When you are responsible for developing programs and product enhancements for 10,000 people, you hope that one day you’ll be able to just knock it out of the park for those people. I think we’ve done some great things for providers over the past year – PowerPro has created a way for many providers to demonstrate their consistently strong performance. And PowerMatch has forever changed the way that you showcase your skills and interests to the buyer community – and (we hope) dramatically improved the kinds of work orders you are getting.

But what about things that go beyond the OnForce platform? We’ve helped you get access to Dell certifications, which has been an incredibly successful initiative. And, well… What else? Truth be told, we’ve been so focused on making dramatic product and policy changes that we haven’t done much that helps you with your careers as a whole.

Until today.

I am so excited (cartwheel excited) to let everyone know about our phenomenal “collaboration with Microsoft and HP”:1. When we started this business a few years ago, we always hoped we would be able to announce something like this.

With the launch of Microsoft Vista, the impending Longhorn introduction, and buyers’ increasing focus on their small business customers, we wanted to be able to help providers get smart on those technologies fast. And at a price that they could get nowhere else.

The team at Microsoft Learning has been amazing. Not only were they thrilled to be able to offer learning & certification to providers, but they also wanted to go beyond the basics. They engaged HP, one of their partners, to deliver the training. This way we could have completely customized OnForce packages, targeted directly to our providers. Beyond that, they wanted to give our providers access to information early – so that the OnForce community was ahead of the curve on Microsoft technologies and certifications.

Providers, check your Online Office for the schedule of the introductory webinar – where folks from Microsoft, HP, and yours truly will introduce the program.

Many thanks to the teams at Microsoft Learning and HP Education Services. This is a big day in the history of OnForce and we are looking forward to a long relationship with Microsoft and HP.

[1]http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/aug07/08-20OnForce.mspx

Many thanks to all of the providers who continue to display “Registered OnForce Provider” badges on their websites. The enthusiasm of this community continues to impress me…

For those of you that have been asking (begging?) us to update the badges, we have obliged. There are two versions available for your linking pleasure. One has a bold OnForce green background, the other a quieter white background. Both are available in your Online Office, complete with new linking instructions.

Please take a few minutes to update the badges on your sites - especially those of you that are still holding on to the old school computerrepair.com badges. While computerrepair.com still links to onforce.com, that may not be true in the near future. The OnForce ones are prettier anyway.

Thanks again.

They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Hopefully the folks at “Startupping”:1 will feel flattered as I pilfer their idea of posting popular forum topics in their blog. I hear too many providers (and other users of OnForce) say “Forums, what forums?” when we refer to them. Our forums serve a number of purposes: providers (primarily) share technology information with each other, promote best practices, provide tips & tricks on particular kinds of work orders, and sometimes just let off steam.

So here are some of the things providers are sharing this week:

* Dell’s announcement that all Linux-based PCs and laptops will be “loaded with Ubuntu”:5
* Protecting yourself “while surfing online”:3
* Ideas on starting an “iPod repair business”:2
* “Top technical blogs”:4 and an (understandable) acknowledgment that OnForce is not one of them. Yet.

Because so many of these were started by one provider in particular, I feel compelled to give a nod to his OnForce-focused podcast, “the Force Field”:13. I haven’t listened to it in a while, but Rick has done some very interesting things in engaging the community with this channel.

In the provider-only section (only those providers with forum accounts that clicked the provider-only forum access link in their Online Office will see these), there was a lot of discussion this week about Microsoft Vista:

* Which is better, “Vista or Mac OS X?”:6 and additional questions about “security for both systems”:8
* Issues with computers not having sufficient memory to install Vista and “what to do when it happens”:7

Unrelated to Vista…

* One of our users has done some very cool things with his video card (you can see the “forum post”:11 or the “YouTube video”:12)

Other topics included questions about the “best remote support”:9 providers and our highly-popular “”Just had to make another post”:10″ topic as providers continue the quest to have the most posts in the forums. I’m sure this is a badge of honor that I just don’t understand because we are up to page 1195 of this particular thread. With 15 posts per page, there are a lot of posts by providers trying to add to their post count. Far be it from me to question the passion… Post on, my friends…

Thanks to all who participate by posting, reading, and lurking - these forums are a tremendous source of information to the OnForce community and those who’ve not (yet) joined.

[1]http://www.startupping.com/
[2]http://forums.onforce.com/viewtopic.php?t=13737
[3]http://forums.onforce.com/viewtopic.php?t=13249
[4]http://forums.onforce.com/viewtopic.php?t=13768
[5]http://forums.onforce.com/viewtopic.php?t=13775
[6]http://forums.onforce.com/viewtopic.php?p=151892#151892
[7]http://forums.onforce.com/viewtopic.php?t=13622
[8]http://forums.onforce.com/viewtopic.php?t=13745
[9]http://forums.onforce.com/viewtopic.php?t=13671
[10]http://forums.onforce.com/viewtopic.php?t=6571&highlight=
[11]http://forums.onforce.com/viewtopic.php?t=13756&highlight=
[12]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFdFA6w6Z1g
[13]http://www.theforcefield.net/joomla/index.php

We use that word a lot around here… We say things like, “the community is important” or “what do you think the community will think?” or “let’s leverage the community to get some feedback on this new feature.” As the person responsible for initiatives on the provider side of our community, these things are particularly important to me. And I sometimes think that I have a pretty good sense of what our community is, how it works, and many of the characteristics of the people that make up this group.

Yet I am often pleaseantly surprised. A lot.

I wondered how many providers would really step up and do the PowerMatch-ready Profile when we announced it had launched. The answer was sort of stupefying — it was thousands. Quickly.

We did a beta launch last week of a new feature that allows providers to ask buyers questions about a work order that has been routed to them. We were curious (I won’t say nervous, but some were…) about whether the questions would be productive and professional. Again, we needn’t have concerned ourselves for a second. Both buyers and providers have been exceptionally thoughtful and responsive in their interactions with each other. The work orders are getting clarified, providers feel more comfortable in the work that they are accepting, and buyers are learning what to include in future work orders to make sure that they convey the required information. A clear example of both sides of the community working as we would hope.

And when one of our most vocal forums participants was faced with a personal tragedy, one of the places he went to share his pain was the OnForce forums. Behind the scenes, while our provider community has been sharing their experiences with OnForce (and the rest of their lives in the service business), they have been building a place where friendships are developed. Where people reach out to their peers for support. Our collective hearts go out to him.

I am so incredibly proud to be part of this exceptional community of providers. Of people.

OK. So the final name has been drawn in our first provider contest (I’m sure it won’t be the last). If you haven’t gotten an email from me saying “Congratulations,” then it wasn’t you… (sorry).

Huge thanks for the rapid response by the provider community. I never expected so many of you to move so quickly to complete your new profiles.

Now for the rest of you… seriously, what’s the hold up? The new profile is going to drive all routing in a matter of weeks. So if you haven’t filled out the new profile, you will no longer be routed work orders. There will likely be some transition period, but it’s not going to be long. Frankly, too many providers updated their profile too quickly for us to delay the cutoff by much.

So I urge you to do your PowerMatch-ready profile. Soon. You’ve worked hard to build a name for yourself on the platform. As the number of buyers continues to increase (daily), now is the time you will get rewarded for your efforts. I would hate to see our longest-standing, most loyal providers lose out on work orders because they didn’t fill out their profiles.