NW Mac Pros is going through a strategic change. We want the general membership to have input on how and what we want NW Mac Pro to be, on what form it will take. Recently a steering committee head up by Tim Hannon, Mike Brogan, Peter Haigh, and yours truly meet and had a brainstorming session to craft ideas that we could present to the general membership. The fruits of that meeting will be presented to you the members on Friday, March 30th. I can’t stress enough just how important it will be for the membership to attend this meeting. If you want a say in the direction that NW Mac Pros takes, then this may well be the most important meeting you will attend all year! Many very important ideas will be discussed and proposed, from dues, to voting, leadership positions, to marketing and advertising. Historically the core role of NW Mac Pros has been one of a network of NW Mac Pro To NW Mac Pro members—peer support and referrals, tech training, knowledge sharing. That role is not going away. But, going forward do we see value in NW Mac Pros having a new role; of being a Consultant to Customer resource—do we leverage the power of the group to advertise members to customers?

When: Friday March 30th 3pm-5pm. Happy Hour to follow at local establishment.
Venue: TBD In the past we have had meetings graciously hosted by Shelley Watson & Chris Dawe of Wheelrights. If there are any other members out there that have space to host a meeting please step forward. We’d love to have you host! Keep watching here on LinkedIn for additional information about the venue.
Agenda for March 30th:

• Announce Proposals for the 2012 NW Mac Pros Roadmap
• Introductions:We have added new members recently to NW Mac Pros. Please come prepared to give your 30 second elevator speech – tell us about what you do, your ideal customer. This will be good practice for when you really need to do it!
• Main presentation – roadmap 2012:Submit proposal to the general membership in attendance (in person and remotely) on the Plans for growth in 2012.
• TechTalk -This is a new feature! If you have a vexing problem or an ongoing technical issue with a client this will be your chance to throw the problem out to the general membership and leverage the combined troubleshooting knowledge of NW Mac Pros!
• Mac show and tell: Another new feature! If you have a piece of hardware or software that you are excited about and think the general membership should know about it, then this is your opportunity!

PLEASE RSVP to Steve at macsosguy@mac.com.

MacTech Boot Camp is a one-day event for consultants that support small-to-medium sized businesses, home office, and consumers.  MacTech has put together this single-track seminar specifically geared to serve the needs of consultants and techs wanting to serve their base better, and build their consulting business.  The curriculum is set by MacTech nationally and delivered by a combination of speakers from around the country, and from the region.

Packed schedule.  Expert speakers.  Lunch is event included.

Useful for those new to the Apple market, new to consulting, as well as experienced consultants, it’s the ultimate regional event that helps you learn, network, and see new opportunities to grow your consulting business.

About the event: http://www.mactech.com/bootcamp/

Session/topics: http://www.mactech.com/bootcamp/sessions
Schedule: http://www.mactech.com/bootcamp/schedule

Save $200 with this special link, and in addition, get a subscription to MacTech Magazine included ($50 value).

In attendance: Jim Emery, Steve Sorbo Tim Hannon, John Newhoff, Mike Ross, Jeff Widmer, Peter Haight, Shelley Watson, Chris Dawe

General Business:

• Let’s brainstorm on what we can do to improve attendance. Want to get more people to RSVP
• Steve spoke with Chris Smithco, U Village Apple Store manager, he learned that they consider OnForce as their primary place for referrals.
• Should NWMacPro do some marketing?
• Maybe we’ll make this a conversation topic at our first meeting in Jan 2012.
• Shelley will ask other ACN regional chapters how they market themselves where OnForce is also active.
• Shelley explained why ACNs are now required to have $1M in business liability insurance. Apple requires this of all sub-contractors, that is, everybody to whom they refer customers.
• Small Business Pro Hotline phone number – intended for small business sales. We can still use direct phone numbers for Oman Morales or any other SBPro team member.
• Would you be interested in a mobile technical competency? Shelley will try to see if we can get the course offered locally.
• Meeting was available via UStream which included screen sharing but no remote attendees used it.

Presentations:

• Joined the WebEx presentation by Nuance’s David Popovitch. He demonstrated Dragon Dictate version 2.5
• Command Line Presentation by Shelley Watson of Wheelwrights
• Discussion about changes in Lion by Tim Hannon of Sound Support and Steve Sorbo of MacSOS.

Via USTREAM: NW MacPros provided provided its inaugural USTREAM broadcast of our meeting. Jim Emery of Port Townsend and Alicia, in Oregon took advantage of this broadcast

Presenters:

• Dave Peck and Peter Sagerson of Bourgeois Bits makers of Cloak
• Sean Costello IronGate Server Management and Consulting and maker of Background Backup,
• John Chaffey of Busy Mac makers of BusyCal

General Business:

Membership dues are being considered to cover incidental costs like lunches.

Positions: As NW Mac Pros grows more formal positions are emerging. Steve Sorbo currently serves as meeting coordinator. Tim Hannon is our secretary. We’re looking for a volunteer to step forward to be the lunch coordinator. This could be a person who is able to attend in-person or only participate via USTREAM.

There was a brief discussion of the new ACN Review system. Tim Hannon and Mike Brogan are the first to use it. Mike gave a bit of feedback. He solicited reviews from his customers and heard that it was fairly easy for his customers to create an account and enter their review of Mike’s services.

Steve Sorbo proposed that for future meetings each attendee bring a product recommendation to share with the group. This could be either a hardware or a software product. The recommendation would include the product’s name, manufacturer, price and the products pros and cons. These product recommendations could be tracked on the NW Mac Pro web site. A request was made to have a reminder about this be including in future meeting announcements sent out via email.

Mike Brogan unveiled the new NW Mac Pro web site. It includes a logo built by Kate Rappe of CMYKate. Mike Brogan built the site using WordPress. All members are asked to review the web site and send feedback to Mike Brogan or Tim Hannon. If you’d like to be listed in the Member Directory please fill out the Contact form on the site or contact Tim Hannon directly. Tim Hannon proposed adding an Affiliated Professionals section which would list vendors recommended by NW Mac Pro members such as CPAs, bookkeepers, designers, wiring vendors and other service providers commonly needed by NW Mac Pro members or our clients. UStream links will be added to the web site.

Presentations

• Sean Costello spoke about Background Backup. It is a simple, powerful data protection solution for any small or medium-sized business. Reliable, consistent and secure, it backs up your company files invisibly and automatically—over your corporate network or while you’re travelling. It is built on CrashPlan Pro. They have both referral and reseller programs available. We soon hope to post a copy of Sean’s presentation for your review.
• John Chaffey of BusyMac spoke about BusyCal and how it’ll interface with iCloud as Apple migrates from MobileMe to iCloud. John Chaffey and his partners were the original developers of Now Up To Date in the 1990s.
• Dave Peck spoke about Cloak an easy to setup and use cloud-hosted VPN service for people who want secure wireless connections when they are working on non-secure wireless networks such as those found in coffee shops and libraries. Dave Peck highlighted the need for VPN connections by showing a YouTube story about FireSheep

• Sean Costello of Background Backup comes to our meeting all the way from Ottawa. Sean will be demonstrating Background Backup, and discussing opportunities for ACNs. Background Backup is a simple, powerful data protection solution for any small or medium-sized business. Sean is a long time ACN, and is currently serving on the ACN Advisory Council.
• John Chaffee of Busy Mac will be demonstrating Busy Cal. BusyCal is the award winning desktop calendar that combines personal productivity features for individuals with powerful calendar sharing capabilities for families and workgroups.
• Dave Peak of Bourgeois Bits will present their new Mac OS X application, Cloak, an easily configurable VPN client for the Mac. We are very excited to have these terrific vendors joining us!

Meetings are held at the Wheelwrights office in the SODO neighborhood of Seattle. If you are an ACN/NWMP member that would like to host a meeting, please email Shelley or Steve Sorbo <macsosguy@mac.com>. Take the opportunity to introduce your colleagues to your business and offerings by hosting a meeting!

Our meeting runs from 1:00 to 5:00 pm, followed by a social hour at a local watering hole.

Location details: http://www.krtriggerbuilding.com/location.html
Parking is available in the lot next to the Trigger Building, and at the rear (west) of the building.

Please RSVP to the LinkedIn Group to let us know you’re coming.

Dates:

Friday, June 24th
Friday, September 23rd
Friday, November 11th
Holiday Party TBD