Thank You!

Photo from the IP Telephony Workshop

I'm home - and after 6 days in Cleveland, it's good to sleep in my own bed again. CT Conferences always wear me out - there's so many little things that pop up during the event that need to be handled, and so many people to talk to and workshops to listen to that I feel like I'm running a marathon 24/7 until the end. So today is my traditional post-conference recuperation day.

I do want to thank a LOT of people who worked hard to make this year's conference so successful:

• To Kroll OnTrack, NTR Global, and all 40 of our other sponsors - THANKS for making our event as special as it was. Your participation and special CT offerings were a huge part of the conference this year, and we all appreciate our partnerships with you.
  
  
• To Jim Greenfield (CT-Manhattan), Alan from Adtran, Mike from Fonality and Mike from CommPartners - THANKS for making our "IP Telephony 101" workshop such a smashing success.
  
  
• To Randy from Cabinet NG - I think we're all going to be looking at electronic document management options for our clients now thanks to your workshop - thank you for being part of our event.
  
  
• To Crystal & Stuart from ReachLocal and Nipa from Jenesys Group - I think your presentations will have the most tangible benefit to our small business clients and to our own websites, and we're looking forward to our national deals with both of you - THANKS.
  
  
• To Marsha from EMSI - your PR 101 workshop was the "crossover" hit of the conference, attracting franchisees from all our sister-brands as well. And your performance during the "CT Idol" event was spot-on perfect, and a great highlight for day 2 of the event - thank you.
  
  
• To Matt Makowicz from Ambition Mission - thanks for not one but TWO workshops on Selling Managed Services, and for the bootcamp & book deals. Several CT's told me your workshops were their favorite session of the conference, and I heard the bootcamp 'prize' definitely made Friday night's poker game more interesting - thank you.
  
  
• To the eight CT's (Bill, Brian, Jim, Roy, Rob, Jay, Marcus, & Chris) who were brave enough to talk about their business strategies, successes, and challenges during the BEST roundtable and the Successful CT roundtable - THANKS. Many people - including me - always find these sessions to be the most valuable because it's "real" experience, not just theory. Thank You.
  
  
• To the six CT's (Mary Ellen, Charles, John, David, Marcus, & Raine) who bravely entertained and educated us all during the "CT Idol" competition - thank you. Congratulations to Charles for winning the event, and special thanks to John for teaching us all that bribery doesn't pay. :)
  
  
• To Ramsey from MSP On Demand, John from 19Marketplace, Crystal from ReachLocal, Jamie from MSPSN, Rob from Microsoft, Mike from Zenith, and especially to Brian for filling in for SecureMyCompany - THANKS for making our Recurring Revenue workshop a smashing success.
  
  
• To Mort from Meraki and the guys from DattoBackup - I think you're tied for the most innovative new products we saw this year. And to Patrick from DRG and Mitch from DrBackup - I think you're tied for most reliable conference sponsors. We appreciate you all being part of our event - thank you.
  

Thanks also to my staff, Fayola, Chris, Audrey & Glenn, for excellent work this weekend, and thanks to all our partners at MerryMeeting for organizing a great event. And thanks to Corey from CT-Independence for getting our own routers setup so we didn't have to pay the crazy hotel internet rates!

And special thanks has to go to Allyn Davies, who worked tirelessly to organize everything. Putting together a normal CT conference is never easy, but I can't imagine putting together combined conferences for five different MerryMeeting brands - I think at one point we were using 10 different meeting rooms simultaneously, with multiple lunches & breaks & speakers & social events & the walk for charity.... I can't imagine putting all that together, but it all worked out really well. THANK YOU.

Next year we're just starting to make plans but we're looking at a late April / early May date - mark your calendars! If you're a CT or a CT vendor, look out for some surveys coming out soon to solicit your input on content & formats for next year's event.

Thanks,
Chip