Meeting 8 - South Hants IT group - SD-WAN

22 November 2019

SD-WAN was a bit of a gamble for a subject within the South Hants IT community, specifically it had the potential to be very technical, but clearly has broad relevance as a topic that is being discussed by many (normally larger) enterprises. All respect to Tayo Ogunseyinde, our presenter from Versa Networks, in finding an excellent balance between delivering a technical subject in a way that even I could understand. Thanks also to Axians UK for helping line up the speakers

The presentation was to provide an overview of what SD-WAN was, when it was relevant, what the likely benefits were, who the major players were in the marketplace and what questions to ask to engage the market. Versa clearly have an excellent well rounded proposition, and although the presentation was an independent view of the topic, it is clear they have an interesting angle (especially considering their relatively modest size). Again, Tayo was fiercely honest in the positioning of Versa against his competitors, listing both strengths and weaknesses of his product vs the other brands.

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Meeting 6 - South Hants IT group - Procurement

17 July 2019

I was very excited about the joint CIPS and South Hants IT meeting, as a bit of an experiment to see how different audiences would interact, and I was not disappointed. We managed about 35 attendees, broadly split 50/50 between Procurement and Channel Sales people, and lots of interesting dialogue was had. No fights broke out, no-one got injured. Result!

I delivered an hour and a half of content explaining my views on Technology Procurement and how the interface between Sales and Procurement could be improved. From the front of the room I didn’t see anyone dozing off, which is always a good sign, and a big thank you to large percentage of the audience who participated with questions and debate, many of whom got free CIPS stress balls. For a relatively dry topic, it was really engaging and we still didn’t manage to conclude whether RFP’s were a good or a bad thing…..

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Meeting 7 - South Hants IT group - Microsoft Teams

12 September 2019

Blog content to be completed!  Sorry, I missed one but will be getting this done over Xmas.

Meeting 5 - South Hants IT group - Security

19 May 2019

This month’s instalment of the South Hants IT group managed 22 attendees, which considering it was the Pompey Playoffs and nice weather outside is still a good result. It was not by design that the Sunderland team were staying at the Solent Hotel and walked out of the hotel just before our meeting started, and I was nothing to do with the alleged disturbances the night before to put them off at the game. Didn’t work anyway…..

Many of the attendees this time were repeat attendees, and the mix of people in the room continues to inspire me to carry on with the project. Clearly the promise of Vegan Nibbles and Branded Cupcakes drew most of the crowd, and a big thanks to Blondies Bakery and V-Feast startup catering units for preparing said nibbles – again most of which were left behind. I need to get more fatties to our meetings.

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