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We’ve reached a really important milestone and so I wanted to take this time to pause, reflect, and discuss what’s next.
I’ve produced 50 episodes, over 60 weeks, and over 14 months. I recorded my latest episode in the same place where it all began and where I went on a journey to interview so many truly outstanding guests.
This body of work has included people from Microsoft, other leaders in the technology industry and partners that have gotten it right building truly incredible businesses. I want to thank each of these guests for being generous with their time and talents and sharing their extraordinary stories with me.
This all started because 14 months ago I saw an unfulfilled need to help the technology industry stay in greater lockstep during this massive change and transformation.
My colleagues at the industry giants were telling me that they struggled to reach and scale to a broader set of partners and their technology partners told me they needed to stay in greater lockstep with the technology giants. Organizations were evolving rapidly and information was coming very fast. It is hard to decipher and filter that information to determine what is important and what is not.
The podcast became a way to filter the noise, simplify the programs and provide a forum where technology giants and partners could connect and thrive. I’ve also tried to put a face to the business to help personalize the story of my guests to help my listeners learn and to grow.
Blog posts, webinars, video, and in-person events are all used extensively in the technology industry, but few had successfully utilized podcasts.
The podcast format and audio provide a such a great way to consume information. I was one of those people with information overload, sitting at my desk with over 300 unanswered emails staring me in the face and a dozen chat windows open on my computer at any one time. Through podcasts, I could listen when I wanted and wherever I wanted.
So for the over 300,000 organizations like yours out there, many struggling to figure it out, I hope this podcast has helped in some small way. If it has, I hope you tell your friends and others you meet about it because I want to serve more of you through this work.
This work is a personal passion of mine that has grown out of my own desires to start my own business and share my experiences having been part of three successful business transformations and a personal transformation.
My personal transformations is one I’ve shared with friends. I overcame childhood obesity at 14 years of age and have been on a mission ever since to live a healthy life. It is why I often post references to working out or nutrition through my social channels as a way to motivate and help others on their mission.
My personal transformation overcoming obesity required a mindset change toward food and exercise and it changed everything for me. That mindset change ultimately shaped how I approached business and any major challenge or setback in my personal or professional life.
This is one reason why I am so fascinated by the personal and professional journeys of my guests. If you’ve listened to my podcasts, I work to pull out the story of transformation through my questions. I’m fascinated by how people got to a particular spot in their life and I know there are a group of individuals listening to the podcast that want to understand how they can get to that spot in their life.
The personal journey is one of the primary goals of the podcast. The other primary goals are to tell the story of the business and mission, and what characteristics constitute a great partnership. I ask this question to both the technology giants as well as the partners that have gotten it right.
One outcome that I didn’t foresee when I started the podcast, but now is another important goal of my work, is to chronicle this amazing digital transformation. The pace of change has become overwhelming and astounding and as a host to so many innovative organizations, I feel like I’m at the center of a hurricane bearing witness to it all.
I’ve been blessed to have so many amazing guests on this podcast. Leaders from Microsoft’s one commercial partner organization including its channel chief, Gavriella Schuster. Award-winning partners that have built highly successful business and practices. On occasion, I’ve hosted leaders from the other technology giants like Google, Amazon, Salesforce, and VMware. I hope to expand here in the future and host more organizations to tell their story, to help my listeners understand their technology and to help them connect, scale and thrive during this time.
To make it easier for you to find and reference my podcasts I’ve now categorized them into six categories or topic areas that you can find here: https://theultimatepartner.com/episodes-listed-topic-focus/
The first category is “The Art and Science of Partnering”. These are the episodes where I interview leaders from Microsoft, walking the hallways to have the discussions and share what’s really going on. I’m an independent voice who was deep in the business so I know what questions to ask and understand this highly matrixed organization.
The second category is “Partners that Got it Right, Working with the Tech Giants”. These are the top award-winning partners, that I’ve been very very fortunate to call my friends and have built highly successful businesses. These guests tell their stories of grit, determination and how they figured it out.
The third category I refer to as “Lessons and Trends in Transformation”. This is where I’ve asked leaders from business and industry like Don Yaeger or Tiffani Bova to come on the podcast.
The fourth category is “How Other Technology Giants Think” and this is where I’ve asked the other technology giants like Google, VMWare, Salesforce, and Amazon to join my podcast to tell their partner story.
The fifth category is titled from a talk by Microsoft’s Toni Townes Whitley, “Industry Focused – Partner Led”. We often speak generally about partnering and transformation, but where it really gets exciting is when we start applying technology to specific industry examples of transformation and the outcomes that are derived. In the very near future, I hope to expand my content here to new industry sectors.
The sixth category “Amazing Women in Technology”, is focused on all the outstanding women guests I’ve been privileged to interview thus far. Candidly, as a percentage of all of my interviews, it is not as much as I would like. I’m working to increase this number and plan to begin a new series dedicated to this focus at midyear.
I want to close by thanking my many friends who have rooted me on during my incredible personal and professional journey. The support you have provided to me has lifted my sails more than you might know.
I hope the work that I am doing has been of value to you and I hope that the next 50 episodes are at least as good, as valuable to you my friends.
Thank you for listening, and thank you for joining The Ultimate Guide to Partnering.
You can listen to the podcast or view the trascript here or on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players.
As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach out to me on Linked In, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the rating link. This helps others find the podcast.