Stuart R. Crawford

On Wednesday night I hopped on a Air Canada flight to Toronto to help my friends at Highroad Communications and Microsoft with a new launch of a web based product in Canada (More information will be posted at http://sbsc.itsuccessmentor.com when I get the green light).  Many people ask me, “Stuart why do you do this stuff” and the answer is really simple.  I value the relationships with my vendor partners and those that support them.  This is why when Cortney asked me to do this I immediately said yes and made it work.  I will have very little sleep as I fly to Toronto, make my way downtown from Pearson and then have a full day on Thursday before returning back to Calgary right away.  You see, these people are wonderful colleagues, friends and business partners and core reason is being a true Go-Giver.  When we give of ourselves with our vendors, amazing things occur.

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?

OK, enough with the Bud Light! The stock markets rebound after the huge loss from the other day with some of highest single day rallies posted since 1987. What is going on here? Enough with the Bud Light upset stomach hangover effects.

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!

A great LoadFest this past weekend…

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

The economy today feels like a upset stomach after a night of way to many Bud Lights.  How do you feel about the overall economy?  Are you worried about the future?  Are you panicking?

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.

The web is a wonderful tool and also it can be your worse enemy.  I went over to my friends Ray and Sam’s tonight for a visit and we got on the topic of Facebook.  I know at one time I was a huge fan of Facebook however it started to become a major distraction in my life, so I have removed myself from Facebook.  That is distraction number one in my life gone.  Now I will keep other social media working for me like LinkedIN.

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.