739 Uncle Marv's Conference Roundup

What is up MSP, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast, the show for IT professionals, where we try to help you run your business better, smarter, and faster. So you're probably wondering, what's this episode all about? Well, it's been a while since I've had a chance to just sit and chat, and because I'm going to be releasing a whole bunch of other interviews from the IT Nation Connect, I thought let me squeeze something in here and give you guys a quick rundown of what's been happening and what is going to be coming up. And yes, I do realize that I am releasing this on Veterans Day.

Some of you probably aren't even working. Some of you are, like me, where you have customers that don't honor the holiday, and they'll be working, so we've got to provide them support. So before I get into what I want to talk about, let me just recognize that today we honor the brave men and women who have served our nation, as well as those who continue to protect our freedoms.

Veterans Day, obviously the day where we recognize the sacrifices made by our military personnel and their families, who show extraordinary courage and resilience in the face of adversity. And as we reflect on their service, let's also remember that those heroes are not just defined by their time in uniform. They are our neighbors, our friends, and family members.

They are individuals who have dedicated their lives to do something greater than themselves. Their commitment to duty, honor, and country should inspire us all. So in the spirit of salute to service, let us express our gratitude, not just through our words, but also through our actions, whether it's supporting veteran organizations, participating in community events, or simply taking a moment to thank a veteran for their service.

Every gesture counts. So as we celebrate today, let's commit to standing by our veterans, not just on this day, but on every day. And together we can ensure that their sacrifices are honored, and that they receive the support they deserve.

Thank you to all of you out there listening to the sound of my voice who are veterans. Thank you for your service. You are not forgotten, and your legacy of bravery continues to inspire us all.

And with that, let me go on to talk to regular listeners of the show. I have a suspicion that there are some new listeners because I've just attended three conferences for three straight weeks, the ASCII EDGE event in Clearwater, Florida, DattoCon in Miami, Florida, and just this past week, IT Nation Connect in Orlando, Florida. I was there with my podcast gear.

We were recording interviews at the show. We even live streamed at IT Nation Connect. And I think we got probably seven or eight interviews on air.

So if you go to the YouTube channel for the IT Business Podcast, you'll see those recorded there. I did a continuous live stream, so you're actually going to see three, four interviews in a row with time in between, where I just had a second camera view up of the venue as people walked by, ate lunch, or whatever there. And I'm going to try to do those going forward.

That was done courtesy of Rhythms. They have an internet-in-a-box solution, and I have one that they have loaned to me to use for events so that I can live stream, and we're going to keep doing more of those. I've already released all the shows from the ASCII Edge event and DattoCon, but I'm going to be having eight episodes come out this week from IT Nation, and those eight episodes represent 16 interviews that I did while I was there.

There was actually supposed to be more, just so you know. It was just a bear of a time trying to squeeze everybody in. It just didn't work out that I could get that many done, and a lot of those interviews will actually show up a little bit later this year or at the beginning of next year.

So if you guys think that that was a lot of work, yes, it was. But I really do want you guys to pay attention and listen to those episodes. I think I got some real candid interviews, especially from people you wouldn't think that I would get good interviews for.

There will be a couple of things that I'm going to ask for your help with later. One of those is going to be based around our good friend Rob Rae. We need to work on his musical playlist, and I will explain that a lot later.

His episode, I believe, is going to be the last in the series out of IT Nation, and I wish we had caught that on video, because at the end of that interview, as we're talking about music, and I'm mentioning band names to him, I wish you could have seen his face. It was a sight to be seen. I don't know if the whiteness of his face because he was either scared or dumbfounded or just the blank expression, but it was something to see, and I will talk more about that.

And I also did ask, I asked him some really candid questions about the Pax8 Partner program, and he answered, and I always appreciate that, as well as some of the other folks that I interviewed. I interviewed two people from Thread, two people from ScalePad. I interviewed some new people, Amy Roman from Amplified GTM, Cole Knuth, Adam Kerrigan.

I mean, there's a lot of people that I interviewed. A lot of these are new, so I do want to get your feedback about the interviews, and some of them we're going to ask to come back and do a deeper dive interview, so I want to know which ones you really want to listen to and get more information from, and just, of course, tell me how I did. Now, of course, I could really dig into the conferences themselves, but there's so much buzz about them, so many announcements.

We talked about the DattoCon announcement before with their addition of the K365 user side of the equation. Of course, ConnectWise is expanding everything in their ASIO platform. They've done some enhancements to the co-managed backup, the Backup360 launch, just so much there.

You guys, you can find all the information. I will try to have some people on, and we'll talk about all of these enhancements, all of these features. Of course, with ConnectWise and Kaseya, they're trying to be the one-stop shop for all of our RMM PSA security needs.

Some of you love it. Some of you don't, and we'll see how it goes. I, just to be honest with you and open, I use some Kaseya products.

I don't have any ConnectWise products, and that's just simply because, for those of you that know me, I select my stack. I don't change it unless I absolutely have to. I've actually done some additions in this year that I just don't want to make any more changes until I've fully evaluated those, vetted them out, and I might be making some changes next year, but we'll see.

That's where I am with that. Let's see. Flo Rida, I'm sure you've heard a lot about, was there for the MSP block party that we had.

Yes, I did stay up past my bedtime. Yes, I did get a picture with him. I don't think I'll be doing that again, not because of Flo Rida, but it was just a long night and a long day just to get a picture.

I missed the Tony Hawk keynote speech because I did not attend IT Nation on Friday. I actually spent that day visiting clients in the area, and I had to do it, obviously, on Friday as a business day. I could not wait until the weekend to do that, so I know that there were some great takeaways from his keynote.

I know that he, being a professional skateboarder at his age, talking about chasing the dragon and the path to success not being linear, I know that those were some great things that he talked about. He also talked about telling people not to lose their entrepreneurial spirit, so if you were there and you got those takeaways, great. If you weren't there, I don't know if they recorded it so that we can see it later.

I hope that they did. I would love to see that and get a sense of how he delivered that message and what were the takeaways there. Just a lot of things with the IT Nation recap.

By the numbers, it was said that there were over 7,000 attendees at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort there in Orlando. That's a lot. Over 200 breakout sessions, 60 speakers, and it's a big conference.

That's all I had to say there. I did sit on media row. I think there were, at times, eight of us on media row, all doing interviews, and that was something that I think I had envisioned that a few years ago once I started going to conferences and doing the recording.

Having a media row was pretty cool. Having lots of access to people to interview, it did make it a lot easier because they could just simply go there and sit with several of us at a time instead of us having to chase them down, instead of having to go to some room that was on a different floor down the hall, stuff like that. Of course, being visible, like I mentioned earlier, I did have several people that came up to me and wanted to get on the schedule.

Because it was so packed, I just couldn't get them in. I even had people, I think I got one of the people on the wait list in, but there were several others that I was not able to get in. Sorry for that, but we'll be working on making that happen in upcoming conferences.

So, that's pretty much it in terms of the podcast going forward. Yes, I will still be having live shows. In fact, this week, Henry Tim will be joining the show live on Wednesday.

Not sure what we're going to talk about yet, but he's going to be there. I will be reviewing my swag from all three conferences. Didn't get a chance to separate them out, and at this point, I'm sure you guys don't want to have three different swag shows.

So, I'll be doing a quick review of swag on that show, and then I've got some shows coming up later through the end of the year. We are in November, so that means that there will be a Black Friday preview show or shows. We're still working on that for before Thanksgiving so that you guys can use my Amazon link to go purchase stuff on Black Friday, Cyber Monday.

And then, of course, December is the holiday season, and we're looking to do a very different holiday show this year, so be on the lookout for that. But that's it. There's actually going to be two shows released after this from IT Nation.

So, I just wanted to get in, get out, and say thank you for your continued support. And if you're new to the show, I hope that you will tune in and go to the website, itbusinesspodcast.com. Click on the follow link and pick your favorite experience where you can follow the show. All right. 

That's going to do it. I'm sure I will hear from you and see you all soon. Until next time, challah.

Holla!