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We had our first Synergy Event of the new Fiscal Year on Wednesday morning in Alexandria.
Some thoughts.
Pros:
- Partners were great about attending and talking with customers
- There's clearly customer interest in Vista, Office 2007, and SharePoint
Cons:
- We had 25% of registered people attend. That's too much of a drop-off.
- We had too many people leave after lunch, decreasing the value of the afternoon session
- We had one partner leave their customer and after lunch, the customer asked me for a recommendaiton for a solution. I looked for his partner. Gone. If you have a customer there, you should really stick around.
Focus Areas:
- I've signed up for the next 2 events as a customer. I want to see if there's something in that process which affects customer attendance
- We're going to lead w/Office and Vista and not assume product knowledge (most customers don't know what InfoPath is, for example)
- Improve the customer involvement. I don't want this to be a 1-way conversation. I want a dialogue.
- Can we add customer testimonials? Perhaps during lunch? I'd like to find a few good customers who can add some color/flavor to the discussion and some credibility. We can leverage them during the invitation process (same for the Microsoft RV, which we will have)
- Give our sponsors more of a chance. I'd like to integrate them into the fabric of the presentation.
I'm sure there's more, but these are my initial comments...