Like many industry peers and friends I’ve come to know through channel and tech events – I am a people person. I thrive on the connection and new thinking that can come when we get the chance to meet up face-to-face and without screens. Over the past year and a half, like many, I transitioned to a work from anywhere and work from home environment and a large portion of that time was spent interacting virtually with my team, partners and clients.  Last month we began resuming a few in-person events smaller in size, but I didn’t know exactly how much I was missing big, annual in-person events until I attended The Channel Company’s Xchange 2021 this week.  

It marked Nerdio’s first ever attendance at XChange – an event dedicated to helping attendees build strategic business relationships, determine business agendas, and set the future direction of the channel. We participated in the Exhibition Hall, boardrooms and networking events – and took home the tremendous honor of being voted ‘Best Newcomer’ by over 200 MSPs in attendance as part of the 2021 Xcellence Awards!  

As a company new to XChange but established in the MSP industry and well steeped in the unique needs of managed service providers, we felt great about our position and relationships in the channel prior to the event and even more so now. I am incredibly proud of our team and amazed at how eager and collaborative our employees are in finding new ways to reach and help companies looking to benefit from Microsoft Azure and desktop virtualization.  

While the Best Newcomer award is one of the event highlights – there are MANY more. I’ve recapped a few of my favorites for those who couldn’t attend XChange this year or who have never been. It is an event like no other and Nerdio can’t wait to be back next year.  

Top XChange 2021 ‘Newcomer’ Highlights 

• Exhibition Hall Energy – Event organizers optimized this year’s Exhibition Hall to allow for more space between booths and make attendees feel comfortable. We saw a lot of excitement and interest from attendees stopping by our booth to learn more about Cloud PCs and how Windows 365 differs from Azure Virtual Desktop. The energy was palpable!  
• Boardrooms – The Boardrooms were arguably my second favorite highlight as we were put in front of MSPs and folks who expressed interest in our space and even sometimes solutions. The effort The Channel Company puts into “matchmaking” boardrooms ahead of the event paid off in ensuring the educational content we shared about demystifying Azure was of value to the MSPs who participated and that everyone walked away feeling their time was well spent.  
• Sincere and Authentic Interactions – As mentioned, I do love connecting (and reconnecting) with people. Because The Channel Company and CRN are channel staples, I got to see people who don’t usually attend all of the same channel events we do at Nerdio. For example, I caught up with a few of CRN’s wonderful journalists on-site and got face time with partners and distributors I hadn’t seen in a while.  

 SEE A FULL LIST OF UPCOMING EVENTS NERDIO WILL BE ATTENDING HERE