have heard about the new team. This is not said with the slightest amount of disrespect to the former team, who did a truly exemplary job growing Breakaway into the highly successful event that it is. They deserve immense credit for their work and the value they returned to the membership all these years. With new leadership come changes and new opportunities and that's where the buzz was building.
The event had some noticable changes, nearly all positive from my perspective and the feedback I was hearing. As a former Board member of the Association, some people sought me out to share their thoughts, again, mostly positive and enthusiastic for the refreshed image of the event. The education sessions were by far, the best part of the event. We heard from dynamic speakers, like Patrick Lencioni, author of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team. I wish my entire staff had been able to see his keynote, as it was inciteful and educational and I can't do it justice. Verne Harnish, of Gazelles, gave a business planning workshop to a standing room only audience over two days! The new peer-to-peer faciliated sessions seemed to be the biggest hit of the week. These sessions covered a wide range of topics relating to small and mid-size business issues ranging from business development, to personnel management, to market opportunities and more. The intereactivity and sharing in these sessions was amazing. CompTIA is continuing these discussions via online tools that have been built to carry the positive momentum throughout the year. One of the concluding events of the conference was a "speed dating" session, where small groups could spend 20 minutes with experts in the fields of marketing, finance, legal and HR. I picked up some great insight, advice and ideas from CompTIA's own HR director that may be my one golden nugget of the conference.
There were also several meetings of new existing Executive Forums focussed on services, managed IT, SMB owner issues, security and more. Think of these like special interest groups that focus on the specific areas and help the members improve their internal operations and client services. These too, will continue to interact throughout the year via in person meetings, teleconferences and web 2.0 tools.
On the technology side of the conference, there was a very impressive vendor fair with well over 100 vendors showcasing their technologies. This is always a very efficient venue to investigate new technologies and I came to the event with some specific goals in mind, to seek out and qualify a handful of solutions for various clients and I was able to meet and exceed my goal. Security and virtualization seemed to be the hot technologies this year. As a holder of the CompTIA Security Trustmark, I was not surprised to see the emphasis on security as all companies, large and small, need to be concerned with increased security in the near, not long term. Desktop virtualization seemed to be the other hot technology generating buzz. The value proposition being that you can either use outdated hardware or a thin client, as opposed to a full blown PC, to access a virtual desktop that emulates the full functionality of a desktop PC. This has some intriguing possibilities and will be something to keep an eye on. Whether we are talking about server based on desktop virtualization, I see opportunities for clients to build out their own private “cloud” (the other hot topic of the conference) to support their specific needs.
It was a very valuable week of learning, discovering and networking and another very successful Breakaway conference. Now, I’m finally getting caught up on my extended travels and getting back to my regular blogging. Thanks for reading this lengthy post.
