Brian Sherman Posts

Cloud computing is different than many other technology discussions these days, not due to its complexity, but because it touches every vertical, technology and potentially every end-user. It‘s more than a delivery system, transforming the way we use and deploy technology. Thus, the discussions around cloud computing and SaaS tend to be very broad and confusing at times. Almost all solution providers are invested in its development and use it to some degree, which explains the variety of questio ...

In his keynote at CompTIA AMM, Daniel Burrus, futurist and CEO of Burrus Research, engaged the audience with seven radical principals to accelerate growth and transform your business. Rather than continue doing the things that bog us down, taking a fresh approach to overcome issues is one of his suggestions. For example, Burrus proposes that if you have a problem, just skip it. Chances are what you consider to be the problem is often not the real concern, so shifting your focus elsewhere could l ...

The term “Hall of Fame” is used across all facets of our lives, including business, sports and communities, but its significance is rarely acknowledged properly. In many cases, the designation is given to a set number of individuals each year, even during periods when few actually deserve it. Over time, this diminishes the value of the hall of fame, and those who truly are worthy of the honor.While this dilemma plays out in other industries, CompTIA is looking to continue and build on the legacy ...

Before entering any new market or business segment, job number one is to understand the prospective clients to whom you hope to sell solutions and services. Whether you’re a solution provider looking to build a new financial services practice or build a K-12 education business unit, the process remains the same: research and focus on your customers’ pain points and the areas where opportunity exists. In this morning’s CompTIA Annual Member Meeting (AMM) session, the Healthcare ...

While the United States government is faced with a potential shut down this week, when a new budget in eventually passed, small businesses can profit from knowing how to navigate their way through the red tape. That task sounds daunting, but a basic understanding of the shortcuts will allow VARs and MSPs to cultivate business from a number of agencies in the federal government. Our Small Business Owners Community members were given an educational primer on how to accomplish that in their CompTIA ...

The tremendous advancements in IT are driving new opportunities for the certification and training industry, from healthcare IT and cloud computing to data storage and IT security. There’s a natural relationship between the end-user demand for these services and their suppliers: service providers and other technology firms. Despite the down economy and related hurdles that slowed certifications and training over the past couple of years, the industry outlook for 2011 is rosy—primarily due to the ...

New Resources Available to Help Build IT Business Success! Tools are extremely instrumental in helping all of us accomplish our goals—on a daily, if not hourly basis. We often take for granted how many implements, templates and devices we use and how beneficial they are to our personal and business ambitions. Nothing illustrates this more to me than packing for a deep-woods camping trip, where everything we need to survive for a few days must be carried into the forest in our pack or on our pers ...

While it’s not really news to most, the CompTIA Annual Member Meeting (AMM) kicks off next week (April 6-7) at the Swissôtel in downtown Chicago. This second annual event is packed with educational sessions, collaborative community meetings and a lot of peer networking. For vendors, associations and solutions providers, these types of events have become critical to their long term goals, between the complexity of new business models and the rapid advancements in technology.Without the collaborat ...

Winston Churchill once said, “There is nothing wrong with change, if it’s in the right direction.” How prophetic a statement that was, and continues to be in today’s IT channel. Almost every week an announcement touts a major acquisition or merger and, while some of these deals may seem inconsequential, the sum total of all these changes is altering the channel landscape significantly. Many of these corporate unions bring benefits for solution providers, such as more comprehensive solution and s ...

The global technology industry is extremely interconnected and depends on a number of “cogs” to work in synch. That becomes particularly evident when a catastrophe strikes a key world IT collaborator, as happened last week with the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan. Our first and foremost concern is for the health and safety of all those affected, especially with the mass cleanup and overwhelming nuclear power plant issues the Japanese people are facing. This week’s column is a bit differ ...