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006: Consultants in the Field - Alan McCullough, CV Rao, and Colleen Beale

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As ACN Advanced Camp wrapped up last week in Austin, Sam Valencia interviewed three more colleagues in the Apple Consultants Network.

First we hear from Alan McCullough of Zen IT as he and Sam reflect on Advanced Camp, followed by a group discussion panel featuring CV Rao of TechOne Centre and Colleen Beale of Data Networks.

005: Consultants in the Field – Craig Cohen, Kok-Yong Tan, Brian Mortensen, and Jeff Satterwhite

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Sam was kind enough to record these "man in the street" interviews with four of our colleagues,  including master trainer Craig Cohen of HCS Technology Group, who helped organize the technical content for the Apple Consultants Network Advanced Camp.

Features a pro tip for fixing broken network jacks from expert Network Wrangler and Delouser, Kok-Yong Tan of Reality Artisans, and the answer to the question on everyone's mind: "Tan, what's in the vest?" 

Also includes feedback about ACN Advanced Camp from Brian Mortensen of BFA Technologies, Inc. and Jeff Satterwhite of Post Mod Tech.

Thanks to Craig, Tan, Brian, and Jeff for participating. Enjoy the last day of camp!

Update: check out this great photo of Sam interviewing Tan at ACN Advanced Camp, taken by Arek Dreyer.

 

Sam&Tan.jpg

004: Live from ACN Advanced Camp in Austin, TX – Mobile Technology Competency (MTC Plus)

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Featuring Sam Valencia of HCS Technology Group, reporting live from Apple's ACN Advanced Camp in Austin, TX. Sam is joined by Jerry Zigmont of MacWorks and Joe Saponare of PsiMac.

With ACN Advanced Camp well underway, Sam got up early to share his experiences before another 12+ hour day of intensive mobile solutions training.

Topics

  • increase business in 2013 by offering Mobile Solutions
  • training provides essential experience with third party MDM solutions in addition to Apple's Profile Manager
  • social aspect of training conferences
  • partnering with ACN colleagues for real world experience; the strength of the ACN community; cooperating with the competition
  • cloud hosted MDM solutions vs. self-hosted
  • value of the Consultants Locator and ticking the Mobility checkbox with MTC Plus
  • value of the Apple Developer membership; early access to new releases
  • "lightbulb" moments
  • importance of wireless infrastructure in mobile device management solutions
  • MTC training led to a 30% jump in business for some consultants
  • keeping in touch with vendors
  • being Client 0
  • Atlanta beer vs. Austin beer
  • special considerations for cloud-based solutions
  • vendor support for third party mobile devices
  • did Sam spill the beans about secret features of Mavericks Server?

Thanks to everyone who listened to our live broadcast. We're looking forward to doing more of these in the future.

There's still time to register for the ACN Advanced Camp July 16 - 19 in Tampa, FL!

Mentions

Mass360 (@maas360), AirWatch (@airwatch), Mobile Iron (@mobileiron), Aerohive (@aerohive), Meraki (@meraki), Aruba (@arubanetworks), Craig Cohen (@ccohen), Arek Dreyer (@arekdreyer), Ben Greisler (@magikben), Allen Hancock (@ahancock), and Kim Manitt (@macdivas).

003: The ACN Office - marketing, finding clients, working with AppleCare, the Apple Store

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Episode three of Command-Control-power features a wide-ranging conversation with Joe, Sam, and Jerry discussing the topic of The ACN Office.

Topics: 

  • marketing to existing clients, incentivizing referrals vs. mass marketing to public; relative quality of leads
  • Constant Contact, MailChimp, My Emma, Campaign Monitor
  • sticking with what you know vs. "the devil you don't know"; clients also trust a known entity
  • finding clients, never having needed to seek out clients before now
  • PR; marketing
  • press releases in local publications; working with non-profits to get one's name out
  • OnForce vs. ACN
  • Intro to Business at the Apple Store presentation includes an ACN slide; tip from Apple Store Business Manager
  • retail turnover in the Apple Store, especially in the Business Team
  • tip from local Apple Store about increasing ACN referrals
  • working harder to get new business?
  • "Sales"
  • Managed Services vs. Break/Fix
  • revenue streams; recurring fees
  • Wellness Visits, i.e. preventive maintenance
  • running a managed offsite backup service using CrashPlan
  • offering email and web hosting services
  • RackSpace offices in San Antonio, a former mall
  • recurring revenue streams, no matter how small; residuals
  • benefit of referrals from Apple Store; clients feel Apple endorses us
  • a day in the life of an ACN
  • next week: Live from Advanced Camp!

Mentions

Craig Cohen (@ccohen), Arek Dreyer (@arekdreyer), Ben Greisler (@magikben).

002: Security, iCloud Keychain syncing, bookkeeping, growing your practice

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Sam, Jerry, and Joe discuss topics related to growing your consulting practice: secure info sharing among team members and clients, bookkeeping, and administrative assistance. Includes a brief review of services we offer to clients.

Plus: a how-to for configuring multiple tax rates in QuickBooks.

Co-hosted by Jerry Zigmont of MacWorks, Sam Valencia of HCS Technology Group, and Joe Saponare of PsiMac.

Topics:

  • consultant security best practices
  • team secure info sharing
  • client security tendencies
  • proposed solutions for dealing with multiple Apple IDs
  • the promise of technology
  • iCloud keychain syncing
  • MobileMe war stories
  • Configuring multiple tax rates in QuickBooks
  • Billings Pro
  • redundant data entry in bookkeeping systems
  • hiring a part-time or full-time administrative assistant; or not

Memorable lines:

Regarding the presumably forthcoming iPhone 5S: "this time, the 'S' can stand for 'Secure'."

Great advice once given at the ACN Business Meeting regarding growing your technology consultancy: "do yourself a favor: the first person you hire should be an administrative person."

001: WWDC Keynote Reflections: Mac Pro, Mavericks, iOS 7

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Listen to co-hosts Sam Valencia of HCS Technology Group, Jerry Zigmont of MacWorks, and Joe Saponare of PsiMac discuss our post-WWDC reflections, recorded on June 21, 2013 – the first day of summer and the beginning of our new podcast.

Topics:

  • The new Mac Pro
  • Mavericks
  • iOS 7
  • The next ten years of Apple
  • Mac and iOS vs. Windows 8
  • Iterative innovation or alien technology?
  • Predicting the longterm effects of technology

Show Notes:

Thanks to fellow ACN, Joe Fong, who sent me the Power Mac G4 Cube almost six years ago.

Regarding predicting the pricing of 1 TB of flash storage for the new Mac Pro: upgrading the MacBook Pro 13-inch with Retina display to 768 GB flash storage from 128 GB costs $900 as a CTO option on the Apple Store.

According to Apple's iOS 7 features page: "AirDrop is available on iPhone 5, iPad (4th generation), iPad mini, and iPod touch (5th generation) and requires an iCloud account."

It was Windows 95 that didn't ship with IE or TCP/IP with the default network installation, not Windows XP.

The Steve Jobs story recalled by Joe is told by Andy Hertzfeld at folklore.org. Steve Jobs once motivated an engineer to improve the startup speed of the original Macintosh by saying it would save dozens of lifetimes:

 
“How many people are going to be using the Macintosh? A million? No, more than that. In a few years, I bet five million people will be booting up their Macintoshes at least once a day. Well, let’s say you can shave 10 seconds off of the boot time. Multiply that by five million users and that’s 50 million seconds, every single day. Over a year, that’s probably dozens of lifetimes. So if you make it boot ten seconds faster, you’ve saved a dozen lives.”

“That’s really worth it, don’t you think?”
— Steve Jobs, 1983