I think I am!

Here’s the rundown and Julie’s list of important things for Convergence.

• Be prepared, it’s not just for Boy Scouts anymore.  Bring business cards, not business suits.  Sure we know you can get all gussied up, but leave it at home.  But, come with a huge stack of cards. Sure, you’ll take down a few trees, but it’s currently the only practical way to transfer your contact info.  I know someone is out there making a card scanner for my Windows Phone (right?!?!), but until then, I’ll take your card and go home and get it into my CRM.
• Make your plan of attack for sessions.  Figure out what is important to you when you are there.  Do you need to learn specific skills (technical deep dives)?  Do you need to ask questions of experts (interactive discussions)?  Do you need a good overview (general sessions)?  Don’t miss the keynotes, they are just a good idea and where they show us shiny new things (I hope!).
• Don’t forget DayONE, it’s free and worth much much more.  The day before convergence has always been just as important and info packed as the conference proper, so find your specialty (we know mine is CRM, but there’s others, promise), and go to these too!
• Make your plan of attack for the expo hall.  Seriously.  Not as big as a Tech Ed hall, but plenty big and often overwhelming.  So, know what you want and make more than a single pass thru the hall.  It is perfectly acceptable to go get that little airplane swag for your kid, but come on, be polite about it.  Stop at the booths that are busy or not so busy, they all have something to offer and the smaller companies probably spent most of their marketing budget to be there, spend time with them.
• Go to the parties.  Sure there’s free food and drinks but that’s not the value here, go meet people.  Nerds are traditionally socially awkward and they will relax a bit and be more willing and able to chat with you (and you with them).  They will be confident and they are smart.  The networking at these parties are the important part.  (don’t forget to bring the biz cards and forget the suit, heck, be dangerous, wear JEANS!)
• Come to my sessions .  Come on, you knew that was coming!  I’m part of the General Session on the CRMUG DayONE stage, then I have The Developer’s Guide to Reporting in CRM 2011 (with megastar Joel Lindstrom as my co-presenter!) at 3:15 in room B403.  At 4:45, in room B404 I will be deploying a portal with CRM live for you (yea, nothing could go wrong there!?).  On Monday with Jeff Loucks I’ve got Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online:  Your Questions Answered in room B404 at 1:30, then that session again the next day at 11:30 in the same room.

Sessions

This open letter is to all Convergence attendees and a great chance to have your voice heard while it can make a difference.

Dear Convergence 2011 Attendees,

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team are enthusiastically looking forward to meeting you at Convergence 2011, sharing with you some of our ideas and aspirations for future versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and, as always, learning from you, your experiences, your needs, and your insights during our Concept Box Sessions.

Concept Box Sessions: Influence, Insight, Shape

Between Sunday, April 10^th and Wednesday, April 13^th members of the CRM Research and Development Team will be hosting a series of discussion groups and forward-looking research sessions at the Atlanta Convention Center.  During these sessions, we will present sketches and ideas designed to improve the future Microsoft Dynamics CRM; we invite you to review and critique designs and present your important scenarios, your business needs and processes, so that you can directly influence our direction in a wide array of areas.  *These sessions are limited in size, so please respond early.*

Gratuity & Non-Disclosure Agreement

Participants in each Discussion Group will receive a Microsoft gratuity which must be mailed to a U.S. address.  We will have a list of gratuity choices available for you at the sessions.  We will also ask you to sign a standard Microsoft Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) so that we can confidentially share our ideas and present our thinking.

Audience

These Microsoft Dynamics CRM Discussion Groups are open to ALL Convergence 2011 Attendees who want to learn about and influence the future of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

End Users – (for example) Sales Professional, Marketing Professional, Customer Service Representative

Business Decision Makers – (for example) Sales Managers, Marketing Managers, Service Managers

Partners, IT Experts, Developers – (for example) Implementation Partner, Solution Developer, IT Managers

Where

All sessions will be in the Atlanta Convention Center, Room A-301.

Participation

Please review the session titles and RSVP directly to me ([email protected]) your preferred Concept Box Sessions; I will send you an email invitation confirming the session date(s) and time(s): Some Sessions will be repeated so that we can accommodate your schedules at Convergence 2011.

These discussions and research sessions are specifically designed to collect feedback from our customers, users, developers, and partners on our future thinking and aspirations for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  All Convergence 2011 attendees are welcome regardless of your product focus.   If you are interested in learning more about Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Online and On Premise, our most recent CRM releases, we encourage you to take advantage of the other generally available and informative Microsoft Dynamics CRM sessions during Convergence 2011.

Thank you, as always, for the privilege of learning from your distinctive insights and constructive feedback as well as envisioning with us an evolving Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  We are eager to welcome you and look forward to hearing from you soon.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team

I. Sunday (Josh Chang)—1:30-2:45— Tomorrow’s Communication and Collaboration Experience

Concept Box:

Join us to review and critique User Interface experiences for seeing business contact feeds, social graphs for business connections, sharing business contact information with your colleagues!

To participate: Please contact: [email protected]

II. Monday (Manisha Powar)—11-12:15—Sales Force Automation

Concept Box:

Sales Force Automation, an extensively interesting domain, will best grow when the R&D Team listens to you, understands your experiences, focuses on your scenarios, discusses with you their current thinking and appreciates your feedback. 

Please join this multifaceted Concept Box Session, review early storyboards, and help us hone our work.

Each of these 3 Sessions will have different perspectives: Please join us for any one or all!

To participate: Please contact: [email protected]

III. Monday (Sandhya Vankamamidi)—1:30-2:45— Integrated Agent Desktop

Concept Box:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s Agent Desktop aims to increase agent effectiveness by unifying data and legacy applications while guiding agents through their workflows. Review the integrated Lync experience designed to provide Customer Care Agents with contextual collaboration.

Come to this session to learn about our nextGen Integrated Agent Desktop thinking and shape the product with your valuable feedback.

To participate: Please contact: [email protected]

IV. Monday (Josh Chang)—3-4:15—On Premise to Online Migration  Experience

Concept Box:

Are you an On Premise Customer or a hosting partner?  Are you interested in upgrading to the cloud?  Why or why not? Guide Our Envisioning as we consider together the opportunities, approaches, challenges, and scenarios faced in the IT Admin experience of moving from an On Premise to and Online version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Please join this multifaceted Concept Box Session, review early thoughts (perhaps storyboards), and help us design the experience.

To participate: Please contact: [email protected]

V. Monday (Steven Kaplan)—4:30-5:15—Social Customer Care—Making Your Customer Your Best Friend?

Concept Box:

As more conversations about your business happen through the Social Web, Facebook and Twitter for example, Customer Service Organizations are exploring these channels as ways of delivering new types of service.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM aims to help Customer Service Organizations by enabling you to LISTEN, PARTICIPATE, and ANALYZE the conversations from the Social Web, integrate the Social Web Learnings into the traditional Customer Service Organization to deliver more fun and personalized customer interactions.

Come to this Concept Box Session to INFLUENCE our roadmap for “social customer care.”

To participate: Please contact: [email protected]

VI. Tuesday (Manisha Powar)—9-10:15—Sales Force Automation

Concept Box:

Sales Force Automation, an extensively interesting domain, will best grow when the R&D Team listens to you, understands your experiences, focuses on your scenarios, discusses with you their current thinking and appreciates your feedback. 

Please join this multifaceted Concept Box Session, review early storyboards, and help us hone our work.

Each of these 3 Sales Force Automation Sessions will have different perspectives: Please join us for any one or all!

To participate: Please contact: [email protected]

VII. Tuesday (Josh Chang)—10:30-11:45—Online Organizational Management Scenario Building

Concept Box:

Organizational Management Scenarios, such as user management and other scenarios are core to this session during which we will request your feedback and critiques.  This will be a broad and open-ended discussion with an Online expert to address topics of importance to you and us.

Please join this Concept Box Session, review early storyboards, and brainstorm with us on organizational management scenarios.

To participate: Please contact: [email protected]

VIII. Tuesday (Sandhya Vankamamidi)—1:30-2:45—Integrated Agent Desktop

Concept Box:

Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s Agent Desktop aims to increase agent effectiveness by unifying data and legacy applications while guiding agents through their workflows. Review the integrated Lync experience designed to provide Customer Care Agents with contextual collaboration.

Come to this session to learn about our nextGen Integrated Agent Desktop thinking and shape the product with your valuable feedback.

To participate: Please contact: [email protected]

IX. Tuesday (Manisha Powar)—3:15-4:30—Sales Force Automation

Concept Box:

Sales Force Automation, an extensively interesting domain, will best grow when the R&D Team listens to you, understands your experiences, focuses on your scenarios, discusses with you their current thinking and appreciates your feedback. 

Please join this multifaceted Concept Box Session, review early storyboards, and help us hone our work.

Each of these 3 Sales Force Automation Sessions will have different perspectives: Please join us for any one or all!

To participate: Please contact: [email protected]

X. Tuesday (Michael Guthmann)—4:45-6—EMPOWERING the IT Pro in the Cloud

Concept Box:

IT is shifting to the Cloud but are still crucial in managing Cloud (Online) services.  Please guide our investments for the IT Pro in CRM Online by joining us and providing feedback that will allow us to EMPOWER your future work and shape our future direction.

To participate: Please contact: [email protected]

XI. Wednesday (Josh Chang)—10:45-Noon-- On Premise to Online Migration  Experience

Concept Box:

Are you an On Premise Customer or a hosting partner?  Are you interested in upgrading to the cloud?  Why or why not? Guide Our Envisioning as we consider together the opportunities, approaches, challenges, and scenarios faced in the IT Admin experience of moving from an On Premise to and Online version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Please join this multifaceted Concept Box Session, review early thoughts (perhaps storyboards), and help us design the experience.

To participate: Please contact: [email protected]

At the MVP Global Summit several Dynamics CRM MVPs and product team embers got together and chatted about the MVP program.  Here’s a quick video for ya’.

 

CRM MVPs talk about the MVP Program - Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

So for anyone that doesn’t know much about my past, I was once very involved in journalism.  It started with the school newspaper in middle school, then on to Editor of my high school yearbook and on the staff of my college newspaper as well.  Got some awards and scholarships, I loved it.  I started college as a journalism major.  I have some passion for journalistic integrity and the freedoms given by our Constitution. 

Then after I finished my first degree, I took the LSAT exam.  I love to study law, find the ins and outs of the way things are written and interpreted.  Totally fascinated by it.  I read parts of the constitution just ‘cause it’s there on a fairly regular basis.

This story got my attention.  Read the link, but the summary is anonymous comments on a newspaper’s websites sparked an investigation by an attorney general into the actions of a high profile person.  The comments were saying such things as this person was “greedy.”  The paper has been ordered to reveal the identity of the posters.  Really?

Problem number one, if the attorney general is relying upon generic and anonymous website comments to determine weather or not an investigation should happen, maybe it’s time for a new attorney general?  Seriously, this is all that’s required for an investigation in Indiana these days?  Get off your chair and do your job already.  Sad sad sad.

Problem number two, what exactly is gained by revealing these anonymous posters’ identity?  It’s not like you can stop a crime before it’s committed.  The comments were not threatening. Well, that and covered under our Constitution.

I love the sharing of differing opinions, online, in person or otherwise.  I have strong opinions of my own and love to hear the passions of others.  To think that this combination of non-events could risk the simplest of American freedoms is truly scary to me.  Free speech and freedom of press are both getting clobbered here by a dumbass judge (Marion Superior Court Judge S.K. Reid) in Indiana.  I say that with my name proudly next to it.

(maybe the AG of Indiana can help me track down the dude that told me I was a twit here on my own blog a while back?  It’s got to be trespassing or something, right?)

 

Judge: Media must reveal IDs of online posters