Being in this business 20+ years, I can say I have attended a few conferences. This conference is truly something special. From the accommodations to the speakers, to the attendees, to the topic. SharePoint Best Practices.
We go to a lot of conferences where we are shown how to do something. An extremely smart person sits on stage, dazzles us with his/her technical brilliance, and we go wow. How do we replicate that? We forget the what’s and why’s instead taken by the how of technology. The speaker becomes a type of ‘god’ that we all look up to and try to emulate when we get home.
Not this conference. This conference is about clarity, direction, and confidence. The speakers here are not on display to write code, but to show why they are doing it, how they come about their decisions, and engage the audience. Every speaker is approachable and wants to help. With a track for every discipline, it is refreshing.
I attended as many sessions as I could but I would like to point out three:
1. Joel Oleson’s Keynote. He kicked off the conference on the right note. Engaging and entertaining, Joel openly shared his experiences with SharePoint. It is clear to see that he is a thinker on the product as a platform, the people who are using it, and the folks who are supporting it. His blog reflects this and it is clear to see his evolution in this space. As the product expands and matures, so must we. His keynote reflected this and set the tone.
2. Ruven Gotz. Ruven did an amazing session on mind mapping for Information Architects. It is always a pleasure to watch someone who knows what they are doing. What I loved is that he spoke about his topic without one powerpoint slide. Very Effective! He succeeded in getting his point across.
3. Paul Culmsee. There are not many times in a work life when one of those aha moments come and you meet someone who is of like mind. Paul is that someone. Paul is pushing the envelope of SharePoint and how to make it effective for all. He did an extremely effective session called ‘How to avoid SharePoint becoming a wicked problem’. After explaining the term wicked in context Paul showed us how to utilize a tool to shape our SharePoint deployments before it becomes a wicked problem. His references to information outside of the SharePoint world was nicely woven into the fabric of MOSS 2007. The effect is to illuminate how to plan your deployments properly.
I can’t say it enough, SharePoint will succeed long term because it is a platform. As such, we need to think about the product in a broader sense. Terms like IBIS, mind mapping, Agile, the stuff Joel writes about, the way Bogue, Bleeker, Curry, and English speak about topics.
I am being grossly unfair to the many presenters. These were just a few of the sessions and folks that touched me.