I happen to know a lot on Office 365, working with it as a Consultant and Trainer ever since the BPOS Era. And I happen to have some Marketing colleagues around me who are really done with Events and Sessions and Demos. But in the region where we work, The Caribbean, a lot of marketing needs to be done to create awareness and business on Microsoft’s “Cloud First – Mobility First”. For an already planned Event we needed to be creative.
When I heard about the location, the Luna Blou Theatre on Curacao, I immediately thought of writing a play, a theatre play. It took us a couple of conversations on what it should look like and then I started thinking and drawing and writing. The story should encompass the whole process a Business will go through before they actually work in the Cloud. Just as in a real play I created several scenes. As the talks in the scenes proceed so do PowerPoint slides in the background.
Scene 1. In the first scene my colleague Mark plays a Business Owner who heard something about Office 365. I play the Consultant explaining him what it is. In the following conversation we hit topics on security, availability, education, pricing and how to get there.
Scene 2. The second scene is all about Training. Colleague Mark is still the Business owner and Daimaline plays her role of Training Coordinator. She goes over the different options we have available for end user Trainer like Online Live (in cooperation with New Horizons), Instructor Led, and Instructor Led 8 x 3 hours, etc. And of course also the Training options we have for the IT Pro’s, the people that will have to manage the new platforms.
Scene 3. Ronald as the IT Manager of Mark’s business has done the 5 day Training on Office 365 and discusses the options he’d prefer with me as the Consultant. So we have the conversation on Identities, Migration options (including our Partner BitTitan’s MigrationWiz).
Ronald and me in Scene 3. In the background a bulleted list of our topics
Scene 4. In the final scene we put it all together and use a “Microsoft Customer Immersion Experience” demo-environment and play as if Mark’s Business has made the transition. We use a multiple Beamer/Projector setup to showcase OneNote, co-authoring, collaborating without the use of email, Yammer, CRM integration. We even throw in some preconfigured devices into the audience so they can also participate in the CIE to experience the look and feel of Office 365.
Me giving someone in the Audience a Windows Phone
All attendees thought it was very new and refreshing way of giving a comprehensive overview on Office 365. We had very good criticsJ:
Our Partner Account Manager, Suresh Dookeran from Microsoft: “Again, congrats on the request for the encore performance and special thanks to the Director of production for thinking outside the box. This concept has been tossed around for so long and it’s so refreshing to have a brave enough team willing to execute!”
Inova’s CEO Hans Kruithof: “Be sure that for Curacao the other actors are ready and prepared for this great re-run of this already classic epic play.”
Office 365 MVP Jethro Seghers, Program Manager at BitTitan: “Sooo cool. Do you mind if we send this internally?”
We have been invited by the Central Bank of Curacao and Saint Maarten to do a re-run during their “Information Technology Service Management Seminar”. In the first week of December we’ll be performing the show in Jamaica and other countries are lining up.
I think we should end up on Broadway and win some Awards! Thanks to the whole crew of Inova Solutions and NetPro!