The evening saw vendors, distributors and resellers get together with CompTIA UK for a drinks reception and meal in the G Casino, part of the Ricoh Arena. I know from experience that the nuggets of wisdom and advice you can pick-up from your peers in an informal environment like this can be invaluable, and this particular evening was no exception.
The next-day, Friday 13th May, saw the second event which was the first face-face gathering of the newly formed CompTIA UK Channel Community, of which I am the chair, along with Vice Chair Lee Evans of Vital.The event was well attended by a mixture of vendors and resellers of varying sizes, and more importantly – everyone (and I do mean everyone) who attended contributed ideas and got actively involved in the discussion.
The day saw an opening presentation on the state of the industry from CompTIA CEO and President Todd Thibodeaux, and the group also heard a lively presentation from Linda Ockwell-Jenner of Motivational Steps.
Aside from the aforementioned presentations, there were a number of open sessions that saw some lively discussions, which resulted in the group laying out plans to deliver a Vendor Marketing Resources Portal and IT Quality Mark as well as starting to localise CompTIA’s North American Legal Resource Centre inclusive of contracts, SLAs and much more for use by CompTIA’s UK members. In addition to this, the community selected Computers for Charities to benefit from $5,000 in philanthropic funding.
Back by popular demand was the 30-second best practice completion in which all members were asked to present an idea that has earned or saved them money over the past few months. Ben Tristem of Embrace IT’s winning idea of asking yourself if you are uniquely qualified to be doing what you was voted winner out of the dozens of great ideas that were put forward. The real winners, of course, were all the attendees who came away with dozens of good ideas to implement in their own businesses. If you’re interested in seeing the group’s ideas, contact William Linard of CompTIA at wlinard@comptia.org.I felt privileged to be closely involved in the first meeting of a group of people who are so clearly passionate about the industry in which they work. I’ve been a part of the UK SMB IT Community for many years now, attending lots of meetings of various groups, but I felt this group has the opportunity to make the most impact.
But what did the other attendees think? Well, judging by the fact that there were still people sitting together, exchanging ideas and chatting some two hours after the event had finished, I suspect it was well received!
That said, I took time to record short video interviews with three of the attendees to get their thoughts. I chose the three individuals specifically because of their involvement in Peer Communities in the past.
In Rob Copestick of Spiral IT, we met somebody who is brand new to peer groups. Rob has only just made the decision to start his own IT company, and so I was interested to hear what he had to say about his experiences at the meeting.
Rob Franklin of JPT Solutions has been a part of the Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community, and in particular, the AMITPRO group, for a couple of years or more. Rob has recently taken big steps to grow his own business, and so I wanted to get his views on how peer groups like CompTIA can help a growing business to accelerate that growth.
Finally, Gareth Brown of SYTEC is someone many (myself included) consider to be one of the long-time key influencers of the UK SMB IT Community and somebody who helped build the Microsoft SBSC programme alongside people such as Susanne Dansey of Purple Cow (who was also in attendance). I specifically invited Gareth to the meeting as I knew his expertise would be invaluable, and I was intrigued to hear his feelings on what a well established and very successful company like SYTEC gets from these meetings.
Interestingly, all three individuals gave a similar message – that taking time out of their business to spend time with their peers was time well spent.
For me, this is no surprise at all – I grew my own MSP business off the back of the great ideas and advice I picked up at UK SMB IT Community events. What’s more, I personally came away from the two days with CompTIA with a ton of great suggestions for my own business. That’s invaluable and to me is the difference between growing your business slowly, working things out as best you can, and growing your business quickly by working with others for mutual benefit.
I’m excited to be the chair of the CompTIA UK Channel Community, and I think that the group has the rare opportunity to help bring together some of the best and most engaged members of the UK IT Community to raise the bar in the IT industry as a whole.
The group is free to join, and you don’t have to be a member of CompTIA to do so – although I strongly encourage to join CompTIA as a member (as I have) as they really do offer many benefits that you’ll both find useful, and help you both save and make money for your business!
You can see some more photographs from the group meeting on my Flickr page.
The groups next meeting is scheduled August 2011 – you can find out more via the groups LinkedIn group, by visiting the Community Portal page, or by reaching out to CompTIA or me directly.
Richard Tubb is an independent consultant who works with IT companies to enable them to feel more in control and to grow their business. He is also a Microsoft UK Small Business Specialist Partner Area Lead (PAL) and the 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. This post was excerpted and edited from Richard’s original blog.
