Local Focus: Jeremy Epstein

jeremy epstein, senior partner community manager, Microsoft public sector

2.  Are you working on any startup venture ideas ?

No. To test my skill and theories about social networking (think of it as ‘sharpening the saw’ work outside of my day job), I am consulting New York Times bestselling author, Dan Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, to prepare and execute his online strategy for his upcoming book, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need. We’re using GraffitiCMS for this, a truly great product.  His holding page site is at www.johnnybunko.com

3.  Tell us a bit about your company or what you do ?

Don’t think I need to introduce Microsoft. As a partner community manager, I am responsible for recruiting Microsoft partners into a relationship with the Public Sector team, providing value so that the relationship holds, creating and executing scalable marketing engines to drive the sale of Microsoft products. There are over 2000 partners US wide.

4.  How are you using social media tools for your job and/or business

I have had a personal blog for over 7 years (jer979.blogspot.com) since before Blogger was purchased by Google and that experience persuaded me of the value of the medium. As a result, I started a blog at Microsoft “Igniting the Revolution: Change the Way Microsoft and Our Partners Do Marketing…or Get Fired Tryin’” (http://blogs.msdn.com/maamktg) to help build the relationship with our partners and put a human face on MSFT. I have enough anecdotes to show that it is working.

It gets over 100k views/month. It also *may* be the most highly ranked marketing blog at MS (preliminary research verifies that, but need to validate) Plus, I’m encouraging my extended team to have links to their LinkedIn, Facebook, Plaxo, Twitter, Tumblr or whatever to build that relationship level. On a grander scale, we’ve partnered with PartnerPoint as a community center for our partners and have a Facebook group for our partners.
 
We’re looking at leveraging Ning as well, but that’s early stage. We’ve also got plans for using Dopplr to help facilitate contact between MS field people and partners around the country to encourage the meet-ups. We find that the face to face touches go a LONG way to building the relationship. The social networking technologies have to result in a face to face at some point. That “keeps it real.” And we do that w/some of our larger partner conferences throughout the year.

I will be the first to admit that these social networking sites for MS parnters haven’t “taken off” yet, but we’re trying. Have no choice, really. Part is momentum. Partly is internal to Microsoft.  The understanding of the power of these tools hasn’t permeated the organization yet.  It’s growing, but Microsoft a big ship and not so easy to turn.

5.  Are you from the DC area ?  Why did you stay and/or move here ?

Yes, born at Georgetown hospital. Grew up in Chevy Chase. Graduate of the Jewish Day School in Rockville. After living around the world (Frankfurt, Germany; Tokyo, Japan, and NYC), my wife and I decided that being close to family was a high priority for us (she’s from Albany, NY and aside from Eliot Spitzer’s latest stuff, there’s not much excitement for us there!) Plus, being at the center of world politics is rush and, I’ve found, a lot of people from around the world come through here, so you can more easily maintain relationships than if you lived in Omaha.

6.  How have you found the local area with regards to support and technology adoption ?
This is all my opinion, of course. There are a ton of super-intellectuals in this area. I’m particularly excited about the folks I meet in the political consulting arena who are trying to tap into tech to drive their agendas. There’s a robust commercial sector that is as innovative as anywhere. However, the 800 lb gorilla is the Fed Gov’t and that makes it  tough because this is such a government-town and the desire for innovation (outside of defense, of course) is driven by that. The gov’t isn’t an early adopter and the incentive for greater productivity wouldn’t be as high as a Silicon Valley, for example, to its challenging.

7.  What are your thoughts and ideas to help grow and support the local tech community ?

I think the recent uptick in DC networking events is going a long way to doing that. And anything else you want to add. I LOVE meeting up with others who are smart and passionate about technology (remember your tag at Pulver, eh?). connect via any one of the platforms.

Anyone else have any good questions to focus on ?  Or someone for us to showcase, let us know.