Description: Using SharePoint as a tool to improve the productivity of team when performing testing on existing or new system implementations.

**Targeted Audience…. IT and business users interested in using SharePoint to improve collaboration and productivity associated with new system implementations.                                                                         

Presenters

• Eric Bundy, Special/Technical Projects Manager,  BITHGROUP Technologies 
• Glenn Small, Director, Navigator Management Partners

Description:

Unified Collaboration Solutions offered by Newline Interactive

**Targeted Audience..This solution pertains to Higher Education classrooms, conference rooms, and K12 Classroom spaces as well. We encourage all Members who are interested in a new turnkey solution that provides a seamless, nonproprietary VTC solution.                                                                                                                                                    

 Presenters:

Kelly Minich,Education Account Manager, MD, DC, AVI

Description:
This session will review the changes Microsoft is making in the FAST TRACK services from a single customer success service for Office 365, to the addition of new products and onboarding services, including INTUNE. We are here to help you Envision, On-Board and gain value through your MEEC License Agreement.”

Why INTUNE?
“Educators expect to be productive across a variety of device types with consistent access to the applications they need.
IT, wants to empower employees by providing flexibility, but also needs a scalable way to keep institution information secure across both personal and school – owned devices.

Simplify management of applications and devices with Microsoft INTUNE – a part of your MEEC license bundle.
Provide access to applications, data and resources from virtually anywhere on almost any device, while helping to keep institution information secure.

Benefits include: Device choice, management of Office mobile apps, protect data, manage from the cloud or extend your existing System Center Configuration Manager infrastructure.
**Targeted Audience… Staff responsible for deployment of technology.

Presenters:
Terrell Hadden – Escalation Engineer
Thomas C. Finney – Sr. Relationship Manager
Scott Walker – Technical Account Manager

Description:
If you’re moving to a cloud for your HR, Finance, or Student system, should you bother to document your current business processes? When is the right time to develop future state business processes? We will describe what, why, and how to use business analysis to accelerate your Cloud ERP implementation.

**Targeted Audience.. Organizations planning to adopt new cloud ERP solutions (HR, Finance, Student)

Presenters:
Adam Kutcher, Senior Consultant, Navigator Management Partners

Competency-based Education: Examining Next Generation InstructionalModels

Description:

Competency-based education (CBE) has been receiving a tremendous amount of renewed attention lately, especially In higher education circles. Hundreds of institutions across the US are showing interest, yet many are unsure what a competency-based program entails in terms of implementation details. This 45-minute webinar offers an opportunity to review and discuss the ways institutions are implementing competency-based education and what they have learned in the process.

**Targeted Audience……. Curious higher education academic leaders, faculty, administrators, instructional designers                                            

Presenter: 

"Christopher Sessums, PhD

Learning Strategies Consultant

D2L Ltd.

Project Leadership vs. Project Management - Why it Matters for IT Project Success

Description:

"In this webinar Vantage Point Consulting founders explores important distinctions between project management and project leadership and their effect on project outcomes at education institutions like yours.

If you are planning a strategic project or have projects underway that are stuck or falling behind…ask yourself these questions:

1) Do project sponsors clearly communicate, motivate, mentor and inspire the delivery team and stakeholders?

2) Does the entire organization understand the business objectives for the project and its relationship to longer-term vision and strategy?

3)  Does the team have the right experience, skills, knowledge, and bandwidth needed for success?

4) Are stakeholders engaged throughout the project and feel ""bought in""?

5) Is your communication effective and do you have a plan to manage change during and after project launch?

6) Are the politics of the project fully understood and navigated?

If you answered “No” to any of these questions, Vantage Point Consulting invites you to join us and learn how your project management approach can be the difference between success and failure. We will share real life case study that will convince you that project success means you may have to grow your project managers into project leaders.

**Targeted Audience……. CIO/CTOs, Product Owners, Program Managers, Project Managers, Project Sponsors, PMO                                       

Presenter: "Jeffrey Carpenter, Vice President

Harold Tran, Managing Partner for Higher Education"

Microsoft & Planet Technologies- Cloud Discovery Workshop with Microsoft Azure!

January 12^th, 2017 9am to 3:45 pm

Please register by January 5^th, 2017

Microsoft Elkridge Office

6518 Meadowridge RD

Elkridge, MD 21075

Description:

Hands on Workshop.  Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Services provides cloud-based storage, virtual networks and virtual machines that can be provisioned on-demand to support lab, pilot or production application workloads. In this Hands-on Lab, join Microsoft and Planet Technologies to get you up to speed on the Microsoft Azure platform from an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) perspective. The class is led by a trainer with deep, real-world, Higher Education specific experience with Azure.  All attendees will work through a series of labs geared to provide hands-on experience in Azure. The workshop will take attendees from knowing nothing about the cloud to actually having deployed Virtual Machines and services to the cloud.

**Targeted Audience-Technical Teams with Organizational Sponsorship

Presenters:

Sheela Varadhan, Solution Sales Professional, Microsoft US Education, Azure

Robert (Bob) Ballard , Principal Cloud Strategist, Planet Technologies

**Requirements:

Bring a laptop (and power cord) that runs Linux, OS X or Windows with your favorite browser installed.

Prerequisites: An open mind and a desire to learn; no experience with Azure or cloud computing required!