Arlin Sorensen from HTG shares highlights from the Keynote address: HTG-Online, and upcoming events specifically for employees and associates.

Aaron, Mike Pearce and myself snuck away from the office for a few days to attend the NAB Show® (National Association of Broadcasters) in Vegas. Shot and edited this on my iPhone as more of an afterthought – was hoping to take a trip without actually shooting something, but the creative demon inside couldn’t help but capture some footage of all the shiny things on display. Some shaky camera work, but still fun to edit and produce right on my iphone. Hopefully this will inspire some of you get that camera out and start shooting As for the show itself – amazing and overwhelming! This was a great chance for us to check out new innovations in the world of digital production, as well as meet and hang out with friends and peers from the many like-minded companies we work with everyday. NAB is the mecca for all digital media – content creation, consumption, distribution and management. Oh, and it’s big: 90,000+ media and entertainment professionals from over 150 countries – betta’ recognize!

www.nabshow.com

Pat Dolan from Varvid kicks off ASCII Success Summit in Boston. He tells how the venue was fantastic, all the MSPs, VARs and partners took part in engaging dialogues, and a lot of great things were going on.

Jay McBain is coming to market with ChannelEyes at the ChannelPro SMB Forum 2012 in Orlando. ChannelEyes is designed to be the first free, secure social network for the channel. It allows channel partners to cut through the noise and clutter by filtering the vendors and partners they'd like to to see content from on their own social wall. Vendors are able to reach their channel base with new promotions and incentives, and can securely connect with the same security with which they would allow somebody into their firewall. Overall it's a great resource for engagement and conversation among organizations and individuals involved in the industry.

ChannelEyes is differentiated from other products in the marketplace today such as consumer social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, by the fact that it's a secure network between you and your channel partners, allowing only the approved connections in your network to see your posts and information. Visit www.channeleyes.com for more.

Chris Bangs from SMB Nation talks about his experiences at the ChannelPro SMB Forum 2012. Chris says SMB Nation and Channel Pro have been engaged with each other for about six years now, and it's been very beneficial for both organizations. The tenth anniversary SMB Nation is taking place this fall in Las Vegas at the Rio, featuring a very special guest and and a very special object, both which will be announced very soon. Visit www.smabnation.com to find out more and keep up to date on all the latest.

Brian Laufer from QuoteWerks explains that QuoteWerks started off focusing on the quote and proposal side of things, but now are really branching into sourcing from different distributors, comparing prices, finding out what items are in stock, to actually creating the proposal with a more professional look than most typical VARs or MSPs would come up with. This model allows sales reps to actually know how often their lead has looked at the quote or proposal, giving them perspective on which leads may be more lucrative.  For more about QuoteWerks visit: www.quotewerks.com.

ASCII's Jerry Koutavas explains ASCII benefits VARs and MSPs by lowing their operational costs and providing the marketing resources most companies typically can't get on their own, and they also provide a great deal of vendor management in terms of providing discounts on solutions that they're currently selling today. Jerry says the ChannelPro event is excellent, there's some great conversations going on, a lot of great people attending, and everyone's excited to be there.

Ken Thorsen from Acumen talks about the presentation he gave on cloud essentials, and he really liked that the focus was less on the presentation and more about the audience's participation, getting a dialogue going among attendees and he says the conference was a very interactive experience.

Ken has worked with ChannelPro for a number of years, he writes blogs for them every week and has published a few articles with them as well. Some of the things Ken is taking away from this particular event are new relationships with people he hadn't met before, was turned on to some new industry information and he's taken away some real value from these finds. Visit www.acumenmgmt.com to find out more.

Shannon Kohn talks about Datto's relationship with ChannelPro, they've been working together for about a year now, they've experienced great customer service, they've collaborated on marketing campaigns that generate a lot of leads and Shannon's very happy with their relationship. Shannon highly recommends partnering with ChannelPro for their marketing services, they're very knowledgeable about the channel, their members know the channel and it's really the right demographic for the SMB market. For more information visit: www.dattobackup.com.

Pat Dolan from Varvid kicks off the inaugural ChannelPro SMB Forum 2012 in Orlando. There was a good mix of Vendors and MSPs, all talking a lot about cloud services and how to build a successful managed service recurring revenue model. There were some great breakout sessions and presentations, and a highly informative keynote given by Matt Smith of HP. Click here to see the varvid.tv interview with Matt.