A shout out to Andy Parkes of iBIT Solutions and Guy Gregory of Peak Support who a couple of months ago took over from the departing Steve Wright of BMS (who is devoting his attention to his new Microsoft Partner Area Lead role) as the new Group Leads for AMITPRO – the Midlands Association of IT Professionals.

Andy and Guy are simply two of the nicest and well thought of people you’ll meet in the Small Business Specialist Community within the UK – regularly contributing their time and effort to community events both on-line and both in person.

In the short-time they’ve been joint group lead, they’ve already made a positive impact on AMITPRO – putting on a couple of great and well attended meetings, re-vamping the organisation web-site at www.amitpro.org, and taking surveys from their fellow members to help form a fresh direction for the group going forwards.

If you’ve not already checked it out, take a look at Andy’s blog over at http://www.andyparkes.co.uk/blog/ – it’s one of my personal favourites for its mix of news and observations.

Both Andy (pictured left) and Guy (pictured right) can also be found on Twitter.

AMITPRO meets the second Tuesday of every month at the Arden Hotel in Solihull. If you’re involved in the IT Business within the Midlands and have never attended before – why not reach out to Guy or Andy and come along for our next meeting?

(I thought twice before posting this article as my fear is it might offend someone I’ve interacted with recently. If you read this and have a sudden feeling of “Oh! He’s writing about me!” then please believe me – I’m not writing about you! If this blog post *was* aimed at you, I’d have approached you directly to talk about it before now. OK? :-)

It’s well documented that British actor Stephen Fry is a big user of the Social Networking site Twitter. Fry (aka @StephenFry) has almost 1 million followers on the site, and is the first name that the British Press and Media use when they are talking about Twitter.

With so many followers and members of the general public to interact with, Mr. Fry must get all manner of feedback – positive and negative. As a high profile figure, I’m sure he generally shrugs off the negative comments, but do they ever get to him? Fry is a sufferer of Bi-Polar Disorder, also known as Manic Depression, a condition where his mood can become ultra-negative very easily – so surely reading negative feedback affects him occasionally?

A couple of weeks ago, it did – a fellow Twitter user made a negative comment to the effect of he found Stephen Fry’s updates boring, and Mr. Fry reacted.

The whole thing blew over within 24 hours, with the respective parties apologising – but not before the story had made news on the BBC News Web-Site, amongst other media outlets. A storm in a tea-cup perhaps, but one I followed with interest and in fact a genuine concern for both parties as I watched the story unfold on Twitter. Fry was obviously feeling low and overly sensitive (although this is debatable) and his detractor, who seems a good sort judging by his usual behaviour, probably never expected Fry to read his comments, let alone get a response, let alone become Public Enemy Number One as a result.

It’s obvious that the higher your profile is raised, and the more you share of yourself with people, the more likely you are to attract negative feedback. It’s seemingly unavoidable.

I’ve been blogging for 5 years or more now, and using Social Networking sites for many years too. Whilst I’m no Stephen Fry, in terms of either talent (sadly) or profile (thankfully) – the visitor statistics for this blog reveal to me that it gets read by many hundreds of people each day, and there are probably around 300-500 people that I regularly communicate with via sites like Twitter and Facebook, both personally and professionally, each month.

Up until recently, I’ve been more than fortunate to not receive any real negative feedback whatsoever. In fact, the opposite is true. I regularly receive e-mails and messages that are really positive – thanking me for sharing my experiences, writing articles on the blog, asking my advice, or generally just being friendly. This is the stuff that brings a smile to my face and put a spring in my step without fail.

This year I’ve grown my company Netlink IT, rode out the recession, travelled a lot to some wonderful places, found a fabulous new Business Partner and team, spent time with amazing and talented people who I’ve learnt a lot from, and generally been very happy with my lot in life. I post about my experiences regularly on Social Networking sites, not to brag, but to share with my friends and colleagues because, well, this is my life and what else would I talk about, right?

However, recently I’ve noticed something. Whilst I’m hardly receiving hate mail, people are taking the time to leave comments and send e-mails that aren’t exactly positive. In fact, I’ve read a few of them and actually wondered why they’ve taken the time to write the comments at all. What response did they want from me, if any?

• Perhaps (and most likely) is that I’m being over sensitive. I don’t deal with non-constructive criticism very well and know I need to work on my emotional toughness both personally and in business.
• It could be that the medium of electronic communication isn’t conveying the senders intended message. Perhaps they didn’t intend on being so negative, it just came across that way.
• It’s a strong possibility that people think I’m being arrogant or showing off. If somebody’s view of me is based on what they read about me on-line, they’ll probably get the impression I never do any “proper” work, that I spend all my time travelling and doing cool stuff with interesting people. The reality is, I just don’t tend to post the boring and negative stuff – who wants to read that stuff?!
• It’s possible that the messages are meant teasingly. I’m famous for winding up friends and the people who are closest to me, so I probably (no, definitely!) need to realise when others are giving me a taste of my own medicine and winding me up in cyberspace as they do in real life!

But there’s another darker thought that lurks into my mind – that the people who send those negative messages do so because they are simply arseholes (or ass-holes, if you’re reading this from the United States…).

In “real life” I’ve come across folk who try to pull you down, never have a kind word, and are generally so self-absorbed that I’ve made sure to exclude them from my personal and professional life. One of my personal drivers in life is that by associating with positive, successful people, I’ll be more likely to be positive and successful myself. Life is too short to spend it with the moaners and the takers! I’m sure the same is true in the virtual world.

I’ve had this blog post in my head for a week or more now after I recently had my “Stephen Fry” moment. Some negative on-line feedback genuinely made me question whether I enjoyed my on-line life, and made me consider closing my Facebook account down, giving up Twitter and not writing any more blog posts.

I haven’t, of course, and realise that just like in “real life” I’ll need to build some personal strategies for dealing with negative people in the virtual world – but there are times when you wonder if it’s worth it or not!

I’m undecided. I think the reality of this situation lies somewhere between the above points. I’m probably a bit too sensitive, that messages can be read wrong, that I’m a bit arrogant and that people are trying to take me down a peg or two, but at the same time, there are plenty of arseholes who like nothing better than to take a pop. :-)

I’d be interested in hearing your views and thoughts. This, of course, opens me up for all sorts of personal abuse – but hopefully in amongst the slanging there will be some positive feedback! <grin>

In an attempt to curb the multiple scare stories around AVG withdrawing their popular Free Anti-Virus software that usually emerge around the time of these upgrades, here’s a heads-up that version 8.5 of the popular free AVG Anti-Virus will be expiring on December 1st only to be replaced with a free edition of the latest version, v9.

After December 1st, v8.5 or below of the software will still run, but will not update it’s virus definitions leaving you at risk of infection by new viruses, and you’ll be “nagged” by a pop-up asking you to upgrade to AVG version 9.

Clicking the nag pop-up will take you to a web-page where you’re encouraged to buy the full version of AVG Anti-Virus (which may not be a bad thing, as the full version includes a ton of features the free version does not) – but if you’re happy with the free version, then good news – a free edition of version 9 is also available. Look at the smaller print at the bottom of the page to find a link to upgrade (see screenshot right).

Alternatively, you can visit this link directly to download v9 of AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition.

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is totally free for non-Commercial use. That means if you’re a small business, you’re breaking the terms of the license agreement by using it – you should contact a reputable AVG reseller for a low-cost upgrade to a Commercial Edition which will protect your business. Trust me when I say it’s worth it!

If you’re a home user and don’t have an Anti-Virus solution in place – then what are you waiting for? Go and download AVG Anti-Virus Free v9.0 straight away!

A quick shout-out for my friend and fellow HTG member - “Mr. Virtualization” (with a “z”) Dave Sobel of Evolvetech, who is running a must-see Webinar on Virtualisation next Wednesday 18th November 2009.

When I call Dave “Mr. Virtualization”, it’s with good reason – he’s the author of the excellent “Virtualization: Defined. A Primer for the SMB Consultant” book, and delivered one of the best break-out sessions at WPC 09 recently, focused around SMB Virtualisation. Dave *is* the Subject Matter Expert on Virtualisation in the SMB Space, and Evolvetech are making a great deal of money in that area thanks to his knowledge of the field!

You can find more details at http://www.smbvirtualization.net/drupal-6.4/node/90, or here’s an overview:-

“I'm presenting a newly updated version of my presentation from WPC as a 5W25 webinar, and wanted to let everyone know about it. This is going to be a good one, and contain new material!

Go visit http://www.mssmallbiz.com/training/ and sign up for my session (or follow the direct link below).

Virtualization is becoming mainstream, and are you ready with your practice? Learn from Dave Sobel, author of “Virtualization: Defined. A Primer for the SMB Consultant”, how to build your consulting practice, get trained and offering solutions, and solutions you can start delivering right away. Learn about server consolidation assessments, Virtual Desktop Infrastructures, and how to deliver high value solutions to your customers.

I'm going to show a presentation that WORKS, that drives customer understanding, and has helped one partner sell more than $300,000 in projects around virtualization.

This is one of my best presentations, and so I highly recommend signing up.”

I’m pleased to say I’ve been fortunate enough to be nominated for the Computer Weekly Blog Awards 2009 as a nominee in the IT Consultant and Analyst Category!

From the web-site:-

IT Blog Awards 2009: IT Consultant and Analyst

Consultants and analysts provide useful insight from their vantage point of working with numerous companies. If they share that insight online in a blog, this is the category for them, whether they are part of a big set-up such as Gartner or Forrester, or a sole trader.

***

If you’re a reader of this blog and would like to vote for me, then you can visit http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/11/03/238190/vote-in-the-computer-weekly-it-blog-awards-2009.htm and select my name from Category 2 – IT Consultant and Analyst.

Thanks for the nomination, and the huge amount of support I’ve already received from friends and colleagues on Facebook and Twitter – win or not, I’m touched and I really appreciate it. :-)

Our Office Manager Sharon has recently started visiting a number of local business networking events, meeting and greeting fellow local businesses, chatting about work, life and the universe, and (hopefully) putting down the building blocks for a business relationship that will be of mutual benefit for both parties for a good time to come.

But once the networking event is over – what then? Sharon has been returning to the office with a fistful of business cards – and the easy thing to do would be to start building a nice pile of cards in the corner of her desk as a very efficient dust-catcher.

But really, what should Sharon do with all those business cards that she’s collected?

Here’s the system we use at Netlink IT to try to maximise the benefit out of all those business cards we collect:-

1. Within 48 hours of attending the networking event, schedule 30 minutes to follow up on the business cards you’ve collected.
2. Input the business cards as a new Contact into Microsoft Outlook so they can easily be referenced for the future and shared with others.
3. Send a follow-up e-mail to the person – I often reference a specific conversations (not always business related!) that I’ve had with that person at the networking event. If you’ve got a terrible memory, like me, then carry a pen with you to the event and make notes on Business Cards received after each conversation.
4. Connect with that person on Social Networking sites such as LinkedIn and Plaxo.
5. With their permission, add that person to the companies e-mail newsletter list – we use a service called Constant Contact to manage these details.
6. Be “The Connector” – if you know of somebody who would benefit from being introduced to the person you’ve met – make that introduction!
7. Finally – if there is a genuine potential need from the new contact for your businesses service (and I should stress that going into a networking event looking to SELL is a very bad idea! However sometimes you meet someone at just the right time when they need your services and it’s worth discussing further) then add the details as an “opportunity” in the CRM system and follow-up by telephone.

Do you do things differently to the above? If so, how do you approach things? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts – leave a comment or e-mail me. 

However you do things, make sure you have some sort of system in place for collecting business cards – otherwise all that time you spend at those networking events will be nothing more than time spent having a chat with a fellow local business, and a pile of cards gathering dust on your desk!