Announcing the Practice Development Community and Monthly Educational Series

Today is a big day here at ITProMentor.com. We are entering a new year, and we have a big agenda to go along with it! In my recent surveys many of you indicated interest in gathering together and forming a community. As well, more than a few have asked for additional educational materials and mediums. I believe I have something that will satisfy both desires with an elegant solution.

The Monthly Educational Series

The first part is a monthly series of educational events (courses) that will include live presentation around a specific outcome or area of interest. For example, in January, we will cover Migration paths to Azure AD. Each session will include:

• Some pre-recorded content
• Labs that you can complete on your own time
• Access to the live event (or you may access the recording)
• Live Q&A afterward
• Download my PowerPoint decks or other resources after the event

The Practice Development Community

The second part is, you can also choose to subscribe to the entire series (all of the months in 2021), which includes a discount (basically you get about 2 months worth of content for free), as well as additional benefits including:

• Access to a private community of dedicated professionals who are willing to work together to further their Microsoft 365 cloud practice
• Exclusive opportunities available only to members (more details inside)
• Discounts on my consulting services
• The community will dictate the agenda for live events in subsequent quarters (the first quarter agenda is already set)

For both the Monthly option and the Annual option, you will find three choices for purchase:

• Access for 1 participant
• Access for up to 3 participants from your organization
• Access for unlimited participants

The Scholarship Program

I have one more announcement for 2021, and that is the SquareOne Scholarship Program. If you purchase the bundle for unlimited participants in your org, that price also helps to fund a Scholarship. I have a couple of MSP’s in developing countries that will benefit from this directly (it buys their ticket to the courses, basically), plus ITProMentor.com will be making a donation at the end of 2021 to another beneficiary (which I am searching for now). I will have more details on this in the months to come (as well as an option to make donations outside of the program). In general, the idea behind this Scholarship is that it will go to benefit disadvantaged folks who cannot otherwise afford educational opportunities.

If you are a single participant or less than three to a group, you can still choose to purchase the Benefactor rate if you want to throw your support behind a good cause. If you would like to apply for a scholarship or if you know of a good beneficiary that you would like me to consider for 2021, then please email me.

Quarter 1

Q1’s content is almost all queued up. For some of you, this may be a refresher (but I also think it is possible you will learn something new even if it is review). I also wanted to get this content included as a foundation, because it makes so much more possible once you have it, and because not everyone has this same foundation yet. So consider it a “level-set” for the community at large. The first scheduled event is:

Thursday, January 21st: Migration Paths to Azure AD
10 AM Mountain Time (9AM Pacific/12PM Eastern)

I find that many people do not understand the full migration to Azure AD, away from traditional Active Directory domains (or even from a workgroup). For example: how does the move to Azure AD fit in with the bigger picture of migrating all of our other apps and services to the cloud? We will discuss:

• Why migrate?
• Users & groups
• Connecting third-party applications and SSO
• Devices and device states
• Azure AD Join as well as Hybrid Azure AD Join
• Security policies
• Recommended migration paths

It promises to be a very dense session!

For the subsequent months in Q1 we have the following slotted:

• February 18th: Microsoft Endpoint Manager for Mobile devices
  • If you don’t yet offer MDM/MAM and the corresponding MRR service to your customers, then don’t miss this session
• March 18th: Microsoft Endpoint Manager for Windows 10
  • Moving Windows 10 devices off the old domain can solve a lot of headaches, especially with more people working from home
  • Find out how “Native management” can reduce cost, boost security, and improve workstation performance

This quarter is therefore “themed” around moving our Identity + Device management to the cloud and the benefits that come with it. Again, in subsequent quarters, community members will steer the themes and course content. But this is foundational stuff that everyone should know inside and out–so we are starting with that.

Let’s make 2021 a great year, together. (And if you would be so kind as to help me spread the word about this new offering, I would be very much obliged). Hope to see you soon!