Training and some personal updates

Been a very busy 2010 for me thusfar. After some long time off from work in December, I returned to our economy starting to turn around, and we are getting nice and busy again. I currently have three Exchange 2010 migrations, a few OCS related projects, and am in pre-sales with a bunch on new Exchange 2010 opportunities.

Last week, I went to Microsoft's Unified Communications Voice Ignite (UCVI 2.0) training in Dallas, TX. The class was really good, and I attended with one of our resident Cisco Voice consultants as well, so he was able to help bridge some gaps for me and vice versa me for him. Of course, while in Dallas they got a record breaking snowfall of 11" in 24 hours. Class wasn't canceled, but most everything else in Dallas was. Getting back to Austin felt great, and the next day it was 65 here, and I spent it in the hammock.

Well, this week, our MS UC partner sent us an offer for the beta exam for 71-404 - to go take it for free. If you are a Microsoft Partner, you should be able to take this offer. I am taking it next week, but I will be cramming for sure - there is a LOT of content from that class on this exam!

I also found this really cool OCS 2007 R2 PDF for wall display. So, will this mean more OCS blog entries? I think so. I usually blog based on things I am actually working on, as it makes the entries easier to write, and with all this new OCS knowledge, I don't see how it couldn't take us there some. However, don't worry, my Number One Subject Matter will stay Exchange for a long time I am sure.

Microsoft Learning looking for feedback on MCITP for OCS

Microsoft Learning released this survey �to identify the different job roles that work with OCS in order to understand how to develop test content better. This is a good way to help the tests be good practical exams that are true to real life situations.

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OCS 2007 R2 - End User Training Resources

Microsoft released this back in May, and somehow I only recently found it....

UCHowto is an end user training tool. It is based on Silverlight, and the zip file has two things, a desktop version "rolodex.exe" and a web version that you can stick on your or your customer's Intranet site. I am a little perplexed why MS didn't just release this as a web app like 'help.outlook.com' is.

Either way, very neat tool to give as a deliverable upon a successful OCS 2007 R2 roll out to help users gain some functionality how-to's without having to ask someone.

There are even Videos on some subjects built in:

I now plan on including this on ALL OCS implementations as a deliverable! Very cool!