SharePoint Dan

Predictions for SPC 2009

Dan — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:00:50 +0000

For some reason people like predictions as to what “could” happen at a conference or event. It seems that whenever there’s an Apple developer’s conference there’s a new or refined product released causing a mad rush to Apple stores. For conferences like VMWare’s VMWorld, there typically isn’t a mad dash to MicroCenter to pick up a new copy of Workstation or ESX, and likewise, with Microsoft release event, there might be a growing buzz to pick up something like Windows 7, but there hasn’t been this amount of buzz since the unveiling of the Apple iPhone 3GS at the Apple World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC).

That’s right, there’s a buzz in Vegas about the next iteration of the Microsoft Products and Technologies platform, SharePoint Server 2010. Back in April of this year, Tom Rizzo, the Sr. Director of the SharePoint product group announced that Microsoft SharePoint “14” is SharePoint 2010. There has been significant build up of speculation as to what SharePoint 2010 would provide for and how it would change. The product group provided a little insight with the preliminary system requirements on their blog as well as announcements of the technical preview and a sneak peek of capabilities. At the Best Practices Conference in August 2009, Arpan Shah provided the keynote address and demonstrated some capabilities that whet the appetite for several attendees for SP2010.

So similar to The Unofficial predictions that the Cult of Mac and other Mac followings tend to make before a conference or event, I’ve assembled a few different predictions from the SharePoint community regarding what they perceive will occur at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009.

Please remember that these are predictions and speculations and do not have any actual verity.

Beer
First speculation from the king of SharePint, Andrew Woodward mentioned that he thinks there will be beer. I can only assume with over 190 RSVP’s through Andrew Connell’s web site for SharePint that the beer will flow and loosen the grey matter to allow for better penetration of information. I would say that things are looking good for this prediction

Duet on Stage
Other speculations point to there being a good chance of Huey Lewis and Steve Ballmer singing a duet together on stage to get the concert started right. This one isn’t looking very probable.

The Hangover
Chances are good that there will be a few “Hangover” like experiences and stories circulating about conference attendees stealing a police cruiser and Mike Tyson’s Tiger. Again, probable, but hopefully no one ends up roasted on a roof.

Cowboy Hats
The SharePoint Hillbilly (Mark Rackley) thinks that there’s a good chance of other attendees attempting to take Eric Shupp’s cowboy hat, in which a fist fight may ensue. Highly probable, messing with the SharePoint Cowboy’s hat is a criminal offense in Texas and recognized by the other 49 states of the United States.

#ShareEvents to Attend
There will be a slew of #ShareEvents to include #ShareSushi, #ShareCanyon, #ShareCab, #ShareFood, #ShareJump with the likes of with Paul Swider, Dux Sy, Clayton Cobb, Mark Rackley, Marcy Kellar, Steven Fowler and others. Extremely probable, in fact you can sight up for these events. For more info on #ShareEvents: http://2009-10-18-shareindian.eventbrite.com/

#ShareEvents to Avoid
Apparently most attendees are seeking to avoid #ShareFlu as aptly termed by Dan Lewis. Probability on this one is pretty high, most folks probably aren’t going to Vegas to pick something up that will make them miserable.

Flash Mob
The SharePoint Community that participates in SharePoint Saturday, SharePoint Code Camps, MOSS Camps, SPTechCon, SharePoint Best Practices and other assorted events will Flash Mob several different venues with groups of 200 or more as aptly noted by Mr. End User SharePoint, Mark Miller.

Community
The community of MVPs, SharePoint Professionals and users will come even closer together, making new friendships and renewing old.

Sessions
Morning sessions won’t have quite the attendance of those sessions that are later in the day (come on, it’s Vegas…).

Best. Product. Ever
SharePoint 2010 will be released in November 2009, it will be the greatest software product ever and it will be free for all. Pure speculation, but wouldn’t it be grand if that were the case?

Social Networking
There’s a good chance that Twitter will see #SPC09 and #SPCON09 hash tag topics start showing up in the “Trends” section of Twitter.

Wireless at SPC09
During the Key Note, there’s speculation that the wireless will fail out completely, similar to what happens to Twitter every so often with the Fail Whale (http://go.spdan.com/failwhale). Hopefully the CommNet infrastructure is flexible there at the conference venue to support the 7,000 attendees.

Updates from the Community

There is speculation from Joy Earles that there will be “at least 2 arrests, 1 sprained ankle, one male misidentified as female, & lots o’ stuff learned about SharePoint”! While I don’t condone activities that will have folks getting arrested, I can definitely see with such a large conference there are possibilities.

That’s all of the initial speculation, I’m sure that there will be more as the hours tick down til the event. Check back for updates as more predictions come in

SharePoint Saturday Richmond

Dan — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:11:50 +0000

Live in the greater Richmond metropolitan area? Looking for some great SharePoint information in a low key setting where you can easily interact with the Pros? Then check out SharePoint Saturday Richmond, a grass roots event with excellent speakers to boot.
If you’re free on 21 November, head on over for SPS Richmond. Registration opens up at 10 AM on 14 October 2009 - http://spsrichmond.eventbrite.com/

For more information about the event, check out http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/richmond

VMWare Fusion 3.0 - Coming Soon

Dan — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 06:40:08 +0000

Similar to several other applications, with the introduction of Snow Leopard (Mac OSX 10.6) it’s all about optimization of processor cycles using the 64 bit architecture of the underlying Darwin platform.
With this upgrade it several software vendors are working expeditiously to release upgraded applications that better leverage memory and the platform.
For virtualization on the Mac, there are a few different solutions, my personal choice is VMWare Fusion which allows for the operation of virtual machines built with other VMware tools such as Workstation.
With the next iteration of the VMWare Fusion software, Windows 7 will be supported as a host operating system. More information?
http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/fusion3-preorder.html
On a side note, if you’re looking to use Windows Server 2008 x64 R2 and you’re still running VMware Fusion 2, Fusion will not be able to recognize your VM. Simply tell it that you’re running Windows Server 2008 x64 and your machine will boot up, ready for usage.

ShareClave 2010 Unconference

Dan — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:30:26 +0000

Not going to the SharePoint Conference 2009 in Vegas due to circumstances beyond your control? Live in the Northern Virginia area? Want to know more about SharePoint 2010? Check out ShareClave, the 2010 Unconference on 24 October in Reston, VA at the Microsoft Technology Center.

The agenda is a hybrid conference / unconference schedule. The first half of the day will be structured with a few presentations from professionals in the SharePoint community that have been working with SharePoint 2010 for a while now. The latter half of the day will be unconference style where breakout groups form and go through different topics a little more indepth.

To register go here quick: http://shareclave.org/Register/Register.html

SharePint DC – 11 August 2009

Dan — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:41:58 +0000

It’s been a couple of weeks since our last SharePint DC event held in Old Towne Alexandria and it’s time to switch things up a bit as we invade Washington DC. Come kick back and catch up with your colleagues over a cold pint of your favorite ale or lager as we meet up just near Union Station at the Capital City Brewery.

What: SharePint, an opportunity to get together with other SharePoint professionals, enthusiasts and folks in the community to chat about what’s going on – no pressure, no presentation, no phluff. :-) You’ve probably heard of SharePint before at events like TechEd, SPTechCon and SharePoint Saturday, with the term initially picked up and coined by the likes of Andrew Woodward across the pond. More on this? Check out – http://www.21apps.com/sharepint/perchance.

Where: Washington DC’s Capital City Brewery Capitol Hill Location located about a block away from Union Station.

The Capitol City Brewery is located at 2 Massachusetts Avenue, NE, Washington, DC 20001.

When: 6:15 PM is when I hope to be there, the more the merrier!!!

How: Well, it’s quite easy, you show up, you bring your own beverage money, and enjoy the atmosphere and fun.

Any questions, pop me a note via twitter @usher and be sure to follow @sharepintdc.

It’s all in the brand…

Dan — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 01:47:51 +0000

Most of the time, I try to keep posts related to either a SharePoint topic or an event or something that I’ve been pondering with regard to architecture, infrastructure or administration. This weekend however was a real treat to have Heather Waterman, one of the SharePoint Branding subject matter experts, pay a visit to the Washington DC metropolitan area.
For those of you that don’t know Heather, she’s been in the SharePoint field for several years and has designed and implemented several complex and alluring site layouts. She’s developed and designed themes and layouts that are sold commercially to give SharePoint that not so SharePoint out of the box look that we all work to keep our implementations not look like. But there’s definitely another side to Heather that we don’t always see.
So during Heather’s visit, I was fortunate enough to get to spend some time and pick her mind about several SharePoint things to include branding, end user interactions, usability, information workers, upcoming conferences, as well as how we can work better to foster the community.
But over a pint of Guinness at the Dubliner in DC I was fortunate to receive some advice and life lessons that I’ll definitely take to heart. Amazing how the community looks after it’s own through trials that we all face.
Heather was hoping to take a tour of the National Capitol while up here, but unfortunately things fell through. So instead, I decided to do the next best thing and introduce her to the President while here in DC. Now granted, it wasn’t the sitting current day president, but hey, meeting President Jefferson, who was very cordial mind you especially on such short notice. After our fine Irish dinner or corned beef and cabbage and Guinness we wandered around to Madame Tussaud’s in DC where TJ lives in a wax representation. It’s quite an interesting museum with several pop stars and American leaders, but I’m not quite certain that it measures up all the way to the wax museum in London.
Overall a fun time in DC, for any of you that make your way to Northern Virginia or DC, pop me a tweet @usher.

SharePoint Saturday Baltimore - 25 July 2009

Dan — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 20:16:05 +0000

Yet another SharePoint Saturday Event has come and gone, this time in Baltimore, MD at the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Technology Incubator on 25 July 2009. The event was sponsored by a plethora of different groups which if mentioned could entail an entire blog post, with a team led up by a core group of Baltimore SharePoint User Group leadership it was an event to remember with speakers coming in from across the country. The weekend started off in the Inner Harbor at the Speaker’s dinner at the Meli Patisserie and Bistro followed by an evening out about, exploring the inner harbor in the pouring rain. I decided that my best option was to hit up dinner and then make my way back to Arundel Mills to rest of and polish up slides for the talk I was giving on Saturday afternoon. The dinner was terrific and it was great to see Joel Oleson, Mike Watson, Geoff Varosky, Paul Schaeflein, Dux Sy, Cathy Dew, Susan Lennon, Dan Lewis, Eric Harlan, Shadeed Eleazer, Linc Williams, Ken Lo, Mark Miller, and last but definitely not least Michael Noel.
Saturday went off without a hitch with the presentations well received and probably the largest group I’ve seen stay through the entire day for the Saturday evening wrap-up.
Post SharePoint Saturday Wrapup, it was off to Ruby Tuesday’s where the power went out due to some torrential downpours, so SharePint was effectively delayed.
All in all a great event and I’m excited to see the momentum pickup with the SharePoint Saturday events - a big thank you to the planning committee!

If you’re looking for my slide deck, feel free to download it in PowerPoint 2007 format, or to view it through SlideShare.net.

MidAtlantic SharePoint Regional Users Conference 2009

Dan — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:28:55 +0000

Wrapping up a fantastic week of SharePoint goodness, I returned to Northern Virginia from Boston’s SharePoint Technology Conference and returned to the regular song and dance of being home. Friday afternoon however, I had the pleasure of presenting more Architectural Considerations goodness to the 2009 MidAtlantic SharePoint Regional Users Conference. The conference sported several SharePoint experts to include Bob Mixon, Sahil Malik and I even bumped into Paul Galvin in the hallways - thanks to the DC SUG for putting this event together!
Slides available at the following: PowerPoint 2007 Format

Next stop, Boston - SPTechCon Summer 2009

Dan — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:28:58 +0000

Working backwards a little bit before pressing forward, next trip on presentation lane…

After spending a few days back in the office attending to pending client tasks, it was off to Boston, hoping on Amtrak’s Acela Express to Boston’s South Station with my laptop in tow, reviewing slides and working through a few different new anecdotes for the presentation the next day.

The conference was a great time to hang out and enjoy the company of other brains in the SharePoint community to include Todd Klindt and Mike Watson. My session went well and was well attended. After the conference we decided to check out downtown Boston’s Union House - unfortunately it was a little crowded. So our group of Dux Sy,Fabian Williams, Mike Taylor, Eric Kraus, Darrin Bishop, Maurice Prather wound up down the street at a local Irish Pub to share our thoughts on the conference and different areas of SharePoint that we currently were working with and some of the challenges and opportunities we’d recently engaged in. Great time to say the least!

My deck from the presentation is available at: http://go.spdan.com/sptechcon-deck

SharePoint Saturday Charlotte – Recap

Dan — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 06:20:16 +0000

So I figure that a month has passed and I owe a bit of a recapitulation of yet another speaking event that I had an opportunity to be a part of. First off, I must give credit to the team that put on the event, led up by Dan Lewis – well done!

For me, it was a great kick off to spending the week on the road, speaking in Boston, MA and Reston, VA thereafter. While I was not able to make it to the speaker’s dinner due to unforeseen conflicts, I was stoked to spend the better part of Saturday and Sunday morning with the speakers that included a stellar bunch of folks. I hadn’t met several of the speakers in person, but knew of them through their blogs and Twitter.

I presented on a topic near and dear to my heart dealing with logical architectures and the considerations that come into play when planning for and then implementing such a system. The session went off without a hitch and the largest crowd I’ve had as well.

My slides for the event are available here: PowerPoint 2007 format.