Upcoming Meeting Notice


SAVE THE DATE:

2010 EUROPEAN CONFERENCE
JUNE 16-18, 2010
Hotel Concorde Montparnasse – Paris, France

(Click here for more information.)

Breaking news
NATD in New Orleans
NATD in New Orleans: New members
NATD in New Orleans: Board election
NATD in New Orleans: NATD Charities
NATD in New Orleans: Meeting follow up
NATD members in the news

Breaking news

New association of Avaya users announced: InAAU, INNUA and INSIGHT 100inc join forces to unite the voices of all Avaya users
In a letter to InAAU, INNUA and INSIGHT 100inc user group members, Renee Seay, InAAU Chief Executive Officer, Brad Tompkins, INNUA President, and Cindy Phillips, INSIGHT 100inc President announced the development of a unified Avaya user association. The three associations have created a joint task force for the purpose of developing the new group. The new association will be the premier organization for all Avaya customers, providing both a robust international forum for learning and dialogue and a strong platform for close peer networking in locales around the world. The individual groups’ shared principles of member education, peer networking and vendor advocacy will be the central focus of the new association. Bringing together more than 6,000 member companies globally, the group will be one of the world’s largest independent technology user associations. This new association will be formally introduced at the Art of Evolution, Global Connect 2010 conference on April 18 – 22 in Denver, Colorado.
Visit www.inaau.org, www.innua.org, or www.insight100.org.

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NATD in New Orleans

The NATD Winter Conference was held January 20-22 in New Orleans.

End Users At NATD !
Among the many information sessions and networking opportunities, participants met to discuss ways in which Avaya/Nortel resellers can work more closely with Avaya/Nortel end users. Franklin Castro, a director on the International Nortel Networks Users Association (INNUA) board  (and who works for the New York Presbyterian Hospital) came  to discuss the acquisition of Nortel by Avaya, Avaya’s new roadmap for Nortel users and the proposed merger of three user groups (InAAU, INNUA and INSIGHT 100). INNUA has a strong history of partnership and support of the NATD, and the INNUA event has historically welcomed NATD members.

Dewayne Kendall, CIPTUG VP (Cisco IP Telecommunications User Group) was present to represent Cisco end users as the NATD met and discussed ways in which Cisco resellers can work more closely with the Cisco end user community.

Learning at the conference
Patrick O'Malley, Speaker/Trainer Consultant on Social Media and Internet Marketing, presented “SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS - THE WHAT, THE WHY, AND THE ROI” to show how LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter can be used for business. The presentation was fact filled, fast paced, fun and highly productive. The presentation focused on how to use powerful social networking.

Allen Wishner, CEO, Flexible Benefit Service Corporation, provided an in-depth discussion of Health Savings Accounts and their impact on lowering costs for both employers and their employees.

Networking at the conference
The conference featured a number of fantastic networking opportunities at exciting locations. Among these was a “pubcrawl” tour of many of New Orleans famous, and less then famous spots. Melody McKay and Hans Cats were announced the winners of the “38 Bars and a Story Contest!” Closing out the conference, a great time was had by all at the Masquerade Party at THE ELMS MANSION – with dinner, entertainment and lots of libations! 
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NATD in New Orleans: new members

New members voted into NATD
The following are new members voted into the NATD:
All Phone Company - Concord, CA - Miguel Grimblat
NexTech Partners, Inc. - Sarasota, FL - Brad Cohen
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NATD in New Orleans: Board election

NATD approves officers
The NATD General Meeting approved the slate of officers as nominated from the nominating committee. (Please note that several trustee positions were not up for reelection this year.) Here are the officers:

President - Melody Mckay
Past President - Chris Bonde
Vice President - Ken Cooke
Treasurer - Nigel Skinner
Secretary - Brian Kiep
VP of Europe - Richard Howard
Director - Scott Carrothers ^Back To Top

NATD in New Orleans: NATD Charities

NATD Charity Sponsors
The NATD Charity Committee, chaired by Denny McBroom, chooses charities that have deeply impacted a specific member's life or the lives of members of their family. This year's Winter 2009 Recipient was Julie Perry, who has had a family member affected by PKU Disease.  A $5,000 donation was made to Vanderbilt University Medical Center Division of Medical Genetics (PKU Disease). You can learn how research being done to improve the quality of life for PKU patients is having a huge impact on people with PKU, and is improving PKU patient's ability to lessen PKU's impacts. Learn more by clicking here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/video/flv/
generic.html?s=inwi10s2498q89d

Here are the companies that sponsored holes in the golf event that raised money for this year's charity:  Black Box Resale Services; Boyle & Voss, P.A.; BSL Telephony Services, Inc.; CMS Communications; Comtalk, Inc.; Fonesys Communications; Ghekko Ltd.; Mac Source Inc.; MF Communications (UK) LLP; NTTN; Panaseas International, Inc.; Paragon Communications; Prospect Communications; SoTel Systems, LLC; Synergy Telcom, Inc.; T&T Communications, Inc.; Takson Technology Limited; Telcom Express, Inc.; Telcom Systems & Services; Teleswitch Telecommunications.

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NATD in New Orleans: Meeting follow up

On behalf of the NATD Board, I would like to thank you for attending the NATD Meeting in New Orleans last week.  Looks like the NATD was good luck for the New Orleans Saints!

Here is some follow-up information of things we discussed in New Orleans:

The link to the Social Media Presentation by Patrick O'Malley which we set up is http://617patrick.com/natd.html.

The link to pictures from the meeting is http://www.natdmeetings.com/PhotoAlbums/natdneworleans2010/.

The link to our charity in Haiti, God's Littlest Angels of Haiti is http://glahaiti.org/  Please make a donation of ANY size.

If you liked New Orleans, wait until you see Paris!  For more info, please go to http://www.natdmeetings.com/paris2010.htm

Interested in trying out the NTTN?  Want to refer it to someone else and earn some $$$?  Then please go to http://www.telecomcompanies.com/.

Thanks again for coming to NATD 2010.

Keep in touch and let me know how we are doing!

Thanks,

Joe Marion
NATD Executive Director
www.natd.com
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NATD members in the news

ScanSource Communications enters agreement with IBM and ShoreTel
ScanSource Communications announced at IBM’s Lotusphere conference that it will be offering an integrated unified communications (UC) solution from IBM Lotus Foundations Reach and ShoreTel. Through this agreement, ScanSource Communications plans to offer the total UC solution, named ShoreTel for IBM Lotus Foundations, to its reseller partners. The solution includes the IBM Lotus Foundations Reach, an appliance designed for small to medium businesses (SMBs) that customizes and extends IBM Lotus Sametime's UC and collaboration capabilities, as well as the ShoreTel UC products.  What’s more, ScanSource Communications has the ability to integrate the entire UC solution for resellers looking to offer an all-in-one IT, communication and collaboration service to their end-user customers.
Visit www.scansourceinc.com.





SoTel announces new VoIP applications for the SMB marketplace
SoTel IP Services announced a new set of service applications enabling agents to sell the latest generation of VoIP products. The new applications named Opti-Pipe IP and Opti-Link IP are designed to offer high performance Internet access and hosted conference calling applications to the SMB marketplace. SoTel Opti-Pipe IP provides customers with quality commercial-grade Internet access for dynamic integrated SIP service from SoTel Systems. Opti-Pipe IP Internet access is delivered over an industry award winning Tier 1 backbone and is available through multi-year agreements with competitive pricing. SoTel is offering up to two months free Opti-Pipe IP service through March 31, 2010. SoTel Opti-Link IP is designed for small business customers who budget expenses and prefer a flexible conference calling application with enterprise level features. The Opti-Link IP plan provides on-demand conference calling access for up to 32 simultaneous participants for as little as $5.95 per month and less than four cents per minute per party.
Visit www.sotelsystems.com.
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