By Derek R. Iannelli-Smith, ACRBO Member, IT Strategist for Progressive Integrations, Inc., Recently I had a client that had a SBS2003 environment and desired to upgrade to SBS 2008. As we all know there is not an upgrade path, so welcome to migration. Upon doing extensive research, I became aware of MVP Jeff Middleton, and was even told about him from Microsoft personnel through the Partner Network. Everyone gave MVP Jeff Middleton kudos and talked about him being the one who could do a migration the best – even better than Microsoft! So on 16 Dec 2010, I called him figuring that a project deadline of 31 Jan 11 would be enough time and I needed a fast answer. I spoke with him for about 30 minutes; I asked very specific questions; 1. What is the success rate? 2. Can this be done without [+]

Paradigm Shifts for Techs: Customer Service - Part 4 By Derek Iannelli-Smith, IT Strategist, Progressive Integrations, Inc., The birds are singing, your coffee is just the right temperature, and your favorite song is playing on Last.FM. You are working in a software package and all of a sudden, the computer locks up, fades and the top-most window bar says, “Not responding” and it’s the 4th time that has happened today with this particular program. What are you thinking? Maybe you have felt like this guy did? Maybe one more applicable to us techs? It is one of those days at the IT shop, finally, able to catch up on some of the details in the inbox, and one of your fellow employees says, “Can you come here for a minute, my computer is acting weird, and I wanted you to see it before [+]

Paradigm Shifts for Techs: Educational Marketing by Derek R. Iannelli, IT Strategist, Progressive Integrations, Inc., We love our buzz words. This is the newest one I have grabbed onto and that is probably because I have been chewing a lot on Robin Robbins stuff lately. What is ‘educational marketing’? I will define it as: “The systematic, intentional, and customer service driven education of your current and prospective clients for loyalty and longevity by direct response.” First let me start off with, I am still learning and there are better guru’s on this topic than me (just type ‘educational marketing’ into Google). What does this have to do with the IT business and isn’t that what they pay me for? I sense this objection quite a bit when I try to talk with other techs and once I explain that it is a process, an [+]