With the Microsoft Inspire Conference a short time away, I asked Kati Quigley, Microsoft's Senior Director for Global Partner Marketing to sit down and help our listeners better understand her mission recruiting and inspiring partners, what's in store for our listeners planning to attend Inspire in Washington DC July 9-13th and the personal and professional journey to Senior Director at Microsoft.

Kati and her team are part of the newly organized "One Commercial Partner Organization" and responsible for all things partner, globally and support an ecosystem of about 300,000 Microsoft Partners. Her work includes recruiting and enabling channel partners by increasing partner discover-ability and a two - way dialogue with Microsoft. Her team brings awareness to partners and their solutions and drives partner to partner connection. In our talk we discuss the digital tools her team utilizes to make the ecosystem smaller, connect and bring awareness and ultimately make the partner ecosystem as a whole - successful.

Kati's team was responsible for relaunching the Microsoft Partner Community to simplify the "partner experience" and has organized the content to bring greater visibility to resources and communities of partners and the goal of helping partners grow their businesses with Microsoft. - https://www.microsoftpartnercommunity.com/

During the interview we discuss characteristics she sees in the best Microsoft channel partners and "grit" was a term she uses to describe what is important to success along with adaptability. We also discuss and dispel the common myth that "Microsoft doesn't care" about its partners, the viewpoint that it's difficult to connect and engage with the tech giant.

We shift gears midway in the episode to focus on the upcoming Microsoft Inspire Conference and the opportunities for the 15,000 partners coming to Washington DC July 9-13th. The event is enormous and chock full of great keynotes and content, as well as opportunities for partners and Microsoft to connect in order to grow the business together.  The "My Inspire" tool is one great way to search and connect for one-on-one meetings.

With over 560 sessions and a packed agenda, Kati's advice is to plan ahead, but leave room for "unstructured connection time". You can build your schedule for the event with the My Inspire tool. There are some great venues to just hang out for chance meetings. A best place to hang out and grab a latte or a cocktail is the Commons and within it - the Community Hub - a center of activity with participation from IAMCP, and Women In Technology. There are also "Ted-like" talks planned there.

A "Born in the Cloud Partner" is loosely defined as "a partner whose business model focuses on the cloud-based delivery of computing resources and software rather than legacy on-premises hardware and licensed software". 

This week's episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering features an early "Born in the Cloud Partner"- 10th Magnitude and my guest for the interview Jason Rook offers the unique perspective of both a former Microsoft employee and now an award-winning partner.

Jason is a former Microsoft channel director who was tasked with recruiting partners to Microsoft Azure in it's infancy. The relationship that developed with a new partner, 10th Magnitude and it's founder Alex Brown ultimately led to Rook joining the organization as they demonstrated early commitment, expertise and success.

Jason currently serves as VP of Market Development and is responsible for developing and executing strategic relationships that deliver business-transforming solutions to 10th Magnitude customers and partners. He also leads the marketing function and is responsible for all Alliances and key industry relationships. Rook also serves on The Channel Company XChange Advisory board and is a regular speaker and contributor on the topic and trends in the Cloud and the Microsoft channel ecosystem.

In this interview we discuss 10th Magnitude's journey, key relationships and how they go to market with customers. "The goal is to help customers take advantage of all the benefits of the cloud to reduce costs, get features to their customers quicker and transform - we are a transformation company", stated Rook.

We discuss attributes that make 10th Magnitude successful to its customers and have led to a staggering 80+% annual growth. We also explore customer types and the extensive work they do with ISV's looking to move to the cloud and compete in the SAAS - Software as a Service realm.

Over the course of the conversation we distill attributes that made 10th Magnitude an award-winning Microsoft partner and the 2017 Hybrid Cloud and Infrastructure Partner of the Year. These are great tips for any successful partnerships, as distilled here:

* Willingness to adopt and get behind what Microsoft was doing.

* Align the business to Microsoft's priorities

* Defined their niche as an "Azure - only" shop demonstrating focused that customers liked.

* Transparency - candid conversations with Microsoft about what you can do and cannot do.

* Integrity - speaking the same way to the customer without the partner present,

* Having each other's best interests at heart - bending at times to get the deal done.

* Partners need to understand the complex of the Redmond giant and get their mind's around what they "can change" vs. "what cannot change".

As with each interview, I focus some of my questions on Jason's professional journey including:

* Favorite Quote - "Don't get excited" - there are only so many hours in a day, be calm and don't get excited by change

* Favorite book - 

My guest for this week's episode of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering is Don Yaeger, whose latest book with Chicago Cubs Catcher David “Granpa Ross” just landed at #10 on the New York Times Bestseller list. In this episode this 10-time NYT best-selling author and award winning speaker discusses the attributes of successful partnerships and teams !

As a former Associate Editor for Sports Illustrated, Don built a reputation as one of America’s most provocative thought leaders. As a speaker, he is often sought to discuss lessons on achieving greatness, and learned from experiences with some of the greatest sports legends. And he’s been invited to every major talk show – from Oprah to Nightline, from CNN to Good Morning America. Learn more about Don here.

Don and I discuss the attributes of great teams and great partnerships gleaned from his book Great Teams.  Some key takeaways from the interview:

* A shared "purpose" at a deep level is important to the success of both great teams and great partnerships.

* Understanding "leadership style" and how to apply it to your partner and team's situation is important. Its equally important to understand your partners leadership style and adapting to ensure the most successful collaboration and the long term success of the partnership.

* "Comraderie" and a sense of "collective direction" were key to the 2013 Boston Red Sox's successful turnaround and drive to a World Series and how these attributes apply to teams and partnerships.

* Why "embracing change" is critical for partners looking to survive and thrive in this age of rapid digital transformation - the best teams are constantly out ahead.

* How David Ross changed his "mindset" to serve his team and ensure his destiny. More can be learned in Don's latest New York Times Bestseller, TEAMMATE - by David Ross and Don Yaeger.

As with each of my episodes, I ask Don to share his advice for our listeners on personal and professional growth.

* Best advice you were given when you started out - When Don graduated Ball State with a degree in journalism in 1984, his dad suggested he use each interview to learn a lesson that would also serve him. In over 2500 interviews, Don asked this one question, "If you could point to ONE HABIT that allowed you to do what others could not do, what would that habit be?" Don distilled this to his book "Greatness - The 16 Characteristics of True Champions" - by Don Yaeger. 

* Favorite lesson - from his interviews and talks with legendary coach John Wooden, "constantly pay attention and manage your inner circle". Don was a part of John Wooden's mentorship program and met with him often, resulting in the book - A Gameplan for Life.

* Favorite Quote - "Make each day your masterpiece" - from John Wooden.

* Advice he'd give his 25 year old self - "Slow Down". Which is great advice and something I'd recommend to all early in career listeners.

* Favorite or most gifted book - 

In this episode of the podcast - I go down a different path from partnering with Microsoft and other tech giants - to explore how disruptive technology is positively impacting educational outcomes while expanding my focus on the professional journey to help mentor professionals early in their careers.

My guest for this episode, Logan Cohen is "early in career" and chose the entrepreneurial route over the corporate route after college. She and Co-CEO Trevor Wilkins embarked on a journey to create an app focused on students achieving better grades, higher attendance and ultimately successful outcomes in life. In this interview, we discuss "partnering" in the broader context of partnerships with technology vendors and sponsors

KÜDZOO is an app that rewards students based on their academic achievements. KÜDZOO serves as a resource for schools to increase student engagement and connects brands with Generation Z through a collaborative, educational lens. After KÜDZOO's first school year on the national market, over 500,000 students signed up and 280,000 report cards were submitted to the app. EdSurge named KÜDZOO "The Grade-based Bitcoin."

Logan's leadership responsibilities include guiding the vision, strategy and ensuring the execution of value creating milestones for KÜDZOO. She received dual degrees in Finance and International Business from Florida International University. Logan was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in education for the class of 2016, Magic Johnson's 32 under 32 and CIO's Top 20 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2017.

In the interview, Logan shared the impetus for starting the company, how 14-16 year old students in West Philadelphia helped inform the concept, and how KÜDZOO got to 700,000 users in two short years. We also discuss partnerships and how that might expand in the future.

As with each of my interviews, we dive into the personal and professional journey for this "early in career" entrepreneur and advice she would give to anyone looking to start a company.

Logan's Favorite Quote - "Sales Cures All" - this quote is attributed to Mark Cuban.

Favorite Book - "Good Is the New Cool: Market Like You Give a Damn" by Afdhel Aziz. Other books discussed in this episode - "How Google Works", by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg and "Work Rules!", by Laszlo Boch.

You can reach Logan Cohen and KUDZOO on Twitter: @KUDZOOApp @LoganECohen and on Instagram: @KUDZOOapp

Click here to learn more about the company or download the app:

I've really enjoyed the experience of setting up and doing a podcast. It has allowed me to develop new skills like learning to build and host a website using WordPress and I've had the opportunity to reconnect with some old friends.

This week marks the 10th episode and I appreciate the listeners and followers who supported my concept and passion for disruptive technology and partnering.

Technology is advancing so quickly today. Gone are the days of the 3-year product release cycle as technology giants like Microsoft, Amazon, Google release products and services weekly across a myriad of technologies associated with cloud computing, productivity, mobility, artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT and the like...its all advancing so quickly.

As I’ve spoken with technology leaders, former colleagues and industry partners – I’ve learned two critical things about the current state of the “art and science of partnering”.

First, technology giants like Microsoft, AWS and Google - despite the size of their organizations struggle to scale their compelling technologies "broadly" to what they hope is a growing set of partners. Secondly, partners that sell, deploy or build upon these technologies feel they need to stay in greater “lock step” and aligned with the technology and the organizations.

Existing readiness models - industry newsletters, blog posts, webinars, partner conferences and technology briefings are all still incredibly valuable. What I’ve tried to achieve through this podcast format and interviews is easy access to useful and actionable information – that you can listen to when you want and where you want. It's like walking the hallways of Microsoft and other tech giants - to connect, innovate and align for success – on your terms.

I ask questions that don't normally get asked and bring a behind the scenes viewpoint to each episode. I deconstruct strategies through questions. I’m also a connector at heart and have always believed in the business principle of "one plus one equals three or more" – which is something I learned over 20 years ago from Steven Covey's 7 habits of Highly Effective People.

This podcast is what I refer to as "Connection at Scale" and in the coming weeks and months I hope to continue to evolve the format to bring a broader range of business leaders to the podcast.

I’ve really enjoyed listening again to the previous interviews on how to best engage with various aspects of Microsoft's US Partner business*. Eric Loper was the first interview guest and discussed the National Solution Provider Program - Microsoft's premier and elite program for the top 35 partners in the US. William Lewallen who leads Cloud Solution Providers in the US talked about this rapidly growing program and how partners can ramp up. Stephanie Martin joined recently to outline the Partner Seller Program and how to engage with the Microsoft field. I’ve also been fortunate to be joined by my old team - Tom O'Neil,

In this podcast I interview Tom O'Neil - a public sector and channel veteran - to discuss Microsoft's U.S. Education business transformation.

Tom currently leads sales strategy for small and medium-sized education customers in the US, and is helping partners transform to the cloud in that space.

Tom has focused on the public sector space his entire career and spent 17 years at Accenture managing business strategy and large scale system implementation projects for a wide variety of governmental and academic organizations. For the past 9 years Tom has been developing robust partner channels for Microsoft in the public sector with SIs, ISVs, and Channel Resellers.

In our podcast we discuss the importance of education to Microsoft as CEO Satya Nadella has called out education as one of Microsoft's top 6 company-wide priorities. This also dovetails with Microsoft's mission to "Empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more".

Many of our partner listeners might remember that U.S. Education VP, Margo Day, was once the US Channel Chief at Microsoft. Tom and I discussed her priorities around the business around three core priority areas and the opportunity for partners, they are:

* Cloud Services at Scale - Partners can help deploy and run managed cloud services at scale such as: security, communications, collaboration, identity and device management. Cloud Services help virtualize the scarce services humans provide at scale - i.e. identity management. You don't need to be in this business and I can help you.

* 21st Century Learning - Development and delivery of new methods of learning as well as curriculum and content. Static textbooks are moving to more dynamic learning and there are both traditional as well as new content providers emerging. Microsoft is a platform and provides classroom support tools like OneNote. Minecraft is becoming a Learning Platform that is both interactive and stimulating. Partners can be developers or facilitators of the content as Cloud Services brokers.

* BI (Business Intelligence) & Analytics - The collection of "big data" is being used to support greater insights and decisions in areas such as student development and personalized learning. Tom speaks to the strong upside opportunity here for partners in developing applications that providing insights to student development and learning.

Our conversation moved to overall channel evolution from selling traditional "widgets" - devices and software licenses - to the innovative delivery of services models and learning how to monetize them.

I asked Tom, "what has fundamentally changed for partners in education with Microsoft's transformation?". Tom's response was the business model is shifting moving from a "gross margin on transaction" or "revenue from delivery of professional services" model to "how to get the right margin from delivering cloud services".

Commitment from partners is key to success with Microsoft, in each of my interviews there has been a reoccurring theme here that "partners need to take the long-view, commit to the new business and monetization models being offered."

Tom discussed the role of Service Agencies such as BOCES as a way for partners to scale and reach large groups of K12 customers in education.

AESA is the National Trade Organization for all of the Service Agencies its a great place to see how big this business is and what some of the business trends are for these organizations. Also, www.coloradoboces.org is the Colorado version and a good example of what these organizations do.

I had a delightful interview with Stephanie Martin, who leads Microsoft's Partner Seller or "P-Seller" Program for the United States business.

This episode should be of particular interest to those partners looking to better engage with Microsoft's US business in the field. The P-Seller program has gained significant momentum at Microsoft these last several years as Microsoft Sales leaders have focused greater emphasis on the importance of partners to help Microsoft customers along the digital transformation journey.

"Partner Sellers" come in various forms and sizes from small SI's or System Integrators helping Microsoft customers deploy Microsoft Software as a Service (SAAS) Solutions such as Office 365 and Dynamics to Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) who have migrated their solutions to Microsoft's Azure Cloud and are delivering these cloud based offerings to specific vertical or point solution areas.

In our discussion we dive in on the attributes of the program, recent changes, what makes a great "P-Seller" and how to engage with Stephanie and Microsoft's US Field Organization.

Active Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) partners can access more details regarding the program here: https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/membership/partner-seller/about-the-program

In each of my podcasts I spend a portion of the time discussing "the professional journey" and Stephanie's story should be particularly interesting to those earlier in career professionals.

Stephanie is a 32 year old who joined Microsoft as a full time employee or FTE only after a five or six year journey working for vendors of Microsoft in various capacities. Stephanie's career journey is a great example of how one might enter a technology leader like Microsoft as a vendor and in her personal example "do great work, be recognized and be hired".

I also wanted to note that Stephanie was part of a program at Microsoft for employees recognized for their potential - called "Next Steps" - and its where I got to better know Stephanie, her capabilities, capacity to grow and what really drives her.

In addition, we discuss Stephanie's passions including her current mission to establish a Denver chapter of the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners (IAMCP) Women in Technology segment. As I promised, here is the link to IAMCP and Women in Technology in this organization.

Stephanie's Favorite Quote - "Play Hard, Work Hard, Dream Big!"

And one of Stephanie's favorite books, "Your a Badass", by Jen Sincero.

Stephanie can be reached at [email protected]. You can follow her on Twitter at: @MeetStepma and on Instagram at: stephaniem2

I hope you enjoy this episode.  You can rate and review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching "Ultimate Guide to Partnering" You can also follow me on Facebook and Twitter. 

Thank you for listening.

The "Digital Transformation" is having a profound effect across healthcare. Companies like Microsoft are advancing their investments in the Healthcare IT market to meet the growing demand. Specific areas of focus include: patient care, empowering care teams, optimizing operational effectiveness and transforming the care continuum.

Gartner reports, "digital healthcare is propelling spending in enhancing core automation systems such as various health information systems and other associated technologies such as information exchanges and analytics that help derive meaningful use from these core systems."

The opportunity in healthcare for partners is immense,  so I asked a former colleague Bill Hawkins to guide our audience of listeners through it.

Bill Hawkins is Microsoft's Partner Lead for US Healthcare, where he is responsible for setting the strategy for partners engaging with Microsoft's field sales organization focused on US Healthcare. His work is focused on the company's Core Priorities and driving mutually beneficial outcomes. Bill works closely with partners across the healthcare ecosystem to accelerate their growth, solve for customer's business needs, and continuously search for innovative solutions.

In the first portion of the interview Bill outlines the transformation going on in the Healthcare business and the role of IT Solution Partners in solving for these issues and areas. Specifically we discuss the shift from "healthcare enterprise" to a "consumer-focus" and "outcomes focused" model. This shift creates massive amounts of data. Managing, securing, sharing and protecting the data is key to improving and ensuring the best possible patient outcomes. This is the new reality.

As the conversation advances, we peel back on the opportunity for partners and focus on Microsoft's technologies and properties that help drive these outcomes. Listeners can go to Microsoft's Healthcare page here to learn more about Microsoft's Health Vision and focus areas, view case studies and read timely blog posts.

The Healthcare team will also be engaging with partners at Microsoft's Annual Partner Conference, formerly know as Worldwide Partner Conference and now call Microsoft Inspire - July 9th - 13th in Washington, DC.

As I do with each of the podcasts, I focused the last segment of our interview on Bill's career and professional journey. Bill shared some of his philosophy and we had a great discussion about one of his role models, John Wooden. One of Bill's favorite books on Wooden is Wooden by Coach John Wooden with Steve Jamison. And Bill talked about John Wooden's Pyramid of Success, which you can download in PDF format here.

After the interview Bill recommended another book for our listeners 

This is a timely edition of the podcast, given the attention to cyber security, digital privacy and jobs creation in the United States. If you believe that technology can be a force for good in society, then you'll enjoy the opportunity presented in this discussion to drive positive change through Civic participation.

My guest, Jonathan Friebert leads External Affairs for Microsoft's US Government Affairs Department and works with Microsoft partners to advocate for positive technology public policies through Microsoft's Voices for Innovation (VFI) initiative.

VFI is a community of more than 90,000 technology leaders in the U.S. who focus on public policy advocacy in the technology sector on issues such as STEM funding, online privacy, software piracy, cloud computing regulations, cybersecurity, IP protection and government procurement mandates.

The conversation focuses on computer science curriculum in schools, why the current technology legislation is outdated, online privacy and how government and the private sector can partner to deliver 21st century skills to US workers. Jonathan also points to some examples of partners that have engaged in the civic discourse to effect change.

As I do with each of my podcasts, Jonathan and I also discuss his personal journey, role models and recommended books. Jonathan's Book Recommendation is: Rising Strong

In our conversation on job and skills training, Jonathan talks about how "coding" could become the next trade taught in schools. Reference from the discussion are here - Wired The Next Big Blue-Collar Job Is Coding

WHEN I ASK people to picture a coder, they usually imagine someone like Mark Zuckerberg: a hoodied college dropout who builds an app in a feverish 72-hour programming jag—with the goal of getting insanely rich and, as they say, “changing the world.” But this Silicon Valley stereotype isn’t even geographically accurate. The Valley employs only 8 percent of the nation’s coders. All the other millions? They’re more like Devon, a programmer I met who helps maintain a ­security-software service in Portland, Oregon. He isn’t going to get fabulously rich, but his job is stable and rewarding: It’s 40 hours a week, well paid, and intellectually challenging. “My dad was a blue-­collar guy,” he tells me—and in many ways, Devon is too.

To learn more about Voices for Innovation, click here.  You can contact Jonathan directly at: [email protected]

For a broader view of the work of Microsoft's Government Affairs organization, see Microsoft President Brad Smith's Blog:

My guest for Episode 5 is William Lewallen, Senior Manager for National Cloud Partner sales in Microsoft North America's Partner Business.

Microsoft’s Cloud Solution Provider program (CSP) is the future of how Microsoft enables partners to service their customers while delivering on the mobile-first, cloud-first strategy set by CEO Satya Nadella.

In this role, William gets to marry his dual passions for working with partners and business model transformation to lead this initiative in the United States.

In this episode we discuss the opportunity for partners presented by Microsoft's Cloud Solution Provider program, its growth over the last eighteen months and how partners can engage and transform their business through participating in the program. We take some time to deconstruct what makes a good CSP and how partners can evolve their business to drive greater Partner Profitability.

I also take some time with William to discuss his personal career journey, role models, thoughts on how he lives his life and ask him to name a favorite book, The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle.

As I've done with many of the guest thus far, I ask William about a favorite quote. We discussed a quote by James Mitchner.  William also shared another favorite quote after the interview was done  - “Mastering others is strength.  Mastering yourself is true power.”    – Lao Tzu

In the course of the discussion we discussed additional tools available to partners with their transformation, some of these are listed here:

* Azure MSP Playbook - A playbook for helping partners transform their business through creating a Cloud Managed Services business

* Cloud Enablement for Partners - a guide for helping partners develop cloud-based solutions.

William also references another great source of information to help partners gain insight to the direction of the Microsoft partner business: Redmond Channel Partner.

I hope you enjoy this episode and please “like” this Podcast on iTunes and Facebook .

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