I've read with interest the rants, raves and otherwise from Susan, Vlad and other partners who attended Microsoft's World Wide Partner Conference. It probably would have been fun to be there. We got to attend a party for the Central Region and an information gathering lunch for ResponsePoint on Tuesday night and Wednesday at noon. We had to tack those on to a visit to a client in Houston, or otherwise we couldn't have afforded either the time or the money to make the trip (not to mention the actual cost of the conference.)

On the way home (a 4-hour drive), Bill and I were talking about some of the same things that Vlad and Susan have been chewing over the last couple of days. One of the things that comes through loud and clear is a frustration with Microsoft's relationship and expectations of its partners, particularly the SBSCs – of which we are one. I think I've hit on the source of at least one really big problem.

Microsoft talks and talks about the great Small Business market out there, but I don't think they have a clue about what they are really looking for when they say "Small Business".

Small Businesses are soooo diverse, soooo different, sooooo dissimilar, that there is NO WAY to talk about a Small Business.

Susan touches on it when she says that there are many of her clients who don't want their data out in the cloud. They are very protective of their data. She's right – for some Small Businesses.

I don't really have any empirical data to go on, but looking at my CPA practice, and at our IT practice, I would say that small businesses are at least 50% professional services – Doctors, Dentists, Lawyers, Accountants, Architects, Consultants, Janitorial Services, Printers, Real Estate Agencies, etc. These folks are 1-50 people/computer offices. They are VERY protective of their data – often because they have to be by law or other regulation. They have often just grown like Topsy with little or no IT plan. When we get a hold of them we make a REAL difference in their lives with Exchange and SharePoint. Another 25% are probably manufacturing clients. They – again – are 1-50 people, but few of them use a computer regularly, except the one that is attached to the lathe or mill. The last 25% may be retail/wholesale clients. Many of them don't have a storefront. Many work out of their house. I would include Financial Planners in this group, because they are reselling investments.

If Microsoft ever looked at who/what small business was, they probably threw up their hands because they couldn't figure out a common denominator to do marketing to.

Guess what, they have the same needs that the larger businesses do, but they don't have the same budget. They are desperate for some Business Intelligence – but PerformancePoint is a total non-starter. It costs more than their entire IT budget for 3 years.

They would dearly love a smaller version of CRM – more robust than Business Contact Manager, but at an affordable price point. ACT! has deserted them, they really aren't comfortable in the cloud with SalesForce.com, but they don't have an alternative – and on-line CRM doesn't get it for them any more than SalesForce.com does.

Microsoft effectively took away FrontPage, and many of them liked that, and supposedly replaced it with MOSS, but the price of the web connector made it a total bust for small businesses. What would it have hurt Microsoft to put out a small business edition of MOSS – still full featured, but with a maximum of 50/75 users (to match SBS)? I could have sold that all day long.

Microsoft needs to first figure out what they are talking about when they say "Small Business". And then they need to give them scaled down versions of the great software available for Enterprise – still feature rich, but just smaller. Then maybe they can quit chasing an invisible threat, and reclaim their market.

I've been wondering whether to blog about this or not, but I finally decided that they obviously don't notice anything I do, anyway – so it won't hurt anything to go ahead and talk about them.

They make me totally crazy! They call me – sometimes twice a month – and beg me to buy something else through them.

However – when I try to log on and – surprise – buy something, I find they have locked my account because I haven't logged on for too long. AAAAaaaarrrrgggghhhh!

Recently we sold a network – SBS and 7 desktops (Vista and Office 2007) with Software Assurance – a $7,500 deal for just the software. We went to Ingram Micro (after resetting our password – AGAIN), and went to "Click to License". We filled out the information, and indicated that we would like to be billed. I assumed that I would receive an Invoice by return e-mail, and I would put a check in the mail, and everything would be hunky-dorry. When a week had gone by and we hadn't received the media (or anything else) we called them, and after navigating through several phone trees – ending up in India with "I will transfer you to someone who knows (back in Dallas or Chicago or wherever)" – we found out that our order was just sitting in limbo waiting for a credit card. Now I didn't put it on my credit card in the first place because I didn't want to pay a bunch of interest. I have the cash available and would really like to just write a check – or buy a cashier's check – or carry cash to the warehouse. But, NO. Ingram Micro doesn't accept checks, or cash. I'm not real sure why it's more economical for them to take a credit card (which costs them 2-5%) than to take a check (which they could certainly cash, and then wait to clear before they sent the software).

This also begs the question of why they didn't bother to let us know that the order was sitting in limbo. They certainly have my phone number (at least Sales has my number). They have our e-mail address (that's our log-on). They have a snail-mail address (to send the media to). Why couldn't they have contacted me to let me know there was a problem?

I guess I just have to realize that – while $7,500 is a lot of money to me – it's nothing to them.

They obviously don't want to have folks like us as customers – they want the big guys. We'll just take our business elsewhere.

http://podcaster.l2tc.net/Podcasts/Podcast_011208.wmv

In this edition we talk about tools for collecting network inventories, the Reader's Choice Awards for accounting software, a new template for SharePoint, and some vocabulary to use when talking about Business Intelligence.

Click on the link above to listen and send us your feedback through the comments section or via e-mail.

We had a really good week last week, at least as far as building the business goes. We did a Microsoft Connections event in Dallas on Tuesday and in Houston on Thursday. We've got our song and dance down pretty good, and the presenter we had – Jacob Rivera – is an "Unplugged" host and very talented speaker and presenter. He's also self-confident enough that he allowed us to do a tag-team for our "Client Story" part. Some of the presenters insist on following the script of asking us questions, and then, usually, only Bill gets to do any actual presenting. When we do the tag-team, we have less canned "questions and answers" and more actual conversation between ourselves and the audience. I have a pretty good feel for the audience and am able to cut Bill off when he starts rambling – often the presenters are reluctant to interrupt, and I don't have any qualms about that. We made some good connections with potential clients in both cities, and felt like it was well worth the time we took. Because we are both so Mobily connected we were able to get a fair amount of work done in addition. Bill continued to troubleshoot some issues for a new client that we have hosted through OwnWebNow. We had a conference call with our TPAM as we drove down to Houston on Wednesday. On the way back on Thursday, we were able to make several calls that solved some problems we were having setting up marketing campaign. And I was able to talk to the son of one of my elderly tax clients.

Personally, the week was less than stellar, though. Bill and I had arranged for Grandfather to pick Ian and Kate up after school on Wednesday because we wouldn't be there and Mom had to work. Unfortunately, the school had spent the entire week in some sort of "pre-test testing", and had completely messed up the classes schedules. This isn't a problem for most of the kids, but Ian has a hard time coping with disruptions in his schedule. Anyway, by the time Grandfather got there to pick him up he was in a total state, and Bill and I couldn't do anything but sympathize long-distance. They finally got him calmed down enough to go meet Mom at work and all was quiet for the rest of the evening.

Then on Thursday, we came out of the event, and I had a parking ticket because I had forgotten to hang up my Handicapped hanger when we went in that morning. I will call the city of Houston and beg for mercy, claiming distractions, etc. The problem is you are technically not supposed to drive with the hanger hanging from the mirror (a distraction), but then you have to be sure to remember to hang it up when you park. I suppose I'll suck it up and pay it if they won't accept the number of the hanger that I had, and had in the car, and just plain old forgot. It would cost me more to drive back down to Houston to appear in person to fight the ticket than it would to just pay the d*mned thing.

The third (and hopefully last) problem happened to Bill and family on Friday afternoon. They were driving to Covington (just north of New Orleans) Louisiana for a baby shower for Erika's brother and sister-in-law. As they approached the Mississippi River Bridge, just west of Baton Rouge, they saw a towering column of smoke. Traffic came to a halt. Major accident ahead. After sitting – with no movement of traffic in either direction – for 30 minutes, Bill got out and walked about ½ a mile further on down the road. There were burned out and still smoldering semis, pickups, cars, SUVs, etc., scattered across both directions of I-10. There was no way to get on the service road – marshy ground protected by a chain-link fence – and no way around. So they sat there from 3:30 until 7:00 when they finally got underway again. The first bathroom they came to got a good workout!

I just got my QuickBooks 2008 in the mail on Monday afternoon. I'm pleased we (pro Advisors) are finally getting our copy before our clients get theirs.

A couple of new features caught my eye. The first is the improved integration with Outlook. Now (if you have Outlook installed on your computer) the "Send Forms" feature uses Outlook instead of calling home to mama. This also means you don't have to send a blind copy (bcc) to yourself if you want to be able to track what you sent to who, when. It will appear in your "Sent Items" folder (and if you are anal like I am, you can just move the message to your client's e-mail folder for permanent filing).

The second (that I haven't tried yet but intend to) is improved integration with Excel. So you can do Excel imports from a set template instead of having to re-map every time (although it's still only available for customers, vendors, and items – not for transactions).

http://bwatters.spaces.live.com/

http://blogs.msdn.com/mssmallbiz/archive/2007/09/29/5200874.aspx

I was soooooo excited when I read Eric Ligman's blog about "We've Got a Guy". This is exactly what we in the Small Business Specialist Community have been wanting and needing since the beginning of the program. If Microsoft really follows through with their promises and puts on a coordinated print, media, and collateral campaign, I think we will really benefit.

However, I just went to the webpage and I am totally embarrassed. The little vignettes could be funny (I guess) if you like that kind of slapstick humor. BUT when you click on one of them you (or at least I) get about 3 seconds of jazzy music, and then silence while the actors jump around. If I can stand to wait until the end of each clip, we finally get to the (silent) punch line, but by that time, I'm worrying about whether it's me or the website that has lost its audio, and wondering what on earth they're on about. I THINK the point is that you wouldn't want "a guy" to be you marriage counselor, or your proctologist. Maybe the humor is just too broad for me, but I would really like to make sure that the general public knows we're poking fun at "the guy" and not at ourselves.

Fun I get – but just because we're Small Business Specialists doesn't mean we aren't professionals. And the whole website is not really very professional. Come on, Microsoft, if you're going to put something like that up, please make sure it really works!

Business Intelligence in the Enterprise Space is reported on "Scorecards" – Visual depictions of management measurements, usually expressed in term of KPIs or Key Performance Indicators.

At the upper management level, these Scorecards should be balanced – report on four aspects of the organization – Financial, Operational, Sales, Human Resources (FOSH).

Key Performance Indicators are a natural outgrowth of the goals of the department/unit. These KPIs tell how the organization is doing in relation to whatever beginning point or "benchmark" you choose to use.

Let's have a quick review of "Management by Objective". The organization (usually at the upper level) establishes a Vision which is fleshed out in the Mission Statement. Then each group/department establishes Objectives which support the Mission Statement. Finally, Goals are created to codify how the objectives will be met. Goals should be measurable and obtainable. KPIs tell us how we are doing in relation to our goals.

Ideally, the business dashboard is built on data already available in the organization which can and should be reported to all levels as a self-measurement tool. The dashboard is a way to "get the word out."

Financial goals are usually expressed in graphs of some sort. Bar charts, line graphs, and tabular data work well (think Excel). Financial data tend to lag actions and we report them in relation to pre-defined goal (budget).

• Return on Assets
• Cash flow
• Project profitability
• Sales forecasts

Operational goals reflect the business processes that support the strategy of the company. They may be related to financial collections, safety in manufacturing, or product development.

• Time spent with prospective customers
• Tender success rate
• Safety/Accident rate
• Length of project lifecycle

Sales goals focus on how the customer perceives the business. For this you would look at product quality, delivery reliability, help desk responsiveness, personality of the sales force. Data for this could be gathered empirically (% of returned merchandise) or through surveys.

• Customer survey
• Customer ranking
• Market Share
• On-time delivery

Human Resources goals, also called Learning & Growth, focus on employees, systems and organizational procedures. Data would report maintenance of employee skills, improved work satisfaction, updated systems, and successful organizational procedures. A big factor in this is change – so you will be looking at data over time.

• % revenue from new products/services
• Staff attitude survey
• Number of employee suggestions
• Cycle time

Scorecards can report by using Objectives, KPIs, and Targets.

Objectives are statements of goals for the organization

• Increase customer confidence in our advice
• Increase the number of new products introduced
• Decrease the number of defects in our products

KPIs measure each objective by tracking performance

• % of customers surveyed who rate us as their top source of advice
• Number of products introduced per quarter
• Number of defects per 1000 manufactured

Targets are the numeric goals for a KPI

• How many new products are we aiming to introduce this quarter
• How many defects per 1000 is an acceptable goal for this quarter

This is something

I think I've finally figured out a little discrepancy that's been "bugging" me with my Mogul Pocket PC. A couple of weeks ago, it decided that it wouldn't recognize two appointments that I had booked on my calendar. It seemed to me that they showed up on the Mobile 6 when I first entered them in Outlook, but then they disappeared. It was really VERY bothersome because I usually put detailed travel directions with my appointments – addresses, links to maps.live.com, etc. And suddenly these two appointments weren't there any longer (one I didn't realize had disappeared until I was actually on my way from one place to another).

Everything has been fine until today, (well, not EVERYTHING – see my previous post) but this afternoon my Monday morning appointment disappeared from my Mogul. I'm sure it was there this morning. I did a manual sync. It didn't reappear. Just GONE.

What had I done differently?

Then I remembered – this was an appointment with a new client. I had dutifully sent them a meeting request through Outlook and they had accepted, but I hadn't gotten their address when I first booked the appointment, and they sent me a follow-up e-mail with directions to their office. Today, I realized I didn't have that info in the appointment, so I copied it from their e-mail to the notes section of the appointment in Outlook. Outlook won't let you save ANY changes – even notes to yourself unless you send an update to the other invitees – so I saved and sent. Then I looked at my Mogul. The whole thing had disappeared!

There needs to be SOME way to update appointments and not have them completely disappear from the PDA. But apparently, if you have invitees, and make any changes, the Mobile 6 drops the whole thing. I guess I could try cancelling the first appointment, and doing a whole new one – but that defeats the purpose (and you better have understanding invitees who will be getting cancellations and reinstatements constantly).

Anybody out there at Microsoft listening? If this is a feature – it sucks. If it's a bug – I can't be the only one it's happened to. How about fixing it?

Bill and I have both blogged about how much I love my Windows Mobile 6 HTC Mogul from Sprint. At least I loved it until the end of last week. For whatever reason (probably my fault) the little toggle switch got switched from Phone to Wi-Fi. I couldn't figure out how to switch it back, and when Bill finally showed me how, the Sync was totally hosed! Couldn't get it to do anything. I spent all of Thursday unconnected (at least it was still a phone, but no internet, no e-mail, no calendar, no notes). Finally late in the afternoon we threw in the towel and took it to the Sprint store. They scratched their head, asked if everything was backed up (yes, thank goodness) and gave it the old HARD reset.

Okay, now I could get to the internet, but they didn't save my cert to the card like I asked them to. (Believe me, it's stored on the memory card instead of the device now.) So I spent all day Friday with no e-mail and no calendar (Exchange refused to accept me without a valid certificate). Finally by Friday afternoon, late, I get the cert installed, and now the phone tells me the server cert is invalid. AAAAAaaaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!

Bill spent a couple of hours working on it on Saturday afternoon, and he was finally able to get it to sync with both Exchange and my desktop (remember, Notes are only stored on the desktop, not on Exchange) and I was back up and running. It's still not really right (never could get it to connect with SSL) – not like it was before. Even though I've scheduled my syncs for every 10 minutes, it still has to be kick started every time I unplug it. But at least I have my calendar and my e-mail – and my NOTES which are totally desperate for me.

I foresee several hours with Sprint level 2 tech support ahead of me tomorrow afternoon. (Groan)

Bill and I have spent the last couple of days in a Microsoft training for PerformancePoint Server. This is a great piece of software (and it ought to be for the price). It's obviously meant for the Enterprise space – not SMB.

BUT – this training is information I've been looking for through a couple of years of attendance at CPE and other places.

We have decided that we are able to do most, if not all, of this with existing tools in MOSS, and Excel 2007. In fact for some of the reporting in PerformancePoint, Excel has many more features like conditional formatting. And when you download the report from PerformancPoint to Excel, it's not dynamic – the drill down is limited to the data that has been imported for the report, not the underlying data.

There are definitely some reasons to have this program in the Enterprise space. For instance, when you are reporting in Excel, every time someone accesses that data it is a call on the available resources – with PerformancePoint there is only one connection and only one hit on the pipe. Where this matters is in very large organizations with 1000s of concurrent users.

Probably the best thing I've gotten out of this has been the philosophical information about balancing the dashboards, and identifying data other than purely financial as being important to the business.

It looks like we'll be eating out for a while.

The sink's gone.

Outside as a matter of fact…

But it's starting to get better, already.

The stove may be gone, but the refrigerator is still there (a little slanted…)

The end of day One.

Once again Microsoft has scheduled a meeting, when I have a standing appointment with a client. And notice the kicker… "This will be the ONLY method of lead distribution from Microsoft in FY08." Thanks so much!

Dear partners,

As mentioned in our recent IAMCP sponsored Partner Briefings, the South Central Area would like to formally Launch MatchMaker 2.0.  This is the program that will allow Partner to Partner lead sharing across multiple practices, geographies, etc.  Our goal is create an environment in which to leave no leads on the table (Dynamics, Platform or Licensing).  Please encourage members of your respective IAMCP chapters to attend.  This will be the ONLY method of lead distribution from Microsoft in FY08 and a requirement of all Managed Partners.  We piloted this program over the last 6 months and realized $12M in Partner to Partner / Microsoft to Partner Business in Dallas/Ft. Worth alone.  Don't let your IAMCP members miss the opportunity to get their fair share of this revenue! 

Agenda:

What is MatchMaker?

Why should a partner participate?

Explanation of process and resources

Demo of Lead Submission Web Form

Heather Deggans has invited you to attend an online meeting using Live Meeting. Friday September 14^th at 10:00-11:00

Wikipedia says "Budget generally refers to a list of all planned expenses and revenues. In other words, a budget is an organizational plan stated in monetary terms. The budget of a company is compiled annually. If the actual numbers delivered through the financial year turn out to be close to the budget, this will demonstrate that the company understands their business and has been successfully driving it in the direction they had planned. On the other hand, if the actuals diverge wildly from the budget, this sends out an 'out of control' signal and the share price could suffer as a result."

So how do you go about developing a sensible budget? It depends on several things, the most important is – How many people are involved in your business? If you are the only employee and you control both the income and the expenditures then you probably can "do up" a budget in a relatively short period of time as long as you understand your market niche. All of the SMB accounting software packages have formats and methods for writing a budget. You should definitely run your budget by your CPA to get additional input (in case you forgot something) and for advice on logical relationships between amounts in your budget.

The first thing you need to do is to look at what you anticipate your income to be. Do you have some regular, recurring customers, or are you at the mercy of the phone. Do you have one or more projects planned with one of your customers? This is the most important part of developing your budget! Be conservative – be realistic – be truthful to yourself. If you are having trouble envisioning a "number" for your revenue, break it down into how many hours you expect to work in a week, how much you are going to charge for that work, then get out the calculator and start multiplying. It will probably be most effective if you set up your budget by the month. Weekly is too short (and too many of them) and yearly makes it difficult for you to take into consideration things like vacations and holidays. Break your monthly work down into the type of job you expect – five 2-hour break/fix gigs at $75 an hour, fifteen hours of network monitoring (that's fifteen clients) at $300 a month, one 2-week installation project for $6,000 for services – then slot it into your week/month/year. Realistically, you won't be able get more than one installation a month. In fact, you'll be doing well to score more than one every two months. And with all that billable time, remember to factor in your non-billable time – the time you spend traveling to and from your client's place of business, the time you spend on the phone solving problems that nobody else has ever heard of either, the time it takes you to talk to your client and convince them to go with the project. There are only 24 hours in a day – it's finite and fixed. There's nothing you can do about it. And you are going to HAVE to eat and sleep and go to the bathroom occasionally.

The next step is to figure out what all this is going to cost you. I've listed some of the standard costs under the section Expenses of Going into Business. Don't forget things like your own computer and server at your place of business, automobile expenses, rent (and utilities) if you are going to be working anywhere other than out of your home, telephone and cell phone costs, web-site costs, insurance, dues and subscriptions, software costs, employment taxes (yes, the taxman cometh even if you are a sole proprietor – maybe not monthly, but for sure yearly), paper and toner (and, by the way, a printer/copier/scanner/fax), professional fees (for your accountant and lawyer), janitorial and security expenses, and the list goes on. Once you think you have listed everything, try slotting it in to your budget. Some costs will be monthly, and some will be one-time, but you may have to put off buying all of the one-time things until you can afford them.

Have you noticed I haven't said anything about you getting paid (you remember, that was why you started this thing in the first place). Whether and how much you get paid will depend firstly on your type of business structure. If you are a sole proprietor, you can now look at the bottom line and if there's money left over after you've received revenue, and paid your expenses then – CONGRATULATIONS – you can take some money out of the company. If you are a corporation (S- or C-), you are going to have to pay yourself a "real" paycheck (whether you have the funds to cash it or not is another question). If you have employees, they will have to be paid – and their checks cashed – before you can get anything.

I've been really busy the last several weeks working with folks who have QuickBooks who THOUGHT they could just figure it out themselves. Or maybe they have a tax CPA who suggested a way to set the accounts up and then disappeared between April and April. In any case, they have a real snarl.

The business where I was yesterday (all day) and two half-days last week had a bookkeeper for the last several years, who retired, and sold the practice to another bookkeeper who "did the best she could"… To make a long story short, the business owner has retired from active participation in the business (it's a beauty salon) and wants to do her books herself. But she doesn't know all the particulars about accounting. And the deeper we've gotten in the books, the less she has been happy with the person who did her bookkeeping for years.

She has a line of business software that keeps track – VERY precisely – of her revenue and her cost of goods sold. Unfortunately there seems to only minor correlation between her revenue and her bank deposits – mostly because of the credit cards and their discounts. The Merchant Account reports aren't much help because MasterCard and Visa credit transactions cost 1.8% plus a transaction fee and are deposited the next day, MasterCard and Visa debit transactions have a per transaction fee and are deposited after two days, American Express transactions cost 5-6% and are deposited 4-5 days later. And it depends whether there are weekend days in there or not, etc. The Merchant Account lists batch totals for the day of receipt, and then lists batch totals for the amount deposited, but you can't audit those because of the differences in time lag and differences in expenses. I was able to identify @ $3K on receipts of $50K that had disappeared between the transaction and the deposit in one month, but I was NEVER able to point to any exact deposit that matched any day's transactions. And I am an experienced CPA!

The crux of the matter is that she has been paying taxes on her revenue as reported in her LOB software without any deduction being taken for those missing discounts. Apparently no true-up has ever been done by her bookkeeper or her tax CPA. We're talking about $35K a year of deductions that were never taken. Conservatively, that's $12K a year in taxes – for the last 10 years. She can't go back and refile but the last 3 years because the statute has run, so that's an ENORMOUS hit for a small business.

What can you do about it? If you are running a Point of Sale system, or a line of business application that keeps detailed revenue records, ensure your accountant/bookkeeper is truing up your Merchant Account deposits with your revenue. Be sure you are reducing your revenue by the credit/debit card discounts that may be hidden on your statement.

Suddenly my curser was at the VERY top of the page when I went into Word to create a document. I couldn't figure out why it didn't show the top margin. When I went into "Print Preview" the top margin was there, just like it was supposed to be. I was tearing my hair out.

Finally, I went through the settings with another PC close at hand and discovered that in Word Options (look at the bottom of the list when you click on the pearl) the first line of "Display" "Page display options" "Show white space between pages in Print Layout view" was unchecked. The Info icon said "Show the top and bottom margins, including the content of headers and footers. To change this option quickly, point to the top or bottom edge of a page and double-click."

Apparently, I had double clicked when I should have clacked.    

About a month ago I became the proud owner of an HTC Mogul – Windows Mobile 6 – Pocket PC. After the hunky Windows 2005 Pocket PC edition, it's a joy. Many fewer connectivity problems, fewer battery problems, etc. AND I'm finally able to sync with my VISTA laptop! (The Windows 2005 was not upgradable…)

BUT, and here's the frustrating thing, ever since I first hooked it up to the USB port (you can use either the USB or a regular plug to recharge!) it has been offering me the option of OneNote Mobile. I would dutifully click the bubble, and it would take me to OneNote where it would say "You have to Upgrade your ActiveSync." So I would go to the Windows Download site to get the Mobile Sync Center 6.1, and I would download it, and install it, and then, the next time I would plug in the USB, it would offer me OneNote Mobile and when I clicked the bubble, it would take me to OneNote where it would say "You have to Upgrade your ActiveSync." Today – finally – I got the upgrade to "take" and install on both the device and the laptop. Heretofore (without any special ActiveSync or anything else) I had been able to sync with the Exchange Server – no problems. But now, I could sync with my laptop, which meant I should be able to sync with my Notes (held in Outlook and not in Exchange, apparently). I then went back to the Microsoft download site, begging for OneNote Mobile, and it told me, "Open OneNote, look under Tools and send it to your device." AAAAAaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!!! Now why couldn't they have said that in the nifty little bubble that kept offering OneNote Mobile to me?

Anyway, I think I'm completely up-to-snuff, except my Notes won't completely sync – probably because in desperation I had entered some manually, and there's no place in the Mobile Sync Center to tell the program which version is boss. I'll try manually deleting the conflicting ones on my Mogul and see if that works.

I discovered today (after several attempts and trial and error) that QuickBooks can't export a report to Excel if there is an Outlook Excel Preview open. It doesn't seem to bother it if Excel itself is open, only if there's a preview open.

 I certainly don't consider myself to be "super-techie".  In fact, except for some pushing and prodding from my sons, this soon-to-be senior citizen, CPA wouldn't know one end of a computer from another.  I'll admit I've been around the IT community for a while.  I learned how to do a little basic programming on a TI 99-4A.  I embraced Word Processing when it was nothing more than one step above a Selectric III.  Still, I am what one of my sons calls "the Ultimate User."  I know just enough to be dangerous. 

Two weeks ago, Bill and I attended "Mobilizing the Microsoft Stack" - a big push to get Windows Mobile 5.0 in the hands of everybody.  Much was made of how you can securely chat with other mobile devices and desktops with Office Communicator.  There was also a lot of talk about EVDO and the improvements made there, for remote access with a mobile device, as well as using "air cards" in laptops to significantly improve connectivity away from the office.

This morning, Bill and I were invited to a very nice breakfast event on the Microsoft camput in Irving with Bill Veghte, Corporate Vice-President for North America.  He was enthusiastic about Vista, Office 2007, and the Dynamics offerings.  But he was particularly enthusiastic about SharePoint Portal Services.  He pointed out that in Office 2007 Outlook is fully integrated with SharePoint.  Another feature he was singing the praises of was being able to put documents in Outlook so you can have them when you're on the road or at home.  He said the new security features inherent in Office 2007 make it a little more comfortable for Enterprise clients who have lots of laptops out and about to worry slightly less about losing those laptops with sensitive documents on them.

Now here's the thing.  He NEVER made the jump to keeping ALL sensitive documents off of remote laptops and on a fully secured SharePoint site, which can be accessed from anywhere with Cell Phone coverage using EVDO, either built-in or with an air card.  EVDO connectivity works great, and from just about anywhere.  I have a Sprint Merlin (see my blog from August 28) and I can always get back to my server (and hence all my SharePoint files).  I don't have to take copies of documents with me on my laptop (to possibly be left on a plane or in a hotel room).  Concerned about cost for all that connectivity?  I have unlimited data through Sprint for $45 a month (added to my already existing Sprint cell phone account).  If I were a real "road warrior" staying in a first class hotel several nights a week (and paying $10.95 a night for highspeed access) or stopping in a Starbucks and forking over $10 bucks a day to "get on line", I would be buying an EVDO card for every laptop in my office.

Many thanks to Susan Bradley for the publicity she is generating by mentioning the SBSGroup in Dallas/Ft Worth.  The group has been going for several years now (in fact, Russell Clemence - the founder and organizer - said this was one of the first 20 SBS groups in the country).

Microsoft has been kind enough to offer us Peter Gallagher as our sponsor for the regular technical meeting on the Microsoft campus in Irving (conveniently located half-way between Dallas and Ft Worth).  This meeting (7:00-9:00 p.m. on the last Thursday of each month) has been well attended and we always get a lot out of it.  This month we will have none other than Jeff Middleton - king (and inventor) of the Swing Migration - as our guest speaker.

This month we are adding a portion of the meeting that will be focused on business problems and interests for those of us who not only serve small businesses, but are ones ourselves.  Bill Watters is organizing this new offering, and has prevailed upon Charles Van Huesen to open the venue for us from 5:00-7:00 p.m.  Jeff Middleton will be talking to the "Business" section about lessons learned as a small business person during the first part of the meeting.  We will also have a report from three members who attended SMB Nation earlier in the month.  (We're dying to go next year - or even better - to host an SMB Nation-Central right here in DFW!)

Plans underway for next month's business portion include "Ask a CPA/Ask a Lawyer".  We'll have a CPA (me) and a lawyer to be named later.  I will talk about how to keep Uncle Sam happy without paying more taxes than you need to, when do you charge sales tax, what to do about the new Texas Margin tax.  Our lawyer friend will give us some great advice about forms of business, and how to decide which form of business is best for you.

We're hoping that members of the group will come up with some other "business" related topics for future meetings.  I have contacts in lots of different specialties throughout the Metroplex and should be able to find a speaker to talk knowledgably about whatever the group wants to hear.  Some other thoughts have been getting somebody to talk about marketing and sales (they're different you know), partnering with Microsoft while partnering with other partners, getting free publicity a la Jeff Crilley, and using networking as your basic marketing plan.

I hope the business meeting really takes off.  We need each other as friends and as partners.