In our experience people invest in how they spend their time at work for two main reasons; It makes good commercial sense and you can see clear ROI or You believe in the idea and enjoy the experience.
We are so pleased to see from the feedback that all 50 partners who attended our joint “IAMCP UK and The WIT Network Community Event” at Poly’s swish Exec Briefing Centre agreed they had achieved both of these things from attending.
Here’s a quick overview of our incredible day networking, learning and driving growth together:
– Fantastic welcome to the 50 partners that attended from Poly – with a healthy yogurt, fruit and muesli pot, plus amazing hot breakfast rolls (who doesn’t want a bacon, sausage or egg roll in the morning), delicious coffee, tea and soft drinks – very welcome after a particularly manic London-Transport-Chaos journey to get there (tubes cancelled left, right and centre and traffic jams all over, groan) – the networking begins…
– Kick off from our fabulous host Tony Robinson, who led us beautifully through a packed day, so professionally and with fun and style (as always)
– Introductions to the incredibly talented members of the IAMCP UK and The WIT Network board – it never ceases to amaze me how people are prepared to give their time. It was good for all to see who is doing the work to make our two communities so fabulous
– A highly valuable interview I had the pleasure of taking with one of the most important people in the Microsoft UK channel, Clare Barclay, COO of Microsoft UK who gave us her views on how culture and diversity are an embedded part of a digital transformation strategy, how she has seen Microsoft partners grow and change during her tenure and why Microsoft Inspire is such a great opportunity. Clare, FYI the attendees loved it! Thank you.
– Outstanding presentation from the delightful Kate Wood who led us through a ‘Who’s your Hero’ presentation that ended with us all writing on and putting on t-shirts and cheering for a group photo (who else could motivate a bunch of partners to do that on a Tuesday morning)?
– Extremely passionate and very inspirational presentation from Mary Hunter at Columbus who led us through some of the core reasons why the people are the reason that Columbus is such a successful organisation
– Awesome networking lunch – relationships are building, the room is buzzing…
– Three amazing Breakout sessions – The WIT Network session, led by Sarah Gray, Paula Costa and Kate Wood, was very action-orientated with practical advice and direction for building a diverse and inclusive culture shared, The Apprenticeship and Skills session was led by Laura Mead and Liz Penning and shared how partners can take great advantage of growing their talented workforce and get involved in the Partner Pledge, and a highly interactive and lively Storytelling session, led by our host Tony Robinson who shared the theory behind why storytelling works and how to do it well.
– We had the amazing Joe Macri, VP OCP, Microsoft UK join us to talk about how his organisation is focussed on empowering partners to grow by leveraging of Intelligent Cloud and Intelligent Edge to create new markets with ISVs and develop the right AI ecosystem
– And finally….. (drum roll please) we had our first Dragons Den take place with four brave and enthusiastic partners pitching their business to the room and getting advice and direction from our dragons, Julie Simpson, Joe Macri and Murtuza Viramgamwala – there is no question that was a tough ask to stand up and pitch like that but it was done with great finesse and I hope initiated more of the P2P business we are all keen to see happen with the partners in the room. Well done to all who took part.
As a result of the fantastic session, we have at least four volunteers step up to join our board so watch this space as you see our organisation get stronger and more effective with this additional support. The more the merrier!
We cannot thank our wonderful hosts at Poly enough for their generosity, hospitality and contribution to making the event such a fantastic success. Both IAMCP UK and The WIT Network are NFP’s (Not-for-profit organisations) and without membership, sponsorship and donations like this would imply not exist so a big hurray to Poly for supporting us.
All we need now are a couple of long-term investing sponsors that have a partner to partner revenue stream or D & I strategy to drive, for which we can be the ideal vehicle to help us drive results and the UK will be the most successful joined-up community in the world – this is our wish for 2019 and beyond.
Finally, as President of IAMCP UK and Global VP of The WIT Network I would like to thank the incredible IAMCP UK and The WIT Network UK board for their time and effort – without you none of this happens and I want to let you all know how grateful I am for your support and what a privilege it is to work with you all. Thank you.
IAMCP UK and The WIT Network UK are poised for great success together – join us and be part of something that makes a difference.
Thank you.
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