An 11 Year old boy and the "Strawberry Bitch"

Spoiler alert:  It's the name of a plane

Second Spoiler alert:  Nostalgic rambling for first half of article

Books, Backups, Planes and Tours

Last month I had the pleasure of travelling down to Dayton to speak about Business Intelligence and how to find and share Information from your data.  Just as importantly I had a chance to drop by the Air Force Museum also in Dayton.Boy, this brought back memories.  As a kid (which to be honest I still am) I was desperately in love with military planes, especially from the World War II era.  I could tell you the speed differences between a P-39 Airacobra and a P-38 Lightning, and probably break it down by altitudes.I first visited the museum back in 1971, when my best friend’s dad took us down there while the museum was moving their aircraft from their older building to the (then) new facility.  All of the planes were outside, including favorites like the XB-70 Valkyrie, a Mach 3 high altitude heavy bomber that never made it to production.  And planes like the (pictured) B-24 Liberator, the "other" heavy bomber during World War II (often forgotten versus the almost mythic (well-deserved ) B-17 Flying Fortress).  I remember reading the name "Strawberry Bitch" on the fuselage.  That plane stuck with me (ok, probably because of the name as much as anything) over the years.I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I still have my book of photos from that trip, taken with a cheap camera.  I glanced through them while writing this.  Most out of focus.  Lousy framing.  I even remember starting to take pictures before the car even stopped.  Doubly embarrassed to admit that I probably have more pictures from that trip than all other pictures I’ve taken (and kept) prior to digital cameras.  I probably should be telling that to a therapist<g>.This time I only had about 3 hours to pass there, but it was a great 3 hours.  I can honestly say that I remembered seeing several of those planes over 40 years ago.  As those closest to me can attest, I’m not a sentimentalist in the slightest.  But that day…?  Maybe.  At least a little.  It was nice to see old friends.Ok, enough about that.  Time to move on.I’ll be speaking in September, October and November in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus, both on Business Intelligence as well as Critical Thinking.  I’m looking forward to those trips.This month, Tech Director Kevin Dutkiewicz and I will be travelling down to Orlando for the IT Nation Explore Conference (formally known as “ConnectWise Automation Nation”), to review different RMM (Remote Management and Monitoring) tools.  From there we’ll be travelling to San Diego for the DattoCon Conference, where we’ll be digging deeper into backup and other solutions from our new Partner Datto (whose Partner program is lead by our old friend Rob Rae).I’ll be leading a session discussion about Co-Managed IT Services.Which leads me to the next topic.  My 2nd book, “The MSP’s Survival Guide to Co-Managed IT services” is out!  This one took me (only) about 6 months from start to finish, which is about half the time my first book “A CEO’s Survival Guide to Information Technology” took.  And yup, I did become an Amazon Best-Selling Author for a second time (without really even trying!).  And…I know how many books I had to sell for that to happen.  And it wasn’t a lot.  I mean…really.  Not.  A.  Lot.Back to Datto.As I mentioned, we’re starting a new partnership with Datto for our local and in-cloud backups (and Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery cornerstone pieces).  You’ll hear from us over the next couple of months more details about what that means specifically for our backup strategies.But the key thing to understand is that we’re always looking to improve our services.  Our (soon to be) former backup solutions worked.  They were safe.  They were secure.But we wanted more.  And although the process of evaluation, selection and (now) implementation will take us about 2 years, by the end of this process (Q4 this year) will see a great improvement in terms of versatility, security, testing and management of our backup solutions.Before the end of the year you’ll probably hear about a couple of other significant changes in terms of our partners.  Again, we’re always looking for ways to improve.Another thing this month is the announcement of our QCT (Quarterly Client Training) event, which is really coming up in July.  QCT’s are where we bring all of our clients to our Stow offices for a half day of learning, demos, and honest feedback.  We’ve actually held 2 QCT’s already, and made some significant tweaks based on the feedback from the 20+ folks who attended them.  It’s now a half-day instead of a full day.  And 3 sessions going simultaneously instead of one agenda.  And free-form demos and discussions instead of simple power point introduction demos.  I’m convinced that the QCT concept (unique to Simplex-IT) is going to be a great way for our clients to keep in synch with the services and technologies we provide, and changes in the IT industry.  If you’re a client of Simplex-IT, mark your calendar for the morning of July 18th.In addition, we’ve gotten serious with our TBR (Technology Business Reviews).  Held by Tech Director Kevin Dutkiewicz and/or myself, this is kind of the reverse of the QCT.  We meet with our Clients either remotely or at their location and review the particulars of their business and their IT resources.  We’ve held about 8 of them within the past months, with many more to come.Moving forward, as we add new clients to our wonderful world, part of the formal onboarding process will be to perform their first TBR and impress upon them the importance of their attending most of our QCT events.  We're working hard to create a feedback loop that constantly strengthens the relationship and increases the value that we bring.