IAMCP SoCal’s 10th Anniversary Celebration Blog

We would not be able to pull off such an incredible event if it were not for our sponsors! We want to give thanks to all of our sponsors and take a moment to recognize our Platinum Sponsors for the big event! (http://www.iamcpparty.com)

SoftwareONE –

At SoftwareONE, we take pride in being a leading global provider of end-to-end software and cloud technology solutions – but even more so in being able to enable our partners with the systems, tools, support and processes needed to optimize their Microsoft cloud practice. This past year we launched our indirect provider program, ONEClub, with the hopes of enabling partners to build and support their Microsoft Cloud business. Our number one goal in creating ONEClub is to create new opportunities and mutually shared success with all of our partners – and by joining with IAMCP, the reseller opportunities to grow, innovate, and, most importantly, execute transformation for our joint customers is unprecedented.

Don’t just take our word – hear it for yourself from one of our top partners, Effvision. Check out the  testimonial here.

Learn about partnering with SoftwareONE – or better yet, find out how you can take advantage of one month free on all Office 365 licensing. Contact channel.us@softwareone.com to learn more. Let’s get started!

Voleer –

Voleer has out-of-the-box automations that perform security and cost assessments for Office 365 and Azure. With a single click, Voleer can deliver a concise report of manual and tools-driven activities. Visit us at Booth #—- and you will be able to see first hand how with one click, your teams will be able to run these automations which will allow them to more efficiently drive business outcomes. 

Ingram Cloud –

As a Platinum sponsor, Ingram Micro Cloud is excited to celebrate IAMCP SoCal’s 10^th anniversary. Our goal is to continue to strengthen our global partnership with IAMCP, and provide joint activities and enablement programs to accelerate the success of your Microsoft business.  

We offer a host of Microsoft-dedicated resources and programs, including Modern Workplace, Azure Accelerate and Dynamics 365, to help you grow your Microsoft cloud practice. As an Ingram Micro partner, you’ll get access to exclusive services, promotions and offerings designed to help your Microsoft business achieve depth and scale. Whether you’re new to cloud or a technology expert, you can turn to us for support in your cloud journey. 

Pax8 –

When it comes to Microsoft, you need a Wingman. Please join @Pax8 at the next IAMCP chapter meeting as they discuss how you can gain more margin with Microsoft, rebate opportunities, partner incentives, and more. We look forward to seeing you there!

Recent Case Studies for Pax8: machineLOGIC & TrueIT 

We are so excited to share with you the complete lineup of sessions coming to the Partnering 101/Marketing Track at the upcoming IAMCP SoCal 10th Anniversary Party on October 24th in Irvine, CA (www.iamcpparty.com).

9:00AM – 9:25AM – Microsoft Go To Market Services Overview

9:30AM – 9:55AM – Creating a Microsoft Demo Tenant for Any Microsoft Environment

Presented by Will McNae, Microsoft Partner Technology Strategist ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/willmcnae/)

In this how-to session, learn what is available from the Microsoft Demos portal, how to fuse multiple demos together and tips on presenting your story focused on business outcomes.

About Will McNae

Will started his journey at Microsoft working with Partners in a sales strategy and growth role.  After 8 years he left Microsoft to help grow and build a marketing agency with his brother where they helped customers transform their digital estate and tools.  He returned to Microsoft in 2016 with a focus on developing technical strategies and solutions with Partners.

10:00AM – 10:25AM – The Things, The PiBs and the Easy Play Buttons

Presented by Diana Ishak, Microsoft Senior Manager-One Commercial Partner US (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianaishak/)

Join Diana on a journey to discover the Things + Solution Areas designed to guide you in how to help your customer with their transformation outcomes

PiBs aligned to the Top 10 Things and The Easy Play Buttons

• Intelligent Cloud (Things 1-3)
• Modern Workplace (Things 4-5)
• Business Applications (Things 6-10)

The four solution-area PiBs for Modern Workplace, Apps & Infrastructure, Data & AI and Business Applications feature the top 10 Things, plus additional plays.

Diana will walk you thru each PiB which provides you the tools you need to help your customers with their digital transformation outcomes – from the value proposition of each sales play, marketing assets, target scenarios, to information about investments and offers available to you and a lot more…all packaged in a simple, easy-to-use format.

About Diana Michael Ishak –

Microsoft SMB GTM Lead, US One Commercial Partner. Holds an MBA from UCLA & a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Washington. A blended skill set of science and art! She has spent the last 18 years focusing on the evolution of marketing in the electronics & IT technology Industry. With the last 13 years at Microsoft in engineering, licensing & channel marketing. In the Microsoft Beirut office, she led the marketing campaign to launch SQL Server; Shipped Office 2007, 2010 as a localization engineer in Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi and Thai. Spent 3 years in Microsoft Cloud & Enterprise business group focusing on Hosting business licensing and pricing challenges. Today, Diana works on coaching and empowering Microsoft partners in the SMB market segment to succeed in their journey to the cloud thru digital marketing transformational practices. Winner of Microsoft Inspire Partner conference Top Speaker Award.

10:30AM – 10:55AM – Partner to Partner Collaboration Tools

Presented by Hannibal Scipio, Microsoft Global Partner-to-Partner (P2P) Lead, GTM and Programs (https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannibalscipio/)

Microsoft is enabling partners to collaborate with each other to accelerate the digital transformation of mutual customers.  Learn about the new program, tools, and resources to provide qualified Microsoft partners a repeatable approach to grow and optimize their partnerships and ecosystem.

About Hannibal Scipio

Hannibal Scipio is the global strategy and execution lead for the partner-to-partner motion in the One Commercial Partner GTM and Programs team at Microsoft. He is focused on enabling Microsoft partners to build and strengthen connections that drive digital transformation for both themselves and their customers. With more than 15 years of technology and leadership experience, he has received numerous awards for improving partner experiences, has developed high-value partner programs, and has driven critical partner sales activities. A transformational business leader, he is always up for the challenge to solve problems and support partners’ success.

11:00AM – 11:25AM – Technical Skilling and the Programs to Support Partners’ Skills

Presented by Beth Humphreys, Microsoft Partner Technology Manager ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethh/)

Microsoft is investing heavily in partner technical skilling, and this session provides an overview of critical learning paths and skilling resources that are available at no cost to IAMCP partners. 

About Beth Humphreys

Beth has held several roles at Microsoft over her 14 year tenure. She joined Microsoft in 2005 as an Infrastructure Architect Evangelist working in the Developer Experience. In 2008, Beth moved into enterprise sales as a Global Account Technology Strategist leading the technical relationship with a global manufacturing company in Milwaukee, WI. After getting her Executive MBA in 2016, she moved to a Director role, leading the Technology Strategist team in the regional sales organization. In 2017, she took on a role in a newly created Customer Success team and led Azure Cloud Solution Architects helping build and coach to this new concept of “customer success” internally and with Microsoft’s customers.

She has recently joined the US One Commercial Partner Technical Team, where she is now leading the Scale Enablement Technical Architects and Cloud Solution Architects that cross all of Microsoft’s cloud platforms. The Scale Enablement team is Microsoft’s team of deep, technical architects focused on growing the skills, readiness and capability of our partner ecosystem across all solution areas and partner segments.  This team ensures the right capability is built through enablement and certifications to advance partners’ strategic roadmap & deliver solutions in market that will grow impact and customer outcomes.

We could not create such a great event for our partner community without the support of our sponsors! We would like to take a minute to highlight our Title Sponsor of the event, Synnex!! Make sure to stop by their area at the Celebration Expo or if you are a VIP, say hi at the VIP Reception!

When you resell with SYNNEX, our resources become your resources. As one of the largest distributors of Microsoft solutions, we bring you competitive pricing, a powerful partner portal, and some of the best support around. Partnering with us will help you save time and money as you capture more sales in the growing cloud market. We have been partnering with IAMCP for years, because we believe in the impact it has on the reseller community. Bringing together resellers to combine knowledge, bounce ideas off one another, share best practices, and building strategic relationships is the perfect way to grow your business.  

Ready to soar into the cloud with SYNNEX? We’ve got you covered. Find Out How 

For those of you traveling to the Hotel Irvine for the IAMCP SoCal 10th Anniversary Party & Conference, we have a room block to help you save money on your hotel room!

Use this link to book your room and you’ll get the discounted rate of $159/night for the nights of October 23-24.

At the IAMCP SoCal 10th Anniversary Celebration & Conference on October 24th in Irvine, CA, we will have two tracks of sessions at our event… Advanced Technical and Partnering 101. Below are the sessions and speakers for the Advanced Technical Track:

Session 1 Description:

Microsoft’s Transition to Teams: Learnings and Best Practices

This session will dive into the Skype for Business to Teams upgrade strategy that Microsoft used to migrate it’s 200K users to Microsoft Teams. The session covers all of the technical aspects of the upgrade, including the deployment approach and strategy, Skype for Business landscape, and end user experience. As the technical must be tightly coupled with adoption and change management campaigns, we will also discuss our approach on training and adoption, gaining executive sponsorship, and our best practices and lessons learned.

About the Speakers:

Rachelle Blanchard:

Rachelle has a unique background in both program and project management, with over a decade of experience ranging from complex website builds to ecosystem development programs.  In her most recent role at Microsoft, she is on the team responsible for the internal migration of 180k+ employees and vendors from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams – one of the fastest upgrades ever completed.  Rachelle is focused on driving readiness and adoption for Microsoft Teams through unique initiatives, such as the Teamwork Champions program.  She is a true teamwork enthusiast with a passion for helping people understand how to unlock the potential of Teams to vastly improve productivity and collaboration.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelle-blanchard/

Emily Kirby:

Emily is a program manager who helped to lead Microsoft’s upgrade from Skype for Business to Teams. Emily is a subject matter expert in the Teams meeting and compliance areas, driving feature roll out and cross-organizational strategy in the meetings and compliance space. Dedicated to making users’ experience with technology seamless and energizing, Emily is a champion at driving teamwork success.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyekirby/

Session 2 Description:

Taking Security to a New Level with Microsoft 365 Advanced Security

Did you know 58% of data breaches took place at small business and $120K is the average cost? Firewalls and Antivirus are not enough, it’s time to up your game… Join us as Matt Soseman demonstrates Microsoft security solutions that can increase posture and lower risk. You’ll learn how a layered defense can drive a good cyber security strategy and discover where Microsoft solutions form each layer. In this demo only session Matt will show you compelling solutions that cover protecting user identities from impersonation, protecting data no matter where it travels, securing employee devices, discover/mitigate advanced threats across email and devices, securing  3rd party cloud apps and more! Walk away with inspiration on how you can help your client, drive loyalty, and grow your business using Microsoft as a strategic security partner. Knowing Matt, he loves demos, so expect this to be a no PowerPoint allowed session!

About the Speaker:

Matt Soseman

Matt Soseman is a Security Architect based in San Diego, CA working with Microsoft partners and their customers to help them with reducing their cyber security risk. Matt has held multiple roles within Microsoft over the last 8 years in areas of Partner Marketing and Microsoft Consulting Services focused on Teamwork and Collaboration, Security, Enterprise Mobility and more. Prior to Microsoft, Matt delivered world class mobility consulting and training to Fortune 50 customers at BlackBerry and built business transforming solutions such as Unified Communications at Sprint.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattsoseman/

https://aka.ms/mattsblog

https://aka.ms/SosemanTV

Have you and/or your company done something special over the past 10 years that is award worthy? We would love to know what you have done and potentially give you an award and allow you tell your story at the upcoming IAMCP SoCal 10th Anniversary Celebration and Conference on October 24th in Irvine, CA.

We will have five categories for the awards. Four of the awards are company awards and one award is for individual accomplishments. These awards are meant to be self submissions where you will nominate yourself and/or your own company with the exception of the final award which is a Partner Choice Award. For that award, we encourage you to submit who you think is the best partner to work with.

The five award categories are:

• IAMCP SoCal Area Diversity & Inclusion Partner of the Decade (Company Award)
• IAMCP SoCal Area Partner of the Decade (Company Award)
• IAMCP SoCal Area Member of the Decade (Individual Award)
• IAMCP SoCal Area Most Partner Friendly Member (Company Award)
• IAMCP SoCal Area Partner Choice Award (Company Award)

All Microsoft partners are encouraged to submit for these awards.  Submissions are due by October 4th and finalists will be announced by October 10th.  The award winners will be announced live during the Executive Keynote session at the upcoming IAMCP SoCal 10th Anniversary Celebration and Conference.  Winners will be presented with a trophy on stage with the Microsoft Executives and given a few minutes to tell over 500 partners your partnering story!

If you have any questions, please reach out to Justin Slagle at Justin@IAMCPParty.com.

Link to submit your nomination – http://aka.ms/IAMCPSoCalAreaAwards 

Good luck and thank you for submitting!!

We believe that Diversity & Inclusion is vital to empowering every person and every organization to achieve more.  Therefore, we are partnering with the WIT Network to add a Diversity & Inclusion Panel and Discussion to our agenda from 12-1:30 PM. 

This session is so important to us that we have decided to offer this as a FREE session to all Microsoft Partners, WIT Network and Women in Cloud active members.

Lunch will NOT be included in the free pass, but lunch will be provided for all paid IAMCP Party attendees with a regular or VIP ticket.

Just a few other notes about this session:

• No other session being offered at the same time, so we can maximize the attention on this session
• Share ideas with roughly 500 partners attending this session
• Panelists will include:
  • Sarah Geoghegan, SoftwareOne (Host – WIT Network SoCal President)
  • Rodney Campbell, Partner Development Manager, Microsoft
  • Seppy Azadi, Vice President, IT Governance at Korn Ferry (Microsoft Customer)
  • Dave Shah, Global IT Infrastructure Director at Skyworks (Microsoft Customer)
  • Heather Newman, CEO, Creative Maven (Microsoft Partner)
  • Beth Cavanaugh, US Sales Director, Microsoft

For more information on the IAMCP SoCal 10th Anniversary Celebration event, please visit http://www.iamcpparty.com!

IAMCP SoCal 10th Anniversary Celebration will be held at the Hotel Irvine in Irvine, CA on October 24th from 9AM until 8PM.

I am excited to announce that with all of the expert Microsoft employees that are attending our event, we have been able to gather enough interest to add some new Education Sessions to our agenda and turn our event into a full one day conference!!

Below are the new tracks that we will have running from 9 AM – 12 PM.

Pre-Event Education Sessions (2 Tracks) from 9 AM – 12 PM:

• Track 1 (Advanced Technical)
  • 90 Minutes on Microsoft Teams (Pouneh Kaufman, Microsoft Teams Engineering, Confirmed)
  • 90 Minutes on Advanced Security (Matt Soseman, Microsoft Security Architect, Confirmed)
• Track 2 (Partnering 101/Business/Marketing)
  • Technical Skilling and the Microsoft Programs to Support Partners (David Totten) – 25 minutes
  • GTM Services (Helane Cohen) – 25 minutes
  • Plays in a Box and Easy Play Buttons (Diana Ishak) – 25 minutes
  • P2P Collaboration Tools (Hannibal Scipio) – 25 minutes

Stay tuned as there are MANY more announcements to come!