Three, Two, One: Countdown To Autotask Community Live, Part 2

By Gennifer Biggs, security, storage, and managed services editor

With only a few days to go before the curtain rises at Autotask Community Live in Miami, I have a couple more sneak peeks at the event's lineup, courtesy of Jay McBain, SVP of strategy and market development at Autotask.

The theme of the partner event — Together We Are Autotask – reflects the vendor's commitment to its long-standing user community and the channel at large. While "community" has become quite the buzz word, especially in managed services circles, Autotask has been working behind the scenes with its partners for a decade. The vendor's community was built into its software from the start, with collaboration and best practices shared between partners within the tool. McBain says the Autotask partners will learn more about the release of Community 2.0 at the upcoming event. "Our community is a foundational part of our business, but it was a bit behind the scenes," says McBain. "Now we are going public with that value, offering our partners' insight into technology, process, management, organization, and more to the entire channel, and we hope to have a strong impact." As part of that Community 2.0 reveal, expect to see Autotask out and about this year.

On a related note, the 25 user groups that continue the spirit of Community Live throughout the year will be meeting as groups within the event agenda. Post keynotes on Day 1, those groups will go their separate ways and any attendee not part of a user group can take that time to learn more about those groups.

Last but not least, CompTIA is in the house at Community Live 2011. It's no surprise the trade organization is more involved this year; former CEO Bob Godgart is chairman of the CompTIA board this year and McBain is vice chair of the vendor advisory council. Not only will the two organizations make a much-anticipated announcement, CompTIA is supporting the business track within the Community Live agenda. There will also be a big reveal from the CompTIA and Autotask folks that you won't want to miss.

If you aren't able to make the event next week, you can follow my coverage live from Miami at BSMinfo.com