Building a Community That Builds...

The ideal scenario, IMHO, of a partner community is where the partners themselves are involved in building the marketing and communications vehicles that they will use.

So, when I see a glimmer of hope, I am PUMPED UP.

Example #1.

Fredrik read my post about the WIN Webcast and offered up a comment:

"Why don't you post the Q and A so that we can see them afterwards?"

A great idea and one that just wouldn't have occurred to me. PLUS, validation that by putting *stuff* out there, partners will respond. Here's the link:

Example #2

I called the 3 partners from each of the 2 WIN (What's Important Now) Webcasts last week who gave me the lowest overall scores. I wanted their feedback.

John of Bell Industries answered the request.

"You know," he said, "it'd be great if you could calibrate the level of the presentation to the types of AER's (Authorized Education Resellers) on your call. You could ask a few profiling questions."

"John, I know partners and I know marketing, but I don't know anything about AER's. Will you write down the poll questions and I'll give you naming rights?"

And he's doing exactly that.

Partners actually participating in the creation of the marketing engine and the community that supports it.

Just phenomenal!

Comments

• Anonymous
  December 13, 2007
  Thanks for highlighting me.  I actually had a somewhat ulterior motive though: I wanted an answer to a question I asked during the WIN presentation (but I'm not sure if it actually made it through). Anyway, the question was about your favorite subject, partnerships and community.  Someone was wondering about Dynamics in academic settings, and my follow-up question was (and is): how can an AER (or a public sector partner generally) find a Dynamics partner (assuming the first partner doesn't also do Dynamics)?  Channelbuilder on Partnersource is great for letting Dynamics partners find each other, but AFAIK only Dynamics partners can use it.  Is there a similar tool for helping AER/public sectors find each other and other types of Microsoft partners?  

• Anonymous
  December 15, 2007
  Here's the offer...help us redesign the masthead (pictured here) for our Pu blic Sector Partners Newsletter

• Anonymous
  December 17, 2007
  When we talk about a "community" of partners and how we want them to market with us, we need to understand

• Anonymous
  January 14, 2008
  No one likes to have disappointed customers or partners. It's not fun and you feel like a failure. Nevertheless,