We got together at the recent D&H Next+ event in Austin, it’s first multi-day show – smaller. Colin Blair has been in the technology biz for 30-years with 25-years (primarily Avent) in distribution. Went to the Thunderbird School of Global Management (a jewel in the desert) where he attained his Masters.  The center of gravity today is where VARs need to look more at MSPs. Don’t miss that CapEx vs. OpEx conversation. Has everything become “…as a service?” Blair lives in nearby San Antonio (so he’s a next door neighbor for me in Austin. PS – He loves Mexican food at LaFogata if you want the inside track with him!

A two-day thought leadership conference in Austin week exposed something I haven’t seen enough of in the small and medium business (SMB) Managed Services Provider (MSP)niche. It was akin to attending Saturday sessions in grad school as part of an MBA program

Caught up with a jammed Vikram Ramesh recently at the N-able Evolve Conference in Fort Lauderdale. Turns out he is my neighbor here in Austin, Texas so I have a new BFF.

Highlights

Head Nerds. What are the head nerds? This concept is unique to N-able. This program helps overcoming two challenges, according to Ramesh. First – MSP partners were asking who can I talk to at N-able to answer my customers technical challenges. The head nerds are available to answer any technical questions.

Second, the head nerds are a stability injection in overall relationship in the MSP and customer ecosystem.

Long-time SMB Nation member Phelim Rowe has emerged as a leading industry analyst and has grown his intellectual event model over the past several years. It’s serious business ‘cause he’s a dapper British dude across the pond who takes his body or work seriously and you will be dazed and amazed with his efforts. What stands out to me is his geo-targeting his event conent so he has West Coast SMEs in the MSP world for this event. Join me!

Harry Brelsford | CEO | SMB Nation & O365nation |
Hey, hey, Nation, Nation, back with our friend across the pond, Phelim Rowe. Phelim, always a pleasure. Thank you. You have an event coming up that we want to drive some attention to, but before we do that,

Jason Bystrak, Senior Vice President, Cloud & Advanced Solutions+ Business Unit, is a long-time friend of the SMB MSP family and we caught a hot moment at the recent D&H Next+ event in Austin. It was a thought leadership conference that was smaller by design. About 200 partners and senior executives from the different line card vendors that facilitated real conversation compared to larger MSP events that have become noise and get drunks. The best part for me? NO EXPO HALL – thank God. Made the even feel like an Executive MBA Saturday session.

I gave my maintenance guy Jeremy my barely used HP ProLiant MicroServer (aka Home Server) from the old Windows server team days in Redmond. He asked me to keep my eyes open for CPU power.

Reconnected recently with Austin-based Tim Brown (who I knew back in the SolarWinds days). He’s out and about doing new things as well all do in tech. In my conversation, Brown articulated the clearest actionable strategy for SMB MSPs about making AI “real” beyond ChatGPT cartoon characters. He is suggesting you take a step back, go old school and engage in tried-and-true penetration testing (PEN TESTING) with your clients. This adds real value to the relationship.

Head nerd Marc-Andre Tanguay, Sr. Manager at N-able, shared the history of the nerds program at N-Able. It was created six years ago by Tanguay to help people with troubleshooting and training as examples. The cultural paradigm for the nerds was “when other’s say no we say yes.” Tanguay shared. He said that the nerds program is committed to reinventing itself every year to stay relevant. This program has eight nerds on staff which is a hellva investment commitment to something that can’t be easily measured.

Looking forward to the second half of 2026, the nerds are committed to even more events.

Ed. Head Nerd Chris Massey is keeping the lights on at N-Able driving it’s partners to think beyond bit and bytes and speeds and feeds with its executive programs as part of the business transformation initiative. His five-year effort has resulted in these pillars:

• Executive Roundtable
• Business Transformation
• Operational Benchmark
• Growth Program that includes broader benchmarking and growth surveys.
• And more