Powered Services Podcast

The Connect Community, With Katie Freedman of Kaseya

• Kaseya

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In this episode, Dan talks with Katie Freedman of Kaseya about the upcoming Connect Community.

The new Connect Community is an online forum designed to bring all Kaseya brands together and give customers an outlet for support, best practices and building relationships with key Kaseya stakeholders, as well as other MSPs & IT Pros from around the globe.

Connect with Katie:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiefreedman/

Speaker 1:

Hello, I'm Dan Thomas Shefsky and this is the connecting it podcast.[inaudible]

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the connecting it podcast. I'm your host, Dan Thomas Shefsky and joining me today, I've got a special guest Katie Friedman with Cassiah who is our digital community director. So really excited to have you on today. Katie, talk about a new and exciting thing here, uh, about the new connect it community.

Speaker 3:

Hi everybody. It's great to be here and I'm really excited to be here for this reason to, to talk about the connect it community. So, um, you know, just really quickly for those of you who may not be aware, uh, in the coming weeks, we are going to be launching an online home for all, uh, customers. That's going to be no matter whether you use Unitrends or it glue or graphics or VSA, you're going to have a new place to connect with other users and to, uh, chat about, you know, best practices and, uh, and submit new product ideas that you want to see in the community. So, um, it's a really great place to interact with other users, as well as other key stakeholders here at our, uh, at our different solutions. So you'll get to, uh, you know, submit your feedback right. To our product manager. So pretty exciting stuff. Um,

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's, it's, this is really neat because it's something that, uh, you know, you hear people like, look, I've got it glue, I've got Ida, Jen, I've got RapidFire tools. You know, how can I go to one place? And we know it complete, uh, is it's a message and something we have here. I could say that we're working every day, you know, to keep strengthening it. Um, but this is a really cool place because now as an MSP, I can come share best practices. I can come and share my feature requests like you're talking about. So, and you can do it all in one home. You can jump from product to product. You can go from sweet to sweet, you know, when it comes to security compliance, um, you know, documentation, you know, all of those different areas of it complete, you can now easily navigate and go have conversations with like-minded peers. And I think that's something you and I both have heard through this process is give us a place to go network with other MSPs or other internal it or other VARs in and be able to have conversation.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And I think that, you know, some of the things that folks will really find exciting is that not only can I network with other, with my peers about solutions that I'm using, but I can network with my peers because they're in my region, you know, I can find other folks who live around the corner from me that I can meet up with to, you know, talk about, you know, what they're finding challenging right now and are in our neighborhood about doing our jobs. And, you know, um, we're really excited because, you know, in addition to those different user groups and the different product feedback that folks can give, there's also going to be an area where people can go and just, you know, kind of have the same conversation that you'd have in a coffee shop around the water cooler. You know, there was conversations, especially, you know, we are, we're all a little isolated right now and you know, that, that you may be missing because you don't have another person at your work that you can talk to about a user issue or a customer issue, or that, you know, you can talk about your favorite gaming, uh, your favorite game that you're on right now. And, you know, if you're a Fortnite guy or whatever it is that you can talk to folks about that or cooking, or really anything that you want to. So, you know, it becomes a real community. Um, and folks will be able to, you know, earn badges and, um, earned, um, earned reputation, status by performing different activities within the community. So, you know, there'll be levels of ranks that folks can attain by their activities in the community. And then also these different badges that say, you know, oh, I use this solution or I've been to this event, or I've gotten this many likes to my comments and, you know, so that really shows folks that you're engaging and, you know, for a lot of us we're super competitive. So being able to have those kinds of ranks and badges available to show that I'm a, um, a real contributor to this community, I think speaks to a lot of people.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And so this is, you know, our listener base is MSPs. And I think, you know, as an MSP, there is going to be a lot here. We've talked about, you know, a whole bunch of different things that are going on, but think about it from your business, you know, who from your team, you know, should be in this community. Uh, do you have a marketing person we're going to have a marketing chat area. I know we're bringing over some of the powered services stuff. So, you know, you could talk marketing, you could talk themes, you could talk, you know, and give ideas on, um, things you'd like to see coming up in the future and then taking it to the product side. Maybe your techs need to be in there, uh, sharing best practices and networking with other MSPs, uh, going into the groups. Um, there's, you know, if you're in Canada, if you're in Europe, if you're in Australia, you know, Mexico, all the different places around the world, uh, there's groups for you to network with, uh, similar people. Uh, so, uh, this is a really cool, uh, community and how it's laid out. And I mean, encouraging people, uh, it's coming out right after July 1st is the targeted date right now. But, uh, you know, I think it's going to be something that's really well received as we go into quarter three and, uh, really help people start to, to brainstorm and also share ideas with us that they'd like to see in the product.

Speaker 3:

And I think that you'll also start to see things like, well, we'll offer exclusive sneak, peeks to our, uh, our members of new product features. We'll open up betas through the community to say, Hey, you know, we're gonna re we need a beta test member for this sign up here. Um, and you know, they'll also probably be some sneak peaks of our upcoming events. So, you know, an advanced notification of who's going to be at, you know, our, our entertainment at connect it global or who our keynote speakers will be, you know? So it gives you a real finger on the pulse of everything that's going on within all of our brands and all of our events and all of our new features. And I think that it's just a really great, um, opportunity for our customers and our partners to connect to us further, not, not to play too much on the, on the day of the community. Yeah. I mean,

Speaker 2:

And that guys, this has meant to be a short podcast. We're not here to, to go real long on this. I mean, you understand that the value of a community, and if you haven't, I think it's something that you should explore. I mean, no matter what vendors you're using in the space, it's good to be a part of the communities to share the best practices, to see how people are overcoming different objections, or to see the creative ways people have, have used the product that maybe is not in the norm and it can help your business. So these are not things, you know, typically people are like, oh, it's a place for people to go and ran to. No, that's not what this is. We don't really allow that actually it's, it's more designed for best practices. What can you, you know, what can you share that other people want to come, you know, come in and have that conversation. You know, what ideas are you seeing? You know, what's the market like and hear from your other peers as to how they're overcoming those challenges or how they're utilizing the product in the solution. It is designed to, to help you grow. And it's helped you, you know, continue to grow your business and, uh, leverage your, your solutions to the best of their ability. So encourage you, if you're not someone that's, uh, you know, better part of it, you know, be on the lookout for the direct it community. Uh, the email will be coming out here next week. Um, so if you're a current customer, you'll be seeing emails later this week as a reminder, and then next week, once it launches, uh, you know, pay attention to that. And, you know, if you have any questions, uh, we do have an email. Katie, what will that, what's that email for the users?

Speaker 3:

The email for users is, um, let me make sure I'm telling you the exact right. One is connect community@kaseya.com.

Speaker 2:

So connect community@cassette.com. Um, if you have ideas or you're in there and you start to go look around and you're like, Hey, I have an idea. I would like to recommend you guys maybe put this in there. Are we great if we have these topics that this community is built around you? Uh, so, you know, go in there, share the feedback with us, um, you know, see the power of a community and what it can do for your MSP. Um, it's going to be a great place. And, uh, you know, I appreciate Katie all the hard work you're putting into it. I know it's, there's a lot going in. And I, you know, I know that the MSPs are really going to reap the rewards of being able to network with their peers. So thanks for coming on today and talking about the community that's coming out. Anything else you want to let people know before we, before we sign off?

Speaker 3:

No, I'm just really excited for the launch. Um, and then in the next week or so, uh, can't wait to engage with all of our customers and partners and see all the amazing ideas that are going to come out of this community for innovation and to all of our solutions. Like I'm, I'm really excited to see that. And I'm really excited to see peers networking with each other and helping each other out, um, as they're navigating different, um, challenges, whether it's with customers or with their S their solutions in their stack. So just really excited for that. Well,

Speaker 2:

Thank you for being here and thanks for everything that you're doing, this is going to be a real exciting, and thanks for this special episode, this is kind of just a sneak peek into what's coming. And we thought there was a really good time for us to put it out there with that about a week away. Uh, you know, uh, you know, maybe just a couple of days away, but, uh, you know, we're close. And, uh, we wanted to share that information with everybody. Uh, you know, that's coming look around July the first look for those emails, sign up, get in, and, uh, start, start some conversations, you know, uh, there's some products that have never had a community before. Um, so if you're one of those and you get in there, start the conversations, that's, let's in our team, we'll be commenting as well. Um, so that'll be something that, uh, you know, it's not just a one-way street. There's going to be people from the different products, the executives, all of those are going to be involved. So get on in there, share some best practices, share some feedback in that we look forward to networking with you. So that's it for this special edition of the connecting it podcast like us find us in your favorite podcast app and give us a five-star rating and leave us a comment. We'd love to hear your feedback. Again, this is built for the MSPs to understand what's going on in the MSP community until next time everybody have a great day.