2021-04 April Roundup Newsletter

5/7/2021 Correction:  We had a mix up between community shout outs and have corrected the issue below.

  

"If April showers should come your way, they bring the flowers that bloom in May." ...in our case: April brought us a NEW ADDITION to the admin team, and we can already see results blooming! But wait—we're getting ahead of ourselves! 🙂 

Here are the highlights: 

  • WELCOME, ASHLEY! Ashley has been in the MSP industry since 2009, and an MSPGeek member since 2014! Currently working as a Customer Experience advocate at Auvik Networks, she brings a wealth of knowledge and insight to our volunteer management team.
     
  • AutoElevate under the spotlight! Todd Jones Co-Founder of AutoElevate and our very own Darren White took a thrilling journey through the world of Security Certificates and the Windows Certificate Store!
     
  • MOAR CHANNELS! Along with a couple of new vendor channels, we’ve also branched out the human side of MSPGeek—with a new channel focused on promoting world-class culture.
     
  • Shout, shout, shout it all out: community growth, commendations, and opportunities, oh my!


Expanded Admin Team!

Ashley's an MSPGeek community veteran with over 11 years in the IT channel, working on both the solution provider and vendor side., and she's already started making waves for MSPGeek as she took social media by storm, creating and pushing LinkedIn and Facebook pages and groups to ensure our members have more flexible options for staying in touch. Additionally, she's got some exciting things coming down the pike...which we're not allowed to talk about right now 👀 

We've also recently started opening the doors for volunteer submissions! If you think there's an area you can assist MSPGeek in, and you have the time to donate, fill in this form so we can have your information on file for when we start picking additional volunteers to help in key areas! 

New Vendors, Welcome!

April came with 2 new vendor channels: Automation Theory & audIT Sales Presentation System. Vendors who come and engage with us do so with the understanding that they come primarily to help... not sell! We appreciate their willingness to be a true partner to Service Providers and are looking forward to their community contributions. Please be sure to check them out: 

  • Automation Theory: A place where partners can go when they need a DBA or infrastructure opinion for Automate, and receive professional services when needed. The community will receive quality technical information, free utilities for MySQL basics, and emergency assistance for server-down issues! visit Jeremy in #v-automationtheory today!
     
  • audIT Sales Presentation System: audIT is a non-technical tool focused on helping MSPs sell. Community members and partners of audIT can join #v-audit to receive and provide helpful tips around the MSP sales process. 

Vendor Spotlight

If you’ve been living under a rock (or just haven’t looked up from your keyboard) and haven’t heard of the Vendor Spotlight GeekCasts yet, it’s a program designed to bring high-quality educational content to the community in the GeekCast format you know and love. Join the #geekcast channel, or visit our Vendor Spotlight page to stay up to date! 

April’s session with Darren & Todd from AutoElevate was an insightful session focused on what you can do to ensure the safety and security of your Windows Certificate Stores. They dove into some common scenarios that could put you at risk, and how you can go about mitigating any potential fallout. Check out the recording of the session here.

But the fun doesn’t stop there! 

On May 19, 2021, at 8 p.m. ET, we’ve got another jam-packed session for you! MSPGeek Admin and integration extraordinaire Michael Priest will be chatting with Jimmy Hatzel from Skout Cybersecurity about how you can keep your integrations secure and mitigate supply chain attacks. They’ll dive into the important questions behind where your data resides, who owns it, how it’s transmitted, and the 3rd party integrations that have access. In the wake of what we’ve learned from SUNBURST and the rise of Supply Chain attacks, this is a can’t miss session! Register now to attend. 

Community Shoutout!

We wanted to send a special geek-sized shoutout to a few long-time MSPGeek community members that have been recognized by their peers as going above and beyond to support the community:

  • zaf[Tim Fournet] - Tim has been commended for his enthusiasm and engagement in the #security channel!
     
  • Kelvin Tegelaar - Microsoft MVP/ PoshSpice - Kelvin’s commendation comes from many community members. His passion for helping MSPs improve is highlighted in his blog cyberdrain.com, where he publishes helpful scripts for automation—many of which have been made solely to help those experiencing common time-consuming problems and look forward to what his future partnership with RMM vendors will bring.
     
  • Scott [Striven] - Scott has been commended for supporting the communities' migration needs, and his efforts and research put into the centralized comparison document for RMMs, as well as in general his eagerness to provide assistance in various community channels.

The highest of praise to all three of you! Your commitment to the rising tide knows no bounds! (Can we get these guys some Karma, please?!) 

We'd like to thank everyone, vendors and MSPs alike, for actively engaging the community and helping make us who we are today! If you know of someone you would like to nominate for a community shoutout—let us know using our new feedback form!

Shiny New Things Alert!

Reminders: 

  • Want to see a specific topic covered in a GeekCast or blog post? Let us know. Topics can be technical, operational, or service-focused.
  • We maintain a community calendar for participating vendors to earmark webinars and events they're having in one easy place for reference. These also get announced in the #vendor-events-announcements channel. Be sure to join and enable alerts so you can stay in the loop.
  • Be mindful of unsolicited messages. Vendors are under strict agreement for no-solicitation, (see our Code of Conduct for details) however—just like any other platform, there are always bad actors who might engage for nefarious purposes. As a reminder, don't give out personally identifiable information or anything that can lead back to your systems. If you get any suspicious DM's or requests for information, please do a /adminrequest command and an admin member will reach out to help you. All Admins are identifiable by name and are listed on our website's About Us page.

 

Thanks for being the community we love to serve,

MSPGeek Admin Team