Creating a vendor partner ecosystem

One of my pleasures with being a full-timer is the ability to watch the great people I’ve met through the user community partner with other fabulous people in the industry and really create some excellent companies. Then I stumble into a conference like TechEd and see these very same excellent people not only with the enthusiasm for the product that I know them for, but the solid partner story that demonstrates how their organization can really work with our internal staff to strengthen our own team instead of a vendor who can do the work for us.

Of the companies represented here at TechEd, Mindsharp comes to mind as such a vendor partner. Todd Bleeker is the most passionate man I know about any product, and he and Bill English have created a company I would be willing to call a vendor partner. I don’t know how this will all play out, but I feel that whatever I would wager on Mindsharp would be an excellent wager. I look forward to participating in their OnPath program and really learning how SharePoint can be leveraged to create a dynamic organization.

Sharepoint in my mind is one of those organizational changing technologies that helps push the possible collaboration technologies of the web down to the people who can actually use it. Right now I’m on a number of process improvement projects. It would be awesome if I could spin up a team site and have people contribute pervasively in the context of the project and its goals. Having the right vendor partner can help us jumpstart our own vision and maybe even give me some team sites.