Month: February 2014

Well worth watching

Hopefully by now you have heard of TED talks. They are basically a huge library of speakers on a broad range of topics from business to technology and from medical science to philosophy that you can view online for free. I’d be really surprised if you haven’t seen at least one.
TED was recent released a list of its top 20 most popular talks (measure by the number of views). You will find these over at a recent blog post:
The 20 most popular TED Talks, as of this moment
I am now working through this list myself and would commend the same thing to you as well, because if they are so popular there is probably something in there work learning.

Ask Us Webinar 1–Highlights reel

We have posted the highlights reel of our first Ask Us webinar to Youtube and you can find it here:

Ask Use Webinar 1 – Highlights

In the video we cover some information on creating a SharePoint Online demo site as well as comparisons of SharePoint Online to Office 365. Unfortunately, it is limited to 10 minutes because our Cloud Business Blueprint YouTube account is yet to be verified. We’ll take care of that for our next Ask Us Webinar on the Thursday the 13th of February at 12.30pm. Cloud Business Blueprint members can view the complete highlight reel in the members forum (since we are using a different technology there with video).

You can sign up for the next Ask Us Webinar and actually any Ask Us Webinar at:

http://www.cloudbusinessblueprint.com/ask-weekly-webinar

Remember, there is no cost for these webinars. Also, if you have a topic you like to see covered then by all means shoot me an email or leave a comment on this blog about the topic or question you have and we’ll do our best to answer it in the upcoming webinar.

We hope to see you there.

National Office 365 breakfast sessions

I’ve been working with Microsoft and Express Data here in Australia to present a number of breakfast session around the new options available in Office 365 from the 2nd of April.
These events will be held in most major capital cities initially (and maybe roll out to other regional areas later on). To register for these breakfast sessions visit:
http://www.ed-marketing.com/microsoft/get-smart/365.html
I’ll be presenting along with Microsoft and Express Data. I have worked hard to ensure that the content is relevant and engaging for attendees and not just a stack of slides. We’ll have interactive discussions, questions and answers, ask the experts, migration scenarios and a whole stack more.
Also, as part of these events I’ll be running an informal get together somewhere in the city the night before. Very much like the Cloud Business Blueprint meetups these will be totally informal get togethers over some dinner and a drink to discuss business, technology or whatever. If you are interested in attending please email me directly via director@ciaops.com and let me know what city you’ll be attending so I can send you the arrangements.
I hope to see you there.

February Sydney Meetup next week

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Our first meetup in January was a blast and exceptionally well attended. Now it’s time to do it again for February.

We have therefore arranged our next Sydney meet up to be held:

Date: Monday 17th February, 2014

Time: from 6.30pm

Location: The Oaks Hotel, Military Road, Neutral Bay in the “Bar & Grill” area

Map: https://goo.gl/maps/Flaaz

This is a completely informal get together with the goal of allowing attendees to network with each other and share interests, contacts, strategies and general information.

We are also happy to welcome anyone along who thinks they get value from attending even if they are not currently a member of the Cloud Business Blueprint yet. Feel free to come along and join in the conversation, no obligation.

If you planning on attending we would ask that you let us know via an email to info@cloudbusinessblueprint.com so we can ensure we have enough seats reserved for you at the table.

Come along and chat to other IT Professionals about how they are successfully running a business focused on the cloud.

Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This is BIG news for Office 365 in Australia

Some sharp eyed contacts alerted me today to this post on the Official Australian Partner blog yesterday:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/auspartners/archive/2014/02/05/introducing-more-ways-for-partners-to-resell-office-365-amp-windows-intune-to-smbs.aspx
I knew that Office 365 via Open Licensing was coming but I didn’t know about this:
Microsoft Online Portal
In this scenario, Office 365 is purchased online via the Microsoft Online Portal. This option is subscription based, with the choice of monthly or annual billing. Microsoft resellers will be able to sell via this option by attaching a ‘Partner of Record’ to a customer account.
So, that seems to mean that you can now also buy Office 365 direct from a Microsoft via an online portal! Thus your purchasing options are now:
1. Open licensing
2. Telstra T-Suite portal
3. Microsoft Online Portal
4. Via Retail for Small Business Plans
Personally, this means that the upcoming changes to Office 365 (which will happen on April 2nd, which was announced in the same blog post) are going to have a much GREATER impact for customers and more so resellers I believe here in Australia. A much greater impact.
I’ll try and ferret out some more details and report back when I have some more facts.

I got the Lumia Black Update

I received notification of an update on my Nokia Lumia Windows Phone yesterday so I pressed the button and commenced the upgrade.

It all went seamlessly across the air and after a few reboots I am now running the Lumia Black update. If you want to know the details about what the Black Update contains then I’d point you here:

http://www.wpcentral.com/lumia-black

Once you have the Black Update you can also get some new Nokia apps for the Windows Phone. One of these is Nokia Beamer.

Start by downloading the Nokia Beamer App from the Windows Store. Then visit:

http://beam.nokia.com

where you’ll see a QR code like so:

image

Capture that with the Nokia Beamer App on your phone and then you will see the screen of you Windows Phone in your browser like so:

image

That’s really cool I reckon and for me really handy as it make doing demos of the Windows much, much easier.

If you have a Windows Phone check to see whether you can get the Black Update. If you can, do it! Then check for the additional cool apps you can now get like Nokia Beamer.

Next Cloud Business Sydney Meetup

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We’ll be doing the next Cloud Business Blueprint Sydney meetup here:

Date: Monday 17th February, 2014

Time: From 6.30pm

Location: The Oaks Hotel, Military Road, Neutral Bay in the “Bar & Grill” area

Map: https://goo.gl/maps/Flaaz

This is a completely informal get together with the goal of allowing attendees to network with each other and share interests, contacts, strategies and general information. We have a lot to discuss this month including a new CEO at Microsoft, changes to Office 365 available in Australia, and more.

We are also happy to welcome anyone along who thinks they get value from attending even if they are not currently a member of the Cloud Business Blueprint yet. Feel free to come along and join in the conversation, no obligation.

If you planning on attending we would ask that you let us know via an email to info@cloudbusinessblueprint.com so we can ensure we have enough seats reserved for you at the table.

Remember, it is totally informal some along and enjoy a good feed and great conversation with a fantastic bunch of people all looking to better their business through the cloud. Everyone who attended last month had a blast!

Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net