April Showers brings to Simplex-IT...more space? Travel? New Book? Yes!

I am travelling more this year than (I think) any other.  Not by design, just seems to be turning out this way.  April saw me in Vegas for the annual Sophos (our primary cyber security partner) Partner conference (along with Tech Director Kevin Dutkiewicz.  I also went down to Columbus to participate in COSE’s “Day at the Capitol” (similar to CompTia’s DC Fly-In, but on the state level).We also had our 2nd QcT (Quarterly Client Training) day, where many of our clients come in to learn more about our tools and services.  Miss it?  Our next one will be in July.  More on that later.And the management team and I spent a day out of the office working on our EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) management framework implementation.  I haven’t spoken much about this.  Not because I don’t want to, but because for once I’m keeping my mouth shut until I know what I want to say.  Suffice to say this is absolutely changing the way we do business, and (perhaps more importantly) changing the way we change.  Big shout out to Kimberly Dyer over at Culture Shoc for her ongoing help.This month I’m heading to Denver for a couple of days.  I was asked to join Pax8 (who we partner with for our Office 365 licensing among other things) to be part of their Partner Advisory Council.  I’m sure it’s a decision they’ll regret<g>.June holds Orlando and San Diego for both myself and Kevin.At one point during the Sophos Conference, Scott Barlow (Global VP of MSP for Sophos), Kris Hagerman (CEO of Sophos), Kevin and I had a nice chat about the maturation of the MSP market (sometimes referred to as “MSP 3.0”) as well as how improv (yup, improv) actually has a place in business, especially in how we communicate.  You’ll be surprised to know that I didn’t start the improv part of that conversation.  Thanks, Scott<g>.You won’t be surprised how effortlessly I shamelessly name dropped there.See the picture with this article?  Empty space?  If you’ve been to our office, you’ve seen these colors and style.  But you probably haven’t seen this area.  Yup, we’re growing.  We’ve added another (approximately) 1,000 square feet, 6 offices, 1 storage room and actual closets (we have zero usable closets in our original space).  For the second time since we moved here 3 years ago, we’re expanding!  It’s right across the hallway from our current space.  Over the month of May we’ll be moving our Sales and Marketing folks (Patti, John, Alex and Rob) over there.  Meanwhile the Services side will grow like the amorphous blob it is, consuming the offices they leave behind.And I’ll stay put where I’m at, ‘cuz I like it here.My second book is going through final stages (cover design, formatting for print, etc).  Should be available on Amazon by the end of the month.  The title is “An MSP’s Survival Guide to Co-Managed IT services”.I expect a 3rd book (I’m not kidding) to be ready around September.  And to be blunt, it’s actually the second book I should have written.August is coming up.  If you know us, you know we do something fun in August and invite everybody (employees, family, customers, friends, strangers).  We’re honestly stumped for what to do.  We want to have a fun experience for everyone without breaking the bank.  Any ideas?  Send them to me at Bob@Simplex-IT.com.