Convergence 2012 Wrap Up

Convergence 2012 is over and its now been immortalized in tweets as  #CONV12.

I had a great Convergence and I heard similar comments from others. The one large room for the Expo, support, Hands on Labs, store, etc. was a big hit.  I heard some complaints about the food but frankly I had a day with no breakfast and mints for lunch so I really can't judge.

The level of social media activity was crazy with lots of tweets flying everywhere. Kudos to the GP team for pushing Twitter during the event. The level was so high that competitors were tagging tweets with #CONV12 and trying to sneak into the party. Jon Rivers tweeted so much that he exceeded his Twitter quota and got shut down temporarily.

Microsoft let me play around in the GP General session and the reviews were generally very good. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to show off some upcoming GP features and I heard lots of good comments from users. I think the web client can be a game changer but the improvements in areas like Fixed Assets and pre-payments shows users that it's not always about new and shiny. Oh, and I got to hold a Windows 8 Tablet. Are you jealous yet? Thank you Pam and Errol for letting me participate.
 

Backstage at #Conv12

Right now it's an evaluation duel between my sessions and Mariano/David's sessions for presentation supremacy. Ultimately, Convergence attendees came out the winners. It looks like half of the top 10 rated sessions will be one of ours. I had people say that seeing SmartList Export Solutions and Revenue/Expense deferrals were worth the cost of the conference.  It's funny that both of these are very mature tools and easy to use/implement. I have a big thank you to the person who noted in their evaluation that I wasn't showing the tip numbers long enough in the first 50 tips session. I adjusted in the repeat.

In my Excel session, we built a dashboard in about 20 minutes and I had people telling me later that they couldn't wait to go back to work and build a dashboard. Yeah, it sounded odd in real life too.  This was an update of a successful session from last year that I reworked based on attendee comments. I think it worked better this time and I'm hoping we will see more people deploying refreshable Excel Reports because of it.

On the fun side, the T-Shirt sling shot was popular and  Skillet found a few new fans (Panheads) after I played Awake and Alive prior to a session.

Speaking of rock stars, the level of "Rock Star" stuff was off the charts with tons of great comments, a really successful book signing and an "Everyone 'hearts' Mark Polino" shirt created by the folks behind The Closer.  Don't worry, I didn't get a bowl of M & M's with all the brown ones removed, there aren't any credits on my slides with titles like "assistant to Mr. Polino" and yes, my wife still makes me clean up after the dogs.  I have to say, It was fun to get stopped in the Orlando airport and have people tell me that they enjoyed the sessions.

The Must-Have shirt of #Conv12

If you missed any  sessions, you can review many (most?) of them on Virtual Convergence. It's really slick this year.  Links to my sessions are available on the right side of DynamicAccounting.net or Virtual Convergence.

Finally to everyone who attended one of my session, I’m grateful that you came. Thank you for giving me an hour of your time and thank you for being a great audience.

Announcing the Convergence 2012 Closing Keynote Speaker - Microsoft Dynamics Convergence

Microsoft has announced the Convergence 2012 Closing Keynote Speaker. It’s General Colin L. Powell, USA (Ret.)

Microsoft seems to be putting more money into Convergence lately. Last year it was Malcolm Gladwell and this year it’s Daughtry and Colin Powell. It’s nice when the accountants get a little love.

So, What Have You Done? - Your Sales Management Guru - Sales & Marketing

Over at the Dynamics Community site, Ken Thorenson want’s to know So, What Have You Done? with all the stuff you learned at Convergence 2011?

I can safely say that 450 people have downloaded the newest 50 Tips presentation after Convergence from DynamicAccounting.net. From comments, even more folks downloaded it from Comnet/Virtual Convergence after the event. I hope you’re putting those tips to work.

Convergence Leftovers

Mariano and Dave picked up on my speaking thoughts and posted their own view of speaking at Convergence. Check out both of them for a lot of fun.

Mariano

David

Convergence 2011: A Peek Behind the Eval Curtain

In the past I’ve given some small looks at what goes on behind the scenes at Convergence. I’m not nearly involved enough for all the massive pieces around a keynote or scheduling but there are some fun things I can share. So let’s talk about speaker evaluations.

All the speakers get evaluated and then measured both within their track (GP, AX, CRM, etc.) and against the other tracks. Only sessions with 10 or more evaluations get compared. As speakers we get to see it all and yes, we’re competitive. This is really good for attendees because we always try to be better so you get better sessions.(I keep asking for a t-shirt cannon. Sigh…Maybe next year)

Yes, Dave and Mariano and I go at it, in fun, and often our scores are crazy close, 1/100th of point close over more than 100 evaluations each.

Going up against Dave and Mariano is great. They are great presenters and they deliver terrific sessions. It can be a little frustrating when you have more than 200 evaluations for a session and you get beaten by 1/100th of a point by someone with 11 evaluations. But hey, we know that’s the way it works going in. It’s also frustrating when someone gives you straight 1’s (extremely dissatisfied) without an explanation. Did they goof? Did you insult their mother? Were they expecting Lady Gaga? Who knows.

The most fun comes from the comments. I read every comment that people make and all comments are anonymous. That’s where enhancements like version numbers for the tips came from this year. Usually people make great comments like:

• Microsoft really needs to hire Mark Polino, he is hands down the best evangelist for the GP product. Got many time saving tips to put into production immediately.
• Mark Polino is simply the best presenter with his combination of impressive knowledge and his enthusiasm that takes a dull subject and injects fun into it.

These are the kinds of tips that I show to my wife…over and over again. She explains that I’m still lucky to have married her rather than the other way around. She’s right of course.

Sometimes you get some odd comments. I know that my sessions are fast. I present better that way. I try to make this very clear in the session names, descriptions and very early in the presentations. So I’m perplexed when I get comments like:

• Not enough details, too fast paced
• He talked way too fast and it all seemed to blend together.

In fairness these are rare comments, outliers and I rarely adjust the presentation for them. You can’t please everyone. Most comments are extremely complimentary. However, there are always a few that I just don’t understand like:

• session was not effective (and then gives 4 stars (satisfied) across the board.)
• i did NOT attend this session

So why did you comment again?

And then there is my absolute favorite from Convergence 2011:

• Presentor was very obnoxious

Yes! I’ve succeeded! I want to be obnoxious about Dynamics GP. I’m fine with that. Maybe if I’m obnoxious enough more folks will take GP to the next level!

So that’s what’s is like as a presenter, nervous about the presentation, relief that it’s done, then nervous about the evaluations. Relief when they look good, nervous that Dave and Mariano will beat you.

Right now, I’ve got a session in the top 10 overall sandwiched between 2 of David and Mariano’s sessions. I’m leading them in presenter effectiveness at number 3 overall by 1/100th of a point. In both cases we’re getting beaten on overall scores by sessions with much lower attendance and significantly fewer evaluations returned. Part of that is just the price of popular sessions.

It’s not too late to go to MSConvergence.com and rate the sessions that you attended. You’ve got about a week left. It is too late to get  your witty comments into this blog post.

Thank you to everyone who attended my sessions and an even bigger thank you to the almost 50% who have submitted evaluations. You make Convergence better.

---

To the guy who asked a support question in the comments: No, I don’t believe that there is a way to put a SOP line item on hold with putting the whole document on hold. See, I told you that I read all of the comments.

Convergence 2011 Review - Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP

Pam has her Convergence 2011 Review up. For those of you who missed it, Errol didn’t make it to Convergence. He was busy sandbagging…er…trying to save his house. You can see more here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/gp/archive/2011/04/11/where-s-errol-post2.aspx

FUTA Rate Change

iSolutions has a look at how to change the FUTA Rate now that the fix is available.

The eOne Dynamics GP and CRM Blog: FeedBack Fantastic

I mentioned that I got a little time with eOne at Convergence. Well Martin from eOne has his Convergence wrap up at FeedBack Fantastic.

Convergence ISV Wrap Up

I didn’t get enough time with ISV’s at Convergence this year. Some of that was because they were busy selling and most of them are more than willing to talk to me outside of Convergence. I did manage to catch a few though and here are the highlights.

• eOne spent some time me with talking about SmartConnect. I shared some things that I would love to see in the product and they gave me some ideas on how to use it better. Everybody won. I’ve got to get some more time with Smart View. That’s on the list of things I missed.
• Mekorma showed off some nice improvements to MICR check printing including linking the check signature to the approver. This will work really well for some of our clients who switch check signatures based on which signers are in town.
• Rockton showed off new Payables Approvals that are coming soon. The beta was in great shape and provided lots of options for AP approval. SmartFill and the GP Toolbox continued to generate huge interest.
• Reporting Central debuted the Validator. The Validator is designed to apply setup best practices against a Dynamics GP database and provide recommended improvements to the system. Given the number of issues we all seem to find and fix there was a lot of interest among partners and end users.
• FastPath continues to make their products better with a cleaner interface and more template to support different flavors of compliance.

Mark Rockwell got high marks on DayONE showing off 100 ISV solutions in 50 minutes. This is an idea that I’ve toyed with too. I think it’s got the potential to grow into something big at future Convergence conferences.

My Big Convergence Wrap Up

I thought about sending a few notes on some of these items privately but frankly, the good so far outweighs any bad that I’ve decided to make it all public.
Convergence 2011
The Good

• Much of the keynote was devoted to Dynamics AX. Put your conspiracy theories away. Last year it was all GP with the release of GP 2010. This year it was AX’s turn with the upcoming release of AX 2012. The focus was completely reasonable.
• It was very cool to see Pam Misialek, my co-presenter from two years ago, on the big stage showing off GP 2010 R2. You rocked Pam.
• It was also nice to know that Errol’s house didn’t flood. I’m sure there are some GP 6 manuals lying around that could be used as makeshift sandbags.
• Business Analyzer is a new stand alone app for GP R2 that allows personalized Business intelligence without requiring a full blown GP license. Business Analyzer generated a ton of interest at Convergence.
• GP 12. The next release is deep in development with Chad Sogge showing off an upcoming web client for GP. I had heard that the team found a way to separate the business logic in GP from Dexterity and it looks like that rumor was not only true, but is being used to create web forms. This is what I want more than the cloud. I want the Outlook or OneNote model with rich clients, rich web clients and options for local or off premise server hosting. I owe Chad and the Dev team several drinks once this gets delivered. If anyone believes that GP isn’t getting dev resources you’re full of hooey.
• Everything is going to the cloud with NAV first, maybe as early as the end of the year, followed quickly by GP and AX.This is just in time for folks who went to GP 10 and held off on 2010 to get all excited about upgrading.
• We started a little Twitter based drinking game during the conference based on how often the word “Cloud” was said. It was not pretty.
• Surprisingly there was still huge buzz over GP 2010 and R2. Folks were in good spirits and engaged. There is always a risk of letdown when you’re showing a minor release and the event is in the same location but there was no evidence of that this year.
• Folks were very engaged. Sessions were full, Expo booths were packed. By packed I mean regularly 4 people deep waiting to talk to someone and in some cases, you couldn’t get down an aisle.
• Another example of engagement was the number of people in my sessions. Almost 800 people saw the 50 tips session and it’s repeat. But even my new Excel based sessions saw nearly 700 people come learn about ways to connect Dynamics GP and Excel.
• Mariano and Dave rocked the house as usual. It seems that they are looking to take their act to Vegas for the GPUG Summit in November. I hear that Caesar's is considering giving them a regular show.
• The event at I.B.I.S. customer Georgia Aquarium and the World of Coke was terrific. There was plenty of room to move around and see the exhibits. This was a problem at Universal Studios the last time Convergence was in Orlando so it was nice to have some breathing room.
• Rock N Rave and The Spot continue to get bigger each time. Both events were huge this year with glow in the dark partying and U2 tribute band Elevation.
• The venue was again terrific. Atlanta did a nice job of not making us walk too far, except maybe for the keynote. Our feet hurt by the end but not like they did in Dallas.
• The Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Cookbook sold out early Tuesday morning forcing people into withdrawal for nearly two days.

The Bad
Nothing is perfect and there were a places for improvement when Convergence moves to Houston in 2012.

• They wouldn’t play in and out music for my sessions like they did last year. Um, when you have 500+ peeps in an auditorium it really helps to get people pumped before you speak. Please, please, please give me some Metallica or Lady Gaga or something upbeat next year. When I sing, my evaluation scores crash.
• The food didn’t seem as good this year. The snacks between sessions seemed thinner. One lunch, I got in the line, looked at the food and left. If you’ve met me, you know that I don’t walk away from many buffets.

• Some of the speakers scores this year were crazy good. The competition at the top for people’s attention get’s better every year. But I heard more complaints about unenthusiastic speakers this year. I don’t know if things are actually worse or if the contrast is just starting to show. I also heard from the speaker coach that of the 25 conferences that they help MS with each year, Convergence has the fewest number of speakers who take advantage of a coach. I do it every year and I have the scores to prove that it works.

The Wrap Up
This was a phenomenal conference all around. Booth activity and book sales seem to indicate increased confidence in the economy. Folks were energized and ready for all of the cool stuff coming in GP 12. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in Houston, unless of course you come to the GPUG Summit in Vegas first!

David and Mariano Wrap up Convergence 2011

David and Mariano have some Convergence wrap up posts:

End of Day 4 from David

End of Day 4 from Mariano

David made it home safely, though not necessarily sanely as you can see in this video of Dave busting moves at Convergence courtesy of Leslie Vail

Don’t Dance At Convergence « The Death of Reason

Dwight Specht reminds Partners of all the things that they can do to screw up at Convergence. He was kind enough to leave out “wear a pink sash that says ‘bachelorette’ on stage in front of almost 600 people” like I did but I’ll tell that story later. Check out Dwight’s post at Don’t Dance At Convergence .

The Convergence 2011 Presentations are Up

If you’re looking for Convergence 2011 presentations, they are easy to find. All you have to do is:

• Log in to MSConvergence.com for Atlanta 2011
• Go to Schedule Builder and find the session
• Immediately below the session title is the download link.

If you just want my slide, they are up in their usual place, top right, on DynamicAccounting.net.

Convergence 2011 50 Tips Update

Just a couple of updates from the 50 Tips for Dynamics GP in 50 Minutes presentation from Convergence.

• It looks like the free Separation of Duties Evaluator has been removed from the link listed in the presentation. I’m reluctant to post the file since I don’t own it but if you really want it, drop me an email.
• If you want more PowerPivot info, check out Bill Jelen’s new post on CFO.com
• If you liked the Professional Services Tools, Microsoft is running a promotion on the paid tools through June 24, 2011. Buy the full suite and get 25% off or get 10% off of 3 pack of tools.
• You can get the book at this Amazon Link. The ebook version is available at Packt Publishing.

The 50 Tips Presentation is available at:

 http://www.box.net/shared/x4zui0ahi9

The Big Convergence Coverage Wrap Up

I was swamped this year with presentation sessions (6 Total), meetings and a little booth time so I stuck to Twitter as the fastest way to get stuff out. As did Matt Landis, Jon Rivers, Ray Wang, Japheth Nolt and a host of others.  I’ll have my Convergence 2011 thoughts out tomorrow, so for now, here is some blog stuff from others.

• DayONE hosted by GPUG (Sunday)
• Dynamics Community
• Dynamics GP Blogster
• Developing for Dynamics GP
• Part 2
• Day 2 (Monday)
• Dynamics GP Blogster
• Part 2
• Developing for Dynamics GP
• Part 2
• MSDynamicsWorld
• Part 2
• gp2themax
• Day 3 (Tuesday)
• Dynamics GP Blogster
• Developing for Dynamics GP
• Dynamics GP Land
• Dynamics Corporate Performance Management
• MSDynamicsWorld
• Day 4 (Wednesday)
• Dynamics GP Blogster
• Developing for Dynamics GP
• MSDynamicsWorld
• Belinda, the Dynamics GP CSI

Weekly Dynamic: Follow #conv11

I’m presenting at Microsoft Convergence 2011 this week. If you’re at Convergence with me, you won’t be reading this post anyway. If you’re not, simply search for #CONV11 on Twitter, save the search and follow the conversation.

You’ll learn more about Dynamics GP that way than with any single tip that I could give you this week.

Posting will either be light or crazy this week depending on how much time I can scrape up to write posts. Hopefully @mpolino will be very active.

Taking his talents to Atlanta (for Microsoft’s Convergence)

Apparently I’m on Doug Pitcher’s must meet list for Convergence. The feeling is mutual Doug.

This conference is going to be insane. How did SATURDAY get completely booked for me? I need a nap.

Pre-Convergence Stuff

Lots of folks are telling you exactly where to find their Convergence sessions. I think that’s fantastic, so I’m not going to do that. It’s fun to be different.

You’re smart enough to figure it out. The 50 Tips session contains all new tips again this year and the Excel presentation is brand new as well. You know that they are going to rock so I’m going to go all diva on you and say just look it up. Hint, they’re all going to rock the Marcus Auditorium, voted the most comfortable seats at Convergence last year.

Each year I pick a song to get hyped up to present. This year its going to be We Shot the Moon by Write This Down. I’ve had the whole album on repeat for the last 3 weeks so this works for me. Feel free to listen along.

For the first time, the Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Cookbook is going to be available at the Convergence bookstore. Pick one up there and just roll it into your expense report for the conference. Just be careful, the books have a high theft factor so don’t leave yours lying around. The book was like a tickle me Elmo doll at the GPUG Summit. Everyone wanted one and they were in scarce supply.

I have a few (very few) books to give away. Sucking up will not help you get one. You’re better off buying one at the store. Then again, you’re welcome to try sucking up. Who knows what might work.

When I’m not presenting or practicing I’ll be at the expo, in sessions, or at the community lounge. If you want to say hi just stop me. If you want to find me, I’m going to try to tweet my location from @mpolino. Feel free to stalk…er…follow me.

Whether you are going or not, follow the #Conv11 twitter stream. Many of the comments made during conferences like this will make you laugh out loud.

If you owe me a drink now is the time to pay up. You know who you are Andy Hafer.

Slicing Dynamics GP 2010 Data in Microsoft Excel Dashboards

Over at the Dynamics GP Blog they’ve got a nice look at Slicing Dynamics GP 2010 Data in Microsoft Excel Dashboards.

This dovetails well with my upcoming Convergence presentation on Excel so if you want to see more stuff like this, come to my Convergence session!

New Facebook Poll on Convergence Sessions

Convergence is Microsoft’s premier customer conference for Dynamics users and it’s coming up in just about a month in Atlanta. All of my sessions are set for this year but I’m already thinking about the GPUG Summit in the fall and Convergence next year.

This year you are going to see an explosion of 50 Tips in 50 Minute sessions. They’ve been hugely popular and Microsoft decided to consciously expand their reach. I love that this little idea has taken root since it based on 100 tips in 100 minutes presentations that the Office team used to do at Convergence a long time ago.

But I worry that you’ll burn out. I wonder if the success of 50 Tips is that its like candy, fun and easy to consume. Or is the success a product of our YouTube, Text Messaging, Twitter culture? Do you still want fast and short or are you ready for some deep dive sessions? Does deep dive belong somewhere else? (Yeah, some days I worry too much)

I’ve put together a little Facebook poll to see what you think. I’ll run this again after Convergence to see if you’ve changed your mind so help me out and go vote.