Update! Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger, author, motivational speaker and subject of the film Rudy, will be a keynote speaker at the highly anticipated IT Nation 2010, the 6^th annual ConnectWise Partner Summit  being held at the Hilton Bonnet Creek hotel in Orlando, Fla. November 4-6. Registration is now open to ConnectWise partners, and is filling up at a record-setting pace. 

Ruettiger served as the inspiration behind the true-life story of the 1993 film Rudy, which detailed his dream to attend Notre Dame and play football for the Fighting Irish, where he sacked the opposing quarterback in the final 27 seconds of his only game played in his college football career. Ruettiger is the co-author of several books, including Rudy’s Insights for Winning in Life, Rudy’s Lessons for Young Champions and Rudy & Friends, as well as the producer of the Dream Power tape series. Ruettiger’s presentation at IT Nation 2010 includes a video production that touches the spirit and impacts the audience with an overwhelming ‘Yes, I can!’ attitude.

Ruettiger joins the previously announced author and business strategist Keith R. McFarland as a keynote speaker at this year’s event. Previous ConnectWise Partner Summit keynotes have been delivered by Michael Gerber, Steve Wozniak, Chris Anderson and Verne Harnish.

“Rudy has inspired countless people worldwide with his determination and ability to overcome obstacles and criticisms in order to realize his dream of playing football at Notre Dame,” said ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini. “We are excited that he has agreed to share his message of self-empowerment and tenacity at this year’s IT Nation. I’m sure that this will be an impactful keynote address that will touch attendees and make them want to incorporate the messages of triumphing over adversity and reaching for their dreams as part of their everyday business objectives.”

Now in its sixth year, ConnectWise’s IT Nation Partner Summit is a one-of-a-kind industry event drawing more than 1,000 ConnectWise partners and members of the channel community. 

ConnectWise Partners,  join the ConnectWise team and the ConnectWise Partner community in magical Orlando, Florida for the 6th Annual ConnectWise Partner Summit. The IT Nation 2010 will be held November 4th-6th at the fabulous new Hilton Bonnet Creek Resort, with additional upgrade available for the ultimate in luxury, the new Waldorf Astoria. Last year marked the official recognition of the IT Nation, with a sold-out crowd of over 1,000 Partners attending exciting and inspiring keynote addresses, breakout sessions and themed parties. This year, it’s even better, with more breakout rounds, internationally known keynote speakers and surprise events yet to be announced.

Book your room for one more night, and enjoy any of the Orlando attractions-perfect for a family mini-vacation.

Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek is a new world-class Florida hotel located in a private natural setting on 482 acres and surrounded on three sides by Walt Disney World® Resort, offering the perfect location for your Orlando visit. As part of Hilton’s largest development in history, this Hilton hotel in Orlando is located adjacent to the first-ever newly built Waldorf Astoria outside of New York and offers impeccable service and unlimited amenities including 18-hole championship golf, lagoon pool, 12 restaurants, European spa, and much much more.

 Big News! We have just announced that Keith R. McFarland, author of the No. 1 The Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestseller – The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers, and Bounce: The Art of Turning Tough Times into Triumph, will be a keynote speaker at the highly anticipated IT Nation 2010, the 6^th annual ConnectWise Partner Summit  being held at the Hilton Bonnet Creek hotel in Orlando, Fla. November 4-6.

Founder of McFarland Strategy Partners, which provides advisory services to companies such as House of Blues, The Los Alamos National Laboratory, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Motorola, Vans and multiple middle market growth firms, McFarland has provided management insight to organizations for more than 20 years.  He is a former Inc. 500 CEO having headed up two technology firms, was one of the youngest business school deans in the nation at 26 and currently writes a monthly online column for BusinessWeek.  He will address ConnectWise partners at this year’s summit to provide insight, offer inspiration and foster an entrepreneurial spirit among attendees.

 McFarland joins an impressive list of keynote speakers who have wowed crowds at previous ConnectWise Partner Summits, including Michael Gerber (2006), Steve Wozniak (2007), Nicholas Carr (2008), Harry Beckwith (2008), Chris Anderson (2009), Tom Davenport (2009) and Verne Harnish (2009).

 “We are very pleased to have someone of Keith’s background, experience and expertise standing before our partners and presenting his findings about how companies can go from good to great,” said ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini. “His background as a technology CEO and his own success in growing companies serves as an example to all of us in the ConnectWise partner community as something to strive for in our own businesses.  IT Nation continues to be a can’t-miss attraction and Keith’s keynote address is among this year’s highlights.”

 Now in its sixth year, ConnectWise’s IT Nation Partner Summit is a one-of-a-kind industry event drawing more than 1000 ConnectWise partners and members of the channel community. The ConnectWise Partner Summit offers main stage presentations from industry luminaries, breakout sessions, on-site parties, networking events and a Solutions Pavilion. 

Registration opens soon!

Did you see Verne Harnish’s main stage speech at the ConnectWise Partner Summit? His presentation on Friday featured some great business books:

Meditation in a New York Minute – Mark Thornton
The First Billion is the Hardest – T. Boone Pickens
Good to Great – Jim Collins
Hidden Champions of the 21st Century – Hermann Simon
The Machine That Changed the World – James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, Daniel Roos
Pricing with Confidence – Reed Holden and Mark Burton
Changing the Channel – Michael Masterson and MaryEllen Tribby
Rethinking the Salesforce – John De Vincentis
The Ultimate Sales Machine – Chet Holmes
Nurturing Customer Relationships – Jim Cecil and Eric Rabinowitz
The New Rules of Marketing and PR – David Meerman Scott
Emergence, the Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software – Steven Johnson

Too busy to take notes during the breakout sessions at Partner Summit? Missed the Summit but want to get in on the valuable content? We have already begun posting pdf’s of the breakout presentations on University for our partners.  Over the next few weeks, more presentations will be added as they are received.

Aaron Booker - Varvid

Jeannine and I had fun at the Poolside Soiree doing a wrapup (above) for the Partner Summit. Best Partner Summit yet for ConnectWise – and Partners and Vendors are already excited about next year…

FYI, There were lots more HD videos produced at ConnectWise than we pushed up to this blog. Some outstanding content wasn’t even going to be delivered due to sheer exhaustion! If you’d like to see all the (33) videos in one place – here’s the link to the Online Video Portal where we uploaded them to:

http://vimeo.com/channels/connectwise

What an amazing week for us as we worked with the Social Media Team.  I have been to many, many industry events over the past three years – and only Microsoft at WPC even tried to pull something off like what the ConnectWise Community delivered.  This Social Media Hub site around the the ConnectWise Partner Summit was super fun to be involved with. Quickly delivered, relevant, and filled with community input, from Guest Bloggers, to uploaded Flickr photos, to the #cwps Twitter feed, and to multiple video producers. Wow!  Thanks to all you Partners and Sponsors for all of your contributions to this site and your patience with all the reporters, photographers, and videographers asking for a few minutes of your time.  Without your flexibility – we couldn’t have delivered these videos.

Kudos to the ConnectWise Community Staff (especially Mary McElwee) and to Deana Goldasich of Well Planned Web for a tremendous event!

Brad Benner - X-BAR

I’ve been here since Sunday, November 1st – spending the first half of the week with my HTG peers reviewing the state of our businesses and discussing strategies for moving forward individually and collectivity. The new HTG meeting format based on Quarterly Business Reviews integrated with Service Leadership data was great – it was much easier for me to paint a clear picture of the health of my business and get targeted feedback from my group members.

The ConnectWise Partner Summit quickly followed and was a great extension of the work, conversations, and content from the first half of the week.

A few highlights from this year:

Robert Lindley’s session, I Want More Than ConnectWise Reports & Dashboards, blew me away. He showed us how to use the set of free and low cost tools that he has assembled for tapping into and analyzing the wealth of data sitting in our ConnectWise database. I plan to use his tools to create a series of widgets that allow me to better manage the health of my business in real-time.

Kendra Lee’s presentation on how to hire a salesperson was perfectly timed for me. I’ve been thinking about (and struggling with) this topic a while. As I look at my revenue forecast for 2010 and beyond, it’s become clear to me that my ability to scale X-BAR will be directly tied to my success in finding and hiring the right salesperson.

I was glad to see that ConnectWise was able to get Datto into the vendor fair. They’ve been quietly building a data backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity platform, and are starting to get some well-deserved attention for their products. I started talking with Datto a few months ago, wanting to explore alternatives to the solutions we’re currently using, and had a few initial technical concerns that were preventing me from moving forward. In the last three months they’ve already resolved most of the issues I had, and are also telling me that they’re putting the finishing touches on a series of other nice-to-haves that I had wanted. When was the last time you had a vendor so responsive to feedback? Watch out, I think we’ll see Datto emerge as a very strong contender in this arena in 2010.

Verne Harnish! How can I talk about highlights without mentioning Verne? The keynote he delivered yesterday morning and subsequent workshop in the afternoon was a much need jolt to my business senses. I found the framework he provided for identifying what was holding my business back (people, strategy, execution, or cash) very insightful. I’m looking forward to reading his book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, when I get back to Seattle next week and putting his suggestions to work.

Brad Benner / Principal

X-BAR
219 First Ave S #420 / Seattle, WA 98104
DIR 206 388 5150 / FAX 206 352 2760
www.xbarit.com

I noticed that a number of folks weren’t as alert as they normally are on Friday – even saw some nodding heads during a session or two.  I’m sure that this had “nothing to do” with the fun that was had on Thursday night…  Jeannine summarized the festivities nicely!

Three great parties from Quosal, Kaseya, and GloStream – one night only.

Our favorite interview of the week had to be a character we ran into at the GloStream Party on Thursday night.  Dell’s dancing to the live band was memorable (and is unfortunately undocumented) but when you talked to him, you really learned “something new.”

Ted Hulsy - SonicWall

I am writing a quick blog post after an all day session with the SonicWALL VAR Council on Saturday in Orlando. We “book ended” our VAR Council meeting at the end of the ConnectWise Partner Summit, since such a large number of partners were in town for ConnectWise (http://twitter.com/#search?q=cwps) and HTG (http://twitter.com/#search?q=HTG).

The ConnectWise Partner Summit was an extremely impressive event. I loved how ConnectWise and the larger partner community leveraged social media before, during, and after the event. With the frequent tweets, Facebook posts, Flickr and YouTube feeds, there was a continual stream of commentary, high praise, rants, and new insights from the partner community. This was the first multi-day tradeshow event where I felt it was absolutely essential to stay glued to Twitter throughout the show.

The #cwps hashtag enabled the partners to provide feedback in real time on the likes, dislikes, and opportunities for improvement. Trust me, the ConnectWise crew was following the Twitter feed throughout and were given immediate feedback on the content and events that were getting folks jazzed up.

More importantly, the flowering of so many social media outlets made the event accessible to folks from all over the world, live and in real time. The heaps of praise on Twitter about the content, like Verne Harnish’s talks, are the best advertisement Jeannine Edwards can hope for.

Kudos to Jeannine and the whole ConnectWise crew for hosting such a terrific event. Our sponsorship contract for 2010 is in the mail.

Ted Hulsy
http://twitter.com/tedatsonicwall