No longer just a place to go to tell people what you had for lunch or what you’re watching on television (although that’s totally still important), Twitter is also becoming an indispensable tool for staying current with new developments in your industry, and learning what your colleagues and competitors are up to.
Where to begin, though? Right here, with these 14 tweeting members of the Canadian channel community, including vendors, analysts and fellow partners. Add them to your favourite Twitter browser and you’ll be better informed, and perhaps entertained a little too.
Bradley Brodkin is the president of Toronto’s HighVail Systems and a veteran of the IT solution provider community. He’s one of Hitachi Data Systems’ top partners in Canada, and stuck with Oracle after their acquisition of Sun Microsystems. HighVail is heavily into storage and servers, and Brodkin shares industry news that catches his interest as well as the odd tale from the IT trenches.
Follow him: @BradleyBrodkin
Coreen Bouchard is the CEO of PureLogic IT Solutions, an Ottawa-area VAR that was named the city’s fastest growing company in 2012. Focused on services in Ottawa and Toronto, particularly in the data centre space, Bouchard has built the business from the ground-up. Her tweets are a mix of the professional, with updates on the company, and the personal — let’s hope she doesn’t leave the channel to start that taco truck business. We hope she’ll tweet more in the future, though.
Follow her: @CoreenBouchard
Adam Sprague is the vice-president and COO of BrunNet Inc., a Fredricton-based solution provider and partner of HP, Cisco, Microsoft and others. Sprague provides some East Coast flavour to our list, tweeting technology news from a Maritime perspective as well as sharing a healthy dose of sports commentary — Boston Bruins and Red Sox, primarily. If you follow him, suggest he re-examine his sports loyalties.
Follow him: @adamjsprague
Dave MacDonald is the CEO of Softchoice, which CDN ranked as the top solution provider in Canada in 2012. He primarily shares news of interest from the world of technology and business, but usually manages to share some brief thoughs on the news as well, and offered some live commentary when Blackberry CEO Thorsten Heins recently spoke to the Empire Club.
Follow him: @SoftchoiceDMAC
While her title with Toronto-based solution provider Navantis Inc. is vice-president of marketing and alliances, Susie Ibbotson could also hold the title of chief twitter officer. In addition to sharing the latest news from Navantis, a key Microsoft Canada partner, Ibbotson also shares events of interest to the community, and often live tweets the proceedings as well, sometimes with a photo or two.
Follow her: @susieibbotson
Ted Garner is the CEO of Brampton, Ont.-based IT Weapons, a company that has become a perennial podium finisher at CDN’s Channel Elite Awards in recent years, and moved into managed services before it was cool. Garner shares tales of IT Weapons’ continuing growth, news of company events and industry news, and the odd quote from the movie Rocky. Don’t let the gun in the profile pic fool you — he’s quite approachable.
Follow him: @ITWepon1
Renny Monaghan is vice-president of Canadian marketing for Salesforce.com, and the person behind a new marketing push in the Canadian market for the vendor that innovated the hosted CRM business. A frequent speaker at technology industry events across Canada, Monaghan shares the latest company news, other stories of interest, and the odd job posting as well.
Follow him: @rennym
A veteran of the Canadian IT channel and reseller community, Dave Walsh is currently the senior vice-president of North American sales for C2G, formerly known as Cables to Go. He ran Ingram Micro Canada’s channel marketing for five years, and also led NEC’s operations in Canada. He has a lot of experience to share, so he should really tweet more often.
Follow him: @DaveatC2G
A Microsoftie and a Canadian, Mark Relph finds himself in Seattle where he’s senior director at Microsoft focused on VC engagement and business development. He tweets regularly about matters Microsoft and the wider world of IT, his travels for the Redmond software giant, and his ongoing loyalty, despite the geographic distance, to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Follow him: @MRelph
Fiaaz Walji is the Canada country manager for IT security firm Websense, and is based out of Ottawa. He shares industry news of interest, usually with a security focus, or sometimes on gadgets, as well as personal observations from his travels (particularly hotels with poor customer service) and, of course, the latest news from Websense.
James Alexander knows more about the channel than most people have forgotten. While he now helps vendors understand the power of the channel as a senior vice-president with the Info-Tech Research Group, he’s a channel veteran, helping to found Compucentre and later holding a senior leadership role with Metafore. He shares news of channel interest, including nuggets from Info-Tech’s research.
Follow him: @JamesFAlexander
Paul Edwards is a veteran Canadian channel analyst and the director of infrastructure channels research at IDC Canada. His time in the channel goes back to the mid-1990s and a stint as a channel journalist, before joining Compaq as a channel marketing manager. He shares his observations on the world of technology and enjoys live-tweeting conference keynotes, although we’d like to see him do it more often.
Follow him: @PaulEdwards_IDC
A contender for the title of tallest person in the channel, Darren Bibby is program vice-president for channels and alliances at IDC Corp. and is based out of Toronto. Before becoming a channel analyst, he spent two years as a partner development manager for Microsoft Canada. A frequent traveler, he regularly shares valuable insight from tech conferences across the content.
Follow him: @DarrenBibby
As president of Ottawa-based MarketWorks, Kelly Hutchinson is based in Ottawa and helps solution providers do business with the federal government. She’s also a fierce channel advocate, and a must-follow to stay up to date on the federal IT procurement scene as partners and the government adjust to the shared services model.
Follow her: @CapITal411
As long as you’re building your Twitter lists, be sure to follow the team at Computer Dealer News and IT World Canada for all your latest news from the reseller channel and the wider Canadian technology sector, including:
@CompDealerNews: The latest channel headlines from CDN
@PaoloCDN: CDN editor Paolo Del Nibletto
@JeffJedrasITW: CDN assistant editor Jeff Jedras
@HowardITWC: Editor of IT World Canada and Computing Canada
@BrianJJackson: Editor of ITBusiness.ca
@NestorArellano: Senior writer with IT World Canada
