SMB Nation is just wrapping up for another year and it was great to have the perspective of where we are in our own business at IT Matters.  I am very proud to be part of IT Matters, an award winning Microsoft Partner in Calgary providing quality IT support to businesses in our great city.  IT Matters is here for a long time and our people are the best.  I really mean that, they are the best and why wouldn’t you want to be part of that.  We are still looking for some great people in Calgary to work for us.  Send us your resume to careers@itmatters.ca.

I am reading an awesome book that my spouse has put me onto called “The Shack”.  I normally only read a few pages per day, however in only the past few days I am almost completely through this book that tells the story of “Mack” who lost his young Missy by the LadyKiller murderer.  This story is a fictional story however the lessons of life are very true.  This story which I have not completed yet tells about how a man (similar to me) wrestles with his belief and the power of the trinity after his daughter is murdered in the Oregon mountains.  I highly recommend Paul Young’s book.

So my lesson for today is no matter how rough life appears on the surface, the true joy comes from being a follower and putting your faith in the Lord.

I can’t wait to get on the plane so I can continue with this book.

So what about the day at SMB Nation, my hats off to Harry Brelsford today, Harry has amazing energy and always on the go.   I heard an interesting stat today that 2/3 of the registration have never been to this conference before which is welcomed since I get to see alot of familiar faces around shows like this.  I love to come to these things and hang out and the 2 days that I will be here is much better for me than 4 whole days.  Gets to be a little long after a while.

I managed to get some real value today out of my chat with Monique Rogers from ARRC in Bakersfield, CA.  Thanks to my good friend Erick Simpson for hooking us up.  Monique and I chatted about some marketing strategies that she recently completed and that we are executing here in Calgary.   She was awesome and in the true spirit of the Go-Giver offered up a lot of information that will allow us to succeed in our marketing efforts.  Thanks Monique for being an awesome friend and trusted colleague.  There is tremendous value to events like SMB Nation.

It was also awesome to have a great chat with my good friends Rene and Jeff, who are from Alberta.  We discussed currently market conditions in Alberta.  It is interesting to see there perspective on our marketplace.  I have no problem sharing my views with my colleagues in Calgary and surrounding areas.  We all in this together and if we can help each other out that is what the true value of community is about.  I fully believe at coopetition is much better than competition.  Read the Go-Giver if you don’t believe how this will benefit you and your business.

The traveling is starting to burn me out a bit, so I am going to end this post here.  Drop me a line or leave a comment and let me know how you found SMB Nation this year.

I have been fortunate to sit down with Aaron on a number of occasions in the past to talk to him on and off the camera.  I love being interviewed by Aaron, he enjoys doing it and is an inspiration for me to launch into video blogging.  I will be bringing my camera to Seattle tomorrow and will shoot a quick video from Seattle during SMB Nation which is occurring as we speak.  I decided to stay home today to spend time with the family and have a quiet night with my lovely wife watching TV.

You can watch Aaron and my video here - http://www.varvid.com/2008/10/stuart-crawford-from-it-matters-speaks-with-aaron-booker-of-varvidcom.html

Today was a great day with my eldest son, he and I enjoyed some hang out time and I got to see him play two sports that he loves.  In the morning, he played Ball Hockey and totally spanked the other team.  I one thing that I admire about Alex is that he is a total team player and very respectful of the other team.  He scored today during his ball hockey game.

Later in the day he played football at McMahon Stadium against Rundle College.  Unfortunately it was his turn to be on the spanking end.  Rundle totally shutout his team 31 - 0.  He is a junior playing senior ball, so he doesn’t get a lot of playing time, however he shows up for every practice and every game.  Many others would have quit already because of the lack of playing time.

Are you a quitter when you don’t get the limelight or exposure, or the big jobs?  Or are you the type of person who understands that your time will come.  Alex gets this, even as a junior in high school, he knows that if he works hard in practice, shows up at game time, when the team needs him - he is ready.  The coach will know when he is ready, until that time he continues to work hard.

Not everyone in life gets this and wouldn’t we all enjoy a team of guys like my son Alex who just gets the value of hard work and persistence.  To often in business today, everyone wants instant gratification and wants everything without wanting to put in the effort to learn and do their time in the trenches.

If you are someone like this who lives in Calgary or willing to locate to Calgary, my firm IT Matters is hiring guys and gals that are looking for a great IT job.  Visit our website at http://www.itmatters.ca/about_join.php.  We are looking for the best and those that enjoy being with the best.

In this book John Maxwell talks about the following ways that successful people think:

1.  Acquire the wisdom of big-picture thinking
2.  Unleash the potential of focused thinking
3.  Discover the joy of creative thinking
4.  Recognize the importance of realistic thinking
5.  Release the power of strategic thinking
6.  Feel the energy of possibility thinking
7.  Embrace the lessons of reflective thinking
8.  Question the acceptance of popular thinking
9.  Encourage the participation of shared thinking
10.  Experience the satisfaction of unselfish thinking
11.  Enjoy the return of bottom line thinking

There are some great tips here to help you unleash your true potential with some basic and more in depth thinking habits.

Here is a question for you, do you block of time during your week to do some thinking? Be honest, do you block off time in your calendar just to think?  If not, why not.  I block 2 hours first thing Monday morning after my workout for thinking time, I sometimes go to the park, go for a walk, sit in Starbucks or just sit in my car to think.  Just me with a pad of paper and a pen - NO TECHNOLOGY.  How about at the end of week, do you block of time to reflect on the week that just completed and do some high level thinking for the upcoming week?  Again, why not?

There can’t be any excuses, no client calls nothing…in the past I used to always cancel my thinking time, let’s review what happened here.

1. My creativity when down the toilet
2. My schedule got out of control
3. I lost my ability to focus

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that thinking time is important.

What are you willing to let go to free up your time to think?

OK, back to the stuff that matters about life, not that a shortage in great people doesn’t matter…

Relationships matter as well and that is what Thursday in Toronto was all about, relationships.  It started after a quick sleep at the SOHO Metropolitan on Wellington, what a great hotel, top notch.  It is too bad that I did get to spend more time there.  My friends at Highroad Communications needed me to help them with the launch of Office Live Small Business and you can read my post from yesterday to understand the importance of why I had to be there.  We had a great room full of people itching to learn more about this wonderful solution for Small Business.  Office Live Small Business provides the Small Business is a low cost entry point into the world on the web, and yes, it is coming and we must embrace it.  Just look at me, Mr Web 2.0, you have to embrace it, you must take action right now, we are beyond getting ready, it is here…where are you?  You can learn more about Office Live Small Business at http://www.officelive.com.  You still need a partner to truly get the most of the solution, call me at 403.710.4357, I can help you out.

After I was finished with Highroad, I swung by the DELL event at the Toronto Convention Centre.  I met up with some of my friends from DELL Canada.  You know something, DELL is a great company to work with and I will argue this with anyone.  These guys get the channel and the importance of partners.  I spoke with a few DELL reps today and they all told me that they are now doing business directly with partners because they get the solution.  Kevin Peesker during his PartnerDirect talk said that “80% of DELL’s business is through PartnerDirect”, I know that DELL does alot of business with us, something like 7 figures in DELL business.  IT Matters is someone you can call on if you need DELL systems in Calgary or anywhere in Canada.

Do I sound like an infomercial today?  Sorry…

After my brief chat with my buddies from DELL, I had lunch with Leslie, who used to be my DELL rep until she moved on to BMO.  This is the true value of a relationship.  Leslie has been gone from DELL since May (I still miss her), however we are good friends and almost every time I am in Toronto, well at least downtown, we get together.  I feel bad because I short changed Leslie today with our time together.  Relationships in business need to be more about dollars and cents, we have to go deep with our vendors and friends who work for them.  They are people too, they have challenges in their lives, they have credit card payments to make, they have mortgages to pay and they are concerned about the markets as well.  Never under estimate the value of your vendor relationships.  Keith Ferrazzi taught me well at the event in Calgary as few weeks ago.

I also took sometime to meet with my board from the IAMCP, well most of them.  We had a great lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Downtown Toronto.  The upcoming Microsoft tour is occurring during Q2 of Microsoft’s FY09 and we have been invited to show off our goods with the IAMCP.  It was wonderful to spend sometime with my board members, too often we just meet on the phone and I really appreciate the face time with these fine folks.

Are you seeing a theme here, I hope so, it is about relationships.

Finally, my friends from Microsoft, Paula and Rob took me out to Riva Supper Club on College Street for dinner, thanks Rob for playing host tonight and Paula for the ride to Pearson when we were done.  I really appreciate all that you guys do for me.  How can I help you succeed?  That was the question of the evening for me.  How can I help my friends reach their goals?  How can I help my staff reach their goals?  How can I help you reach your goals?

The Toronto trip was a great reconnecting experience today, jammed packed into about 10 hours, WOW, I did it…

On a side note, I love going to Toronto, this is my hometown and still has a very special place in my heart.  Every time I come here I am going home.  I will not see my parents this time around, they are about an hour away in Niagara.  I will call my Mom on Thursday to say hi, on a short trip like this it is hard to squeeze in a family visit.  And yes, I am still a Leaf fan - GO LEAFS GO.

Many IT Partners look at their vendors with their palms up like a beggar on the city streets.  I often here gimme, gimme, gimme and that is not the way it should be.  I have some awesome partners, Microsoft, SonicWALL, Kasperky, Tech Data just to name a few and I always take the approach of understanding how I can help them, what we can do to make their business stronger and better and I have one more rule, my vendors must become my friends, if they are not open to this then I can not do business with them.  You see, I don’t work like that.  Just ask my good buddy Paula at Microsoft, her and I talk like a brother and sister and although we talk some business we also enjoy the friendship that we have.  The same goes for Mark at SonicWALL, Lance, Joanne and Bill at Kaspersky and the entire Tech Data team in Clearwater and Mississauga.

I also had a chance to reflect on an email from my good friend Brad in Duluth on the concept of “Follow Me”.  In John, Jesus simply says to his followers “Follow Me” and they do.  Amazing, now I am just starting to understand how the life of Christ impacts me as a leader, husband, father and as a person. I can hear Brad right now, just trust in Him and it will be wonderful.  As I got thinking about the “Follow Me” approach I came to realization that I first need to be a good follower before I can ever become a great leader.  I know that as I develop as a person that life will introduce new challenges and opportunities for me.  I believe that this is happening today for me.

Last week I struggled through challenges with Focus, this week I can feel the focus coming back.  I just needed to commit to it and learn some new strategies to aid in keeping focused on my tasks and needs at hand.

It was great to run into my good from James from Microsoft as well in Calgary, he is a member of this blog and reads daily the stuff that put up on the web.  Sometimes it is my stating the words people read and sometimes I am just the messenger and have no control what is written on this blog, it comes from a higher source than I.  Good to see you James, hope you enjoyed Calgary and sorry we didn’t have a lot of time to talk after the event.

So ask yourself this question, can you lead with your vendor relationships and create a culture where you serve the needs of your partners instead of the other way around?

I had a great chat with a friend of mine today who is a colleague in the IT industry from North Texas and he stated that his market is still hot and lots of good things are happening. I have to say the same for Calgary, our market is doing good. So where is this doom and gloom that CNBC is reporting. Is it just Wall St and Bay St? I will tell you Thursday when I am down on Bay St.

What are you doing differently because of the economic conditions? Are you looking at buying a new car or a new home? Maybe, that is where people are hesitating.

I don’t remember 1987 to well, I just finished high school and was too interested in partying vs. watching the stock markets, but I guess it was pretty grim.

I am still the forever optimist and I am pretty confident that IT firms like mine at IT Matters will do fine. I have to feel for those guys that just jumped onto an IT Manager or Network Administrator role at a single firm. IT is always the first positions to be outsourced when a recession or economic downturn hits. Be prepared! That consulting role may just be the career that is most stable.

Keep your stick on the ice!

Thanks to everyone who helped out, who sponsored the event and who showed up to learn about some great new technologies around Small Business Server 2008, Hyper-V, MOSS, AuthAnvil, RWWGuard and Response Point.

Check out our video!

Here is what some people had to say about LoadFest.

“The content and speakers were top notch - it was definitely worth my time to be there!”
Jeff Anderson, Bulletproof Networks, Red Deer

“Bringing the message of how Microsoft’s Response Point telephony solution from a real world partner’s perspective had a major impact I was told by participants. Response Point is a real world solution for real world telephony needs of pragmatic small businesses.”
Jeff Loucks, Available Technologies, St. Catharines

True, the markets look horrible and some may fear that we maybe heading towards a very deep recession or even a depression.  Not sure if I would go that far.  Is the market correcting itself from the stupidness we saw over the past few years?  I think that this is the case.  The world couldn’t sustain $125 oil, $4 a gallon gas and stupid low mortgage rates before the bottom completely fell out of it.

Now, is the time to take advantage of the lower market and top up on your investments like mutual funds and make some good contributions towards your RRSP’s.  401K’s for the US folks.

And if you are in the IT industry now is the time that we must get creative with our marketing, our salesmanship and everything that touches our clients.  Now is the time to develop or take your client relationships to the next level.  Actually you should of been doing that all along, not waiting to now.

So is your business feeling the impact of this volatile marketplace?  What about the threats from offshore?  Are you looking at the entire picture of what is going on around you?

It is not time to panic, panicking does no one anything positive.  Now is the time to look at new ways to service your clients and take care of business.  There are still some great opportunities if you look outside the box.  Software + Services and hosted solutions now even makes more sense to jump in with and take advantage of everything that Microsoft’s BPOS and other hosted offerings.  When the clients out there look for new solutions, they will turn to the cloud and everything the cloud has to offer.

They will not be buying servers and other big ticket items.

So don’t panic, look for the opportunities in your market and get after them.

I realize that I have a number of distractions in my life that I need to remove so I can focus.  Last week was the pinnacle to how my lack of focus hurts me and those around me.  My good friend Brad from Duluth send this email to me this week, really nails it home on how something like email can even be a major distraction.

In 2005, a psychiatrist at King’s College in London administered IQ tests to three groups: the first did nothing but perform the IQ test, the second was distracted by e-mail and ringing phones, and the third was stoned on marijuana.  Not surprisingly, the first group did better than the other two by an average of 10 points.  The e-mailers, though, did worse than the intoxicated people by an average of 6 points.  The e-mailing group came in last.

What does that make you think of this statistic?  In a recent survey of 320 professionals, 17% reported they check e-mail a few times per hour and 68% check e-mail more or less continually.  They are constantly breaking their focus on the primary task at hand.

With email, I never connect to my Exchange Server, I only connect when I want to, still I connect several times a day.  I really like the approach that Tim Ferris has in the “4-Hour Workweek“, however Microsoft Exchange 2007 is having some challenges with Out of Office replies, so I have trouble with this one.

It is important to have focus and I am realizing this.  As I start to remove the distraction and practice my own discipline around ensuring that when I am engaged with work through IT Matters or personal stuff with my family that I am there with them.

I will need help, so if you want to help me out…just email me.