Unofficial Spiceworks

Last week Spiceworks announced a new feature “Ask the Expert” and with it drawing to a close tomorrow I thought I would do a quick review of how well it went.

Currently the group stands with 26 topics of which 15 are unanswered. That may seem like a lot of unanswered questions but if you have a scan though the unanswered questions page it’s all because the original poster hasn’t replied. Chris (Microsoft) has managed to reply to every question with a full and detailed answer and with 146 posts and just over 240 members in the group it appears to have been a success.

Although the group was not intended for SpiceHeads to get involved in both Billdozer and Justin.Davison managed to pull a best answer and helpful post out of the group as well just showing the power of the community and how people are ready and willing to help when ever they can.

Well done Chris though for getting a total of 8 best answers and 8 helpful posts.

Spiceworks are already starting to plan the next “Ask the expert” and unofficially we are expecting it to be with CDW about a wide range of products or CA about backup software. Only time will tell.

You still have one more day to get your questions in to Chris if you have any! So ask away on the community today! Before its to late! Ask The Expert: Chris (Microsoft)

Last week Spiceworks reached 1 million SpiceHeads and tomorrow is the big party.

Spiceworks has managed to get 1 million IT Pros using Spiceworks in under 4 years. With SpiceHeads in 196 countries around the globe, Spiceworks has managed to become the fastest growing and most widely used network management system.

With 1 million SpiceHeads and now SpiceRex it is now a ‘A force to be reckoned with?’

Now there are over 1,000,000 users banding together large companies like Microsoft, Dell, HP, CDW stand up and take part providing us with deals and help thought out the community. Its a great place to get advice and recommendations from other IT pro’s.

…IT feels pretty darn good to be 1 in a million, doesn’t it?

So make sure you join in the party tomorrow at 12:30pm CDT or 6:30 GMT. It will be streamed around the world, checkout the UStream Page here.

It will be a great event to watch with talks from:

• Scott Abel, CEO & Co-founder
• Greg Kattawar, VP of Dev & Co-founder
• Francis Sullivan, CTO & Co-founder
• Jay Hallberg, VP of Marketing & Co-founder
• Tabrez, Dir. of Products & 1st Spiceworks Employee
• Marcelo, Dir. of Support
• Nic, Your Spiceworks Community Manager
• (& more of your favorites!)

And even some SpiceHeads

• benhar (one of Spiceworks longest-time users!)
• akp982 (2009 Spicy Winner – The Champion)
• Scott Alan Miller (2009 Spicy Winner – The Innovator)
• DScammell (2009 Spicy Winner – The Hero)
• Spiceworks 1 Millionth User?!
• (& some other surprise SpiceHeads)

Checkout Spiceworks.com for more information!

The ups and downs of working with social media my experiences with Spiceworks

First off… This isn’t really all Spiceworks related but just had the idea for a post along these lines and Spiceworks-News is about the only place I could put it. It is however all based on my experience with Spiceworks.

So everyone knows what social media is now days? And that big buzz word of “web 2.0” and companies like Spiceworks are starting to exploit it to market there products and IT conferences like Spiceworld. Places like Skype, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Digg and Ustream are regularly used.

So what do I think are the advantages and disadvantages of Social media and networking…

The ups (Advantages)

There are many pro’s to social media and well they do outweigh the downs.

A great example of this was at Spiceworld 2009 Austin, I (akp982) was about to receive a Spicies award when Justin Dorfman (from Frugal IT) had the idea of using Skype to allow me to give my acceptance speech. I ran around and got a microphone ready and he ran off to the Spiceworks Staff to hand him his laptop which got pushed onto stage. This was great, I was watching the live stream though Ustream and also talking live to the presenters. It was a very weird feeling I was in the UK and talking and watching people in the US. Without the Ustream chat to get me on skype with Justin and without skype for allowing us to make a “call” it would not have been possible. It was organised so quick the presenters were shocked to hear that I was ready to talk to them.

Social media mainly things like twitter can really help promote your products very quickly by telling lots of people instantly. When Spiceworks 4.1 was released it was mentioned by over 100 people on twitter and Spiceworks are expecting more people to spread 4.5 when it comes out. From this people will quickly write reviews to jump on the back off this and give their blog or website a boost in traffic and hope for some regular readers. Frugal IT is and example of a site that did well at this with there Spiceworld 2009 coverage (http://fr.ugal.it/spiceworld-2009) they were able to get multiple people to tweet, blog and just share their link. With this link spread all over the world, people would then visit the site pickup on the ads and information around the Spiceworld page and may then come back in the future. I know we (Spiceworks-News) jump on even the oddest of things. We often pickup on blog posts about or mentioning Spiceworks and re post the first paragraph in hope for a ping back. Posts like (Getting IT spicey at your church) got a ping backs out there and we may have got another 1/2 visitors (they all add up over time to now around 300 people looking at Spiceworks-News on a daily basis according to Google analytics… if only some of them posted comments).

Read More…

Jen just posted the below, are you from the UK can you give it ago?

Hey UK SpiceCorps Members & Spice Heads!

Quick favor! We’re applying for a Techworld’s award in the UK and could use your help.

If you could chime in here (in 500 words or less) and post:

“Why I like using Spiceworks & think it’s ‘the best network management product’…”

….we’d really appreciate it! Anything goes — just be as ‘real’ as you always are here in the Community.

And thx in advance – your authentic Spiceworks-using voice will allow us to add a heck of a lot more spice to our submission than others will.

Cheers,

Jen

Read more and post yours

I’ve done my bit now your turn, you can see my attempt below; its not that great and not sure its really a “chime in” mainly as i don’t know what a “chime in” really is?

I like using Spiceworks and believe it is the best IT management product around because it provides me with all the tools I need to carry out my job in an effective manner for free. From the inventory to the helpdesk every little bit of Spiceworks is designed for IT pro’s by IT’s pro’s.

I find every aspect of Spiceworks useful; the inventory allows me to keep track of my whole network from new machines being added to new software being installed. With the added bonus of a helpdesk I can keep track of all my user’s problems and link them back to devices or software to help me gain the most out of the reporting features in which provide me with an accurate and up-to-date overview of my hardware.

Spiceworks is also great for alerting me when my servers go offline; with its powerful monitoring features I am able to keep track of toner levels and server uptime via email. It also provides me with a great way of keeping track of service providers that I use.

With new features being added and updated all the time Spiceworks is one of the fastest growing bits off software I use; there are so many great new things being added like the network map which now allows me automagically create a map of my network saving me time and money on network mapping software.

But by all means the best part of Spiceworks is the community; it’s a fun and exciting place to get answers to my problems and help people with theirs. It’s also a great way to keep to up to date with the latest IT news and get in contact with vendors about their products.

The Spiceworks team are also second to none for support; they all love their job and love being part of the community. They are willing to help you out where ever you need and regularly hold conference calls with members of the community about their product and services.

Spiceworks is the only bit of software that has adverts that I like; they are targeted to IT pros about things we will be interested in, also with people from Microsoft, AMD and IBM in the community we can keep up to date with product information and get hand on help with questions.

And that’s why I love Spiceworks in fewer than 500 words. There are bits that I have missed off im sure.

Also to show how much I love Spiceworks, checkout my website http://www.unofficialspiceworks.com/

Ohh and yes I did have to get some self promotion in there

Read more and post yours

http://it.tmcnet.com has posted about Spiceworks 4.0

Jun 18, 2009 (Close-Up Media via COMTEX) — Spiceworks, which provides what it called the first free social IT management application for small and medium businesses, announced the release of the Spiceworks IT Desktop version 4.0.

Spiceworks stated that the new version has several enhancements that make it easier for small and midsize businesses to manage “Everything IT.” They include the ability to visually map a company’s IT network and the addition of 3rd party management plug-ins from Microsoft, LiveOffice, Intel and Trend Micro. In addition, Spiceworks now integrates with Twitter and allows users to turn Windows events into social media alerts for collaborative problem-solving and to share real-time SMB IT trends with the world’s largest network of IT professionals.

Read more

Fredric Paul on http://www.bmighty.com posted about

The latest version of the popular free IT management tool for SMBs adds the ability to visually map your company’s IT network, Twitter integration, and 3rd-party management plug-ins from Microsoft, LiveOffice, Intel, and Trend Micro.

bMighty has long been a fan of Spiceworks. The company sponsored the first bMighty SMB Theater and Pavilion at Interop in New York last year, and I moderated a couple panels at the inaugural SpiceWorld user conference in Austin, Texas last fall.

Read more

Attended the first Google Apps Webinar and want to know more?

Receive additional information on how to deploy Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar and other web apps to your employees. It’s all hosted by Google, saving your company the time, money and hassles of managing these IT solutions yourself.

New migration and sync tools make the switch to Google easier than ever.

By the end of this event, you’ll have the answers to these questions:

• What is Google Apps?
• How can Google Apps cut costs and create efficiencies – in other words, save money, time and headaches?
• How can Google Apps help businesses drive innovation?

Register Now for this FREE webinar.
Join over a million businesses saving time and money! Learn how switching from Microsoft Exchange saves cost and reduces IT hassles.

Title: Switching from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps Made Easy
Date: Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
Time: 11am PST / 2pm EST

Read more

With Spiceworks 4.0 now released Spiceworks are working hard to get “The Voice of IT” together.

The Voice of IT will help companies like HP, Microsoft and Netgear get the feedback they want about there products.

With surveys, polls, questionnaires in the making you could be part of the next revolutionary product.

Spiceworks News will have the latest news as it gets released…