WPC and The Scarlet Lanyard

The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference is still going on and if you are attending you may have noticed or heard Microsoft’s Jon Roskill, Corporate Vice President talk about the people wearing the red lanyards. The people wearing these Scarlet Lanyard’s are First Time Attendees. There are almost 3000 FTA’s at the 2013 WPC event.

I had the privilege of spending time with a quite a few FTA’s during lunch time round table sessions. Where we spoke about how to work more effectively with Microsoft, how to identify and engage partners, the value of the WPC Connect tool and the IAMCP organization, and how to get the most out of all the parties. I will share more about these sessions in another post.

There’s Still Time

There are 2 more full days of WPC action … including the Partner Celebration with Lenny Kravitz. What can you do? If you see someone wearing a Scarlet Lanyard take a moment to thank them for coming to the WPC and ask them if they have any questions. Who knows … you might find a great partner or a new friend.

To find out more … leave a comment here and follow the hashtag #New2WPC (or click here for the Twitter Search)

Will we see this years FTA’s in 2014?

The idea of helping First Time Attendees to get the most out of WPC was the goal of these efforts with the Scarlet Lanyard’s and the lunchtime round tables. So, we hope the answer is a resounding YES. We do want to see this years FTA’s return in 2014. In fact, Microsoft is making it very easy to attend in 2014.

On Wednesday, the location of WPC 2014 will be revealed! Anyone that wants to register for the 2014 WPC will be able to do so at the green kiosks on the east side of The Commons. This includes FTA’s … next year they will be veterans and wont be able to wear The Scarlet Lanyard.

See you at WPC 2014!

Jeff Shuey is a veteran in the Enterprise Content Management industry. Over the past 20 years he has worked with customers and partners to design, develop and deploy solutions around the world. Jeff is currently the Director of Strategic Alliances at Winshuttle. He has worked for Microsoft, FileNet, K2, Captaris, Open Text, Kofax and Kodak. He speaks and blogs about ECM and the Intersection between Social, Mobile and Cloud Computing.

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