Five Years can fly by very quickly

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Hello, my name is John O'Donnell and for the last five years all I have done is focus on Microsoft Dynamics CRM! 

Yes its true, after attending a Microsoft CRM 1.0 training class in Fargo in late 2002 I have been employed as a consultant for Microsoft Dynamics CRM for just over five years!!

In those five years I have

  • Worked for three great consulting companies.
  • Answered nearly 6000 newsgroup postings on the CRM newsgroups using my cunningly disguised email address of <csharpconsulting@nospam-hotmail.com-nospam>
  • Had the distinction of being one of the first two Microsoft Dynamics MVP's in the world (at the time) along with my colleague Matt Parks
  • Had the pleasure of seeing clients eyes light up as they finally get the value of a well implemented Dynamics CRM solution
  • Deployed CRM to too many locations and companies to remember.
  • Worked with many talented people (you know who you are)
  • Watched Microsoft CRM 1.0 develop into an awesome Version 4.0 product.
  • Had the support of a wonderful wife (Thanks Kim! - could not have done this without you)

Now I work for Microsoft with a new role so whats next?

In August 07 I was fortunate enough to be hired as a Microsoft Dynamics ISV Architect Evangelist in our Developer Platform Evangelist group. In this new role based in Chicago, my goal is to evangelise the benefits of building solutions on the Dynamics platforms (CRM and AX) to ISV's across North America from Chicago to the West Coast. If you are an ISV in North America thinking whether you should be looking at Dynamics as a development platform contact me!

Evangelism can take many forms. In some cases I can bring value to an ISV simply by being a single point of contact into the Microsoft Dynamics Organization, In other cases I can offer insight and guidance into how or why a solution should be built. Five years of deploying Microsoft CRM can give you a good insight into what companies look for in a CRM solution and I look forward to participating in many brainstorming sessions with current and future ISV's.

In this blog I will of make every effort to keep you up to date about the world of Dynamics with news and even original content!

Thanks for stopping by

 John O'Donnell