Highland Martin Goes Hollywood

blog@highlandmartin.com — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:54:00 GMT

After winning the Best Business Award in Microsoft's CRM Incubation Event last December, the press continues. And, unfortunately for eyeballs across the world, they posted a couple videos of us. Exciting times are ahead, and we are ready to deliver on some great new technologies for the space.

Make sure you haven't eaten recently and check out Highland on film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Dxxpce0kKA

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/SanjayJain/CRM-Incubation-Week-Videos-Highland-Martin/

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Microsoft CRM Incubation Event - Day #1

blog@highlandmartin.com — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:01:00 GMT

Only a few short weeks ago, we received an email from Sanjay Jain, an ISV Architect Evangelist for Microsoft's Dynamics platform,

"It was a difficult job to finalize teams, due to the huge response. Based upon your nomination details, we are pleased to extend invitation to your team for CRM Incubation Week!"

We had applied for a spot in a Microsoft sponsored "contest" for developing a product for their Dynamics CRM platform. WIth one product for the platform under our belt (the eCopy Connector for CRM), we felt we could compete, but had no idea if we would be selected.. Obviously they had little idea of what they were getting into when inviting -us- up to Reston, Virginia to their regional MTC to compete. We could bring three total resources; two developers and a technical business type. So Jason, Eric and I got our plane tickets, reserved the hotel and awaited further instructions.

Sunday afternoon we flew out of Atlanta towards Dulles airport and for the first time in years, I checked a bag at the airport. Evidently I was long overdue and my bag decided to not show up at the airport.. Cue the violin music as I reminisque about the old commercial where a gorilla turned some luggage into a trampoline on the tarmac.

The first day here in Reston was interesting enough, we got the lay of the land, met up with our ISV rep John O'Donnell, wrestled with getting the CRM VPC's to fire up, laid down Expression Blend and the Silverlight development toolkit and we were then supplied with enough sugary drinks and food to fully rot our teeth before the event is over. An interesting and exciting twist to the event was when we were notified that a "development-for-hire" software group was donating several of their resources to be at our beckoned call. Free development is something we will never turn down, so we quickly wrote a scope of work for a small piece of our project and are crossing our fingers that they come through, although it won't kill us if they don't.

Think of this experience a little like "The Apprentice" TV show. 5 teams have been selected, and we have 5 days to spec, build and put a business plan together and then pitch it for the judges on Friday. The judges are CRM product managers for Microsoft, senior principals at major CRM consulting companies and a few venture capitalist groups. Jim Steger from Sonoma Partners is here, and joked about once hearing a VC say, "An Entrepreneur is like three-legged stool, and your stool doesn't have any legs", hopefully we fair better on judgement day. The grand prize, you ask.. We have no idea. As long as it isn't a lifetime supply of soda and cookies, because I feel like I'm going to burst already. My wife already told me if it was an Xbox we'd have to put the WII on ebay. C'est la vie. More as the next day unfolds..

-Keith

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Highland Martin Blog

Highland Martin Goes Hollywood

Microsoft CRM Incubation Event - Day #1