General Consultant Discussion

There was a lot of discussion about alternatives to Sage (@PhilMcIntosh even hosted a session about it). We've made a decision to jump the low barrier to entry with xTuple and are offering our classroom as the home for xTuple's five-day partner course in May. As a member of 90 Minds, xTuple will cover a portion of your travel expenses. The deadline to register for this offer is Monday, March 3. @MeetingoftheMinds @Businessofconsulting

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There has been some discussion about the ability of third parties - such as xTuple or anyone who wants to reach the 90 Minds membership - to market to the group. In this case xTuple is IMO a followup to the content of a session at MOTM. A single posting is fine (just as others have posted their slide decks). They should not however expect to advertise followup sessions or opportunities without talking with the group about sponsorship. In the future similar opportunities will be by paid sponsorships - such as what was offered at the MOTM (and GREATLY reduced everyone's cost for such an event). Without sponsorship MOTM might have cost upwards of $700 - $800 per person. Peter Wolf - pwolf@azamba.com - manages our sponsorships and he is the person to contact should there be a third party product to advertise to, promote a webinar, an event or participate in a 90 Minds event. The administrative team is in the process of working on sponsorship opportunities - and the ability for vendors/sponsors to interact with the group. I hope to have that information shortly. I do not think you're going to see vendors in our main Socialcast groups as those are primarily support oriented. It's more likely that the sponsor opportunities will be webinar or advertising (think website) related. In the meantime -- if anyone through their contacts has events or third party products which are looking to be marketed to 90 Minds please contact Peter Wolf and he can provide a list of opportunities. This is a change from how we've run things in the past and it will take some time for us to fine tune the process. Thanks for everyone's patience and understanding.

I like this approach. I think we want to promote the goal of 90 Minds as promoting consulting, not product sales, as its members main business focus. If we do, then we should encourage sponsoring vendors to help us put their product into a customer-market context. I don't know exactly what this would look like. But I feel the result would be some document to help us ask prospect the relevant questions, and then result in ""Your firm does/needs A,B and C. You need some type of G or H. And you don't need S,T, or Q. Product 1 does A & B this way, and C in this way. It has G but not H. Product 2 does <examples here>, Based on this, we think you should first look into Product 1 instead of the better known Product 2."" Of course it would never be this mechanical. But it sure beats, ""Product 1 sounds good and demos well.

I wish I didn't have to co-mingle these two pieces of information. I am certain there is better form and a better forum. While I don't have any details to share, I have learned that Dan Means (xTuple partner/trainer and former Sage business partner) passed away over the weekend. While there are obviously broader and deeper impacts this has on the many people that knew Dan, it also effectively cancels the training that was scheduled for May in Las Vegas.

This news sucks. Sorry to hear.

Yes it does suck. Dan would have fit in with this group very well...