90p Admin

MOTM Sage Presentations I expect the Sage Live and Payroll presentations will be valuable and informing without much controversy. The Road Ahead and Town Hall, however, have the potential for some negative comments and responses. I, for one, would hope we and the attendees would limit this to constructive comments and discussions. Sage is well aware of the past meetings all the way up into the executive ranks, so they know we have issues and are outspoken on many topics. The people who are presenting at MOTM are essentially the ""messengers"", so they are not the decision makers, nor do they have much influence in my opinion. I do believe, however, that if we can present positive concerns and recommendations to these people, they will be more inclined to communicate this to the top. This also would include any off-line conversations. For the most part, this is how the BPAC has worked, and we have made some progress over the past 2 years. There have been criticisms from the large resellers, but people like Steve Blythe are very careful about how they express this, because their business is still very dependent on Sage. I don't know if or how we communicate this to the attendees or if any of you agree with me. If we do this during the introduction (as in ""ground rules"") or carefully moderate the sessions, that would work also. I suggest that the way we approach Sage during this conference also helps us in the implementation of our new strategic objectives related to Sage. In addition to your comments here, perhaps we can also give this some time at the Board meeting next week.

I think we will be fine. I felt that everyone was very well behaved last year and I expect the same this year.... Jerry included :) We can definitely mention this in the opening comments but we are all professionals..

We have the list of SAGE attendees and NO SPS representations.

@JohnHoyt Who is Nicle Hardin?

Nicole is Director, Product Management for the Sage Live product out of the Atlanta office. She will be presenting Sage Live during that half hour on Saturday. In my opinion, she is the best they have at presenting the product - I have been in 2 of her presentations when in Atlanta - and I am very impressed with both her product knowledge, as well as knowledge of the processes. It says a great deal that she decided to actually travel to MOTM to present in person (unless she saw it as an opportunity to escape the weather for a bit).

Remember, last year it was Gary Feldman's turn. We'll never know when and what sets people off.

LOL isn't that the truth.!!!

I agree with your thoughts John. Perhaps we can/should post something here on SC besides the brief opening we have before Sage's session. We can however, also act as moderators and if someone gets out of hand, we can reel them back.

Tiffany Kuykendall, Director, North America ISVs and Strategic Alliances, is attending. She has influence in my opinion. She is also an ex-IBM person, so she has a much different demeanor and approach - very self confident. I started my career working for and with IBM people and they are different from any other tech companies. Also Dianna Lane, Director, US Field Sales, will be attending. I actually could see her in line for Laura Biasucci's position. She has been very helpful to me as I straightened out my tier issues over the past 6 months. She is one of the few management people at Sage that follows up. I think Rob Larsh and Jeff Scott are just there as muscle, but I plan to meet with Rob off-line.

The Army has a management axiom for its commanders, ""When the troops stop complaining about the food, you have a problem."" The point is that food complaints are way down the list of things people complain about; it happens when nothing else is very abrasive. When a vendor that is used to being the center of the attention of its partners encounters indifference or resignation, it needs to worry ... a lot. I don't think we'll have much outrage here, especially from those ~30 souls who attend the Acumatica pre-conference. I would hope we get clear resolution to questions about multi-bin and other promises made that are now late. The Payroll session should clarify many, Perhaps John, or someone else, can prime the right person(s) to address our realistic concerns about how we should handle new Sage 100 prospects (with all the public Sage turmoil, a prospect gets heavy FUD from competing salespeople), challenges with customer service (ref our Socialcast stream), etc. Not asking for changes, but asking for help making the most of Sage when competition rising (and open).

@JohnHoyt Tiffany isn't signed up. Maybe she is only coming for the session. She should sign up so she has a badge.

Perhaps we should take a page from The Donald and have them only call on reporters from a ""friendly"" newspaper. Too bad there aren't too many (if any) friendlies. Tough issue. Many of our resellers are quite passionate about helping the end user. I don't see any passion from Sage. They just quit and move on. I think past questioners have been well behaved. Yes, they will get (and expect to get) some pushback but the troops are getting mad as hell and are tired of taking it. We can put the word out and be on our toes as moderators. I do appreciate the heads up. I will try to behave MYSELF. It isn't what we say but how we say it which makes a lasting impression.