While presenting at SPTechCon San Francisco in February, our own Director of Product Evangelism, Christian Buckley, sat down with SPTV's Stacy Deere (@sldeere) and Stephanie Donahue (@stephkdonahue) to discuss his role, his travels, and his thoughts on the state of the SharePoint community. SPTV (@my_SPTV) is a relatively new program that conducts in-depth interviews with experts and companies in the SharePoint space, and can be found at www.MYSP.tv
After last weekend's SharePoint saturday Los Angeles event, Christian is getting ready to hit the road again, speaking at three more events in April:
SHARE Conference Atlanta
http://www.shareconference.com/us/
'The Connection Between Metadata, Social Tools, and Personal Productivity,' Wednesday, April 25th, 11:30am
SharePoint Saturday Belgium
http://sharepointsaturday.org/belgium/Pages
'The Connection Between Metadata, Social Tools, and Personal Productivity,' at 9:30am, and 'Mastering SharePoint Migration Planning,' at 1:30pm
SharePoint Conference.ORG
http://sharepointconference.org
'10 Best SharePoint Features You've Never Used,' and 'Law and Order: Content Governance Strategies'
If you are able to attend one of these events, please be sure to stop by and say hello to Christian. He may also have one or two copies of his latest book to give away, 'Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Creating and Implementing Real-World Projects.' (link) You can follow him on Twitter at @buckleyplanet or LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/christianbuckley
While presenting at the European SharePoint Conference held in Berlin in October, Axceler evangelist Christian Buckley shared his thoughts on areas where Microsoft may look to improve upon the popular SharePoint platform, based on his customer and partner conversations while on the road at various events.
For more insights from Chrisitian on SharePoint, social computing, and various governance and planning topics, you can read his blog here, or follow him on Twitter at @buckleyplanet.
As we close out the year, Christian will be presenting one last time before the holiday season, speaking at the Puget Sound SharePoint User Group this Thursday at 6pm on 'Mastering SharePoint Migration Planning'. In January, he'll be back on the road, presenting multiple sessions at SharePoint Saturday Virginia Beach, VA (Jan 7th) and again at SharePoint Saturday Austin (Jan 21st). Hope to see you there!
Well first things first. It seems my months of training and going to bed early to get up for 6am runs paid off. Not only did I complete my marathon, but I ran a PR of 3:32.36 and qualifed for the Boston Marathon! However, getting on an eight hour flight that evening to Germany was not so much fun!
After a quick cat nap upon arrivial, I had a new surge of energy and was ready to take on the beautiful and sprawling city of Berlin (although I was hobbling around all week).
The Estrel Hotel and Convention Center was a great venue for the SharePoint Conference and our booth location was perfectly situated near a session room and the ever important coffee break station!
Another reason you couldn't miss our booth was because we had the "brightest" booth in the hall. It was almost as if you were entering the Emerald City of Oz, as we lit up the show with green blinky pins, pens and cups!
So many highlights, so little time, so here are our top highlights from the week.
1. Excellent demonstrations led by Gail Shlansky and Alex Davenport on ControlPoint, Davinci and FileLoader. Whenever there was a break, we had a demonstration going on in our booth.
2. Co-sponsoring a great SharePint event (impromptu) with Metalogix, NewsGator, HiSolutions, and Qorus at Am to Pm bar. We had a huge turnout, a great dance party, and more importantly welcomed anybody in the SharePoint Community to attend!
3. Great networking with attendees led by our amazing sales team from our London office. We had so many great conversations during exhibit hours and then those "after" hours as well.
4. Well attended and well received conference sessions presented by Christian Buckley. Christians sessions received great traction and always led to people stopping by our booth afterwards to learn more!
5. Gail Shlansky, our Director of Product Development took on Quest and AvePoint in the Administration Shootout and while we are biased about who "won," the feedback from customers and partners we spoke to agreed.
Team Axceler had a great time at the European SharePoint Conference and hope to have a simliar experience at Connections 2011 in Vegas next week!
After months of training, the big day is finally upon me. I will be running the Bay State Lowell - my 2nd Marathon - this coming Sunday. My goal: 3:35 minutes to qualify for the Boston Marathon!
As soon as I finish up, stretch, hydrate, and make sure I can walk, I’ll be boarding a plane for Berlin. Yes, I will be on my way to the European SharePoint Conference that night!
Axceler is excited to be a silver sponsor of the 2011 conference in Berlin. Please stop by Stand #25 to see if I survived my grueling run, as well as to enter for a chance to win a trip for two to Budapest! We will also be demo’ing our ControlPoint and Davinci products, which you won’t want to miss.
Also, If you’re attending sessions, you’ll definitely want to hit the following lead by Axceler’s Christian Buckley:
Date: Tuesday, October 18th:
Time: 4:15pm
Session Title: T27 - SharePoint’s Social Computing Scorecard
Abstract: A deep dive into the leading social networking contenders (Facebook, Ning, Wave, Jive, Box, etc), comparing and contrasting their capabilities against SP2010 capabilities, and why they are important to the enterprise
Date: Wednesday, October 19th:
Time: 10:00am
Session Title: W2 - 11 Strategic Considerations for SharePoint Migration
Abstract: This presentation outlines 11 critical strategies for migration planning that no project should move forward without
Our globe-trotting evangelist, Christian Buckley, will duck out of the conference early to make an appearance at the CTG Experience Day in Brussels on the 20th. He will be presenting, “Mastering SharePoint Migration Planning”.
During the session he will walk through a five-point migration methodology as well as examine tactical steps and provide guidance on this iterative approach, focusing heavily on information architecture and governance. Attendees will leave with a clear picture of the gaps within their current planning efforts, and actionable steps to get back on track.
Speaking of getting back on track, I need to head out for a final practice run and to figure out where I’ll be enjoying a big bowl of pasta tomorrow night! I hope to see you next week.
Wish me luck!
Come see the Axceler team this week at The SharePoint Technology Conference (follow on Twitter at #SPTechCon) in Boston, being held at the Sheraton Boston Hotel on June 1st through the 3rd (Wed-Fri). Axceler is a Gold sponsor, and will also be hosting a must-attend attendee party, co-sponsored by Jornata and Microsoft (register here). Be sure to drop by our booth and say hello!
For those attending, be sure to check out my three sessions, including a very entertaining SharePoint 101 (beginner) session with Geoff Varosky. Geoff and I will kick things off Wednesday night with a joint 4-minute “lightning talk” in which we will try to convince the masses to attend our Thursday afternoon session. Our pitch is entitled “Going Gaga for SharePoint: A Look at Becoming a SharePoint Rock Star” in which we will attempt to recreate a popular Lady Gaga video.
Our joint session takes place Thursday from 3:15pm to 4:30pm:
9 Ways to Become a SharePoint Rock Star
So you want to become a rock star? We’re talking actual rock star, not a metaphor for “finding stardom” at your company, but that little “band thing” you do on the side after putting in your 9-to-5 each day.
In this session, we will lead you on a fun and adventurous journey where you can not only learn SharePoint, but also springboard into that life of fame and rock stardom that you’ve been dreaming of, using the tools at your disposal during the daily grind. If, by chance, your wildest dreams of becoming a rock star do not come to fruition, you can be rest assured that you can apply what you learn in this session to become a SharePoint rock star - because it's always good to have a backup plan
On Friday, I will conduct two sessions – the first (on metadata best practices) is from 10am to 11:15am, and the second (on migration planning) is from 1:45pm to 3pm:
Looking Under the Hood: How Your Metadata Strategy Impacts Everything You Do
For many users, the importance of a strong metadata and taxonomy strategy is unclear. This presentation will walk through some common end user scenarios (adding documents to a library, participating in an enterprise workflow, finding technical expertise through some of the new social search features in SharePoint 2010) and discuss the metadata and taxonomy implications. The goal of the presentation is to show the importance of metadata and a taxonomy strategy, how the lack of a strategy can impact these common scenarios, and the ability to leverage the full functionality of SharePoint.
Don’t Just Migrate: Transform Your SharePoint Environment
Migration is not just a technical activity (provision a new system, attach and move databases), but should be a much more thoughtful and planned activity. This session will help attendees understand the difficulties surrounding migration and the ample opportunities to transform their data—building a new system that meets their environment vision.
We will discuss fundamentals of capacity planning, the overall migration schedule, how to involve end users in the process, understanding the as-is and to-be system views, outline strategies for taxonomy, and metadata management. Attendees will walk away with an action plan for their transformation and migration efforts.
As always, I will be capturing videos throughout the week as part of my ongoing OneThing video series, talking with experts and MVPs about the one thing that they want people to know about SharePoint 2010. See you there!
Team Axceler is back in the office after a fantastic few days in (sometimes) sunny Florida where we attended DevConnections Orlando 2011. Coming from Seattle, I was one of the few folks happy to welcome the showers and cooler temperatures mid-week, but we were book-ended by beautiful weather. While my primary focus at the event was around two sessions in the SharePoint business and social tracks, Axceler was also an exhibitor, and s I spent a good amount of time talking to customers at the booth. We had strong traffic throughout the event, and were able to finally meet many of our happy customers in person - which is always a treat.
Amidst the many ControlPoint and Davinci Migrator demos, I was able to spend time talking with various partners and SharePoint experts, and capturing additional footage for my video series, The One Thing You Need to Know About SharePoint 2010. I was able to capture footage with Cathy Dew from Summit 7 Systems, Inna Gordin from BA Insight, and Jeff DeVerter from Rackspace, among others.
For the social track, I presented part of an ongoing analysis of competitive social tools in the enterprise space, comparing and contrasting their features to the latest capabilities in SharePoint 2010:
For the business track, my new session explored aspects of migration transformation, focusing on best practices to clean up and reorganize taxonomy, templates, content and configurations before and during migration:
I look forward to participating in two of the upcoming DevConnections Coast-to-Coast events this spring (I'll be presenting multiple sessions in
Boston April 25-27, and
San Diego May 2-4), and their June event (June 13-15) in
London. See you there!
I am finally back in the Seattle office after two weeks abroad helping to launch our new North Sydney, Australia office, and presenting at the regional SharePoint conferences in downtown Sydney, Australia (#AUSPC) and Wellington, New Zealand (#NZSPC).
As a Bronze sponsor of both events, the Axceler team was able to meet many of the participants, introducing ourselves and having great discussions around ControlPoint and Davinci Migrator and the opportunities for growth in each market. Joining me on the ground in Sydney were Garry Smith, Sergio Otoya, and our new in-region Channel Manager, Vijay Raghvani – who also joined me for the event in New Zealand. Thanks again to Debbie Ireland, Mark Orange (Mr Anti-Twitter), and Nick Hadlee for their hard work in organizing these conferences, and giving us the opportunity to participate. New friendships were forged, business partnerships discussed, and customer opportunities uncovered.
I was also able to squeeze in fantastic day of hiking over the weekend on the Tongariro Crossing, which is where they filmed scenes from Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings films (pictures on Facebook).
In addition to my sessions on metadata (my slides from New Zealand are below), I was invited to participate on the experts panel on the main stage at both shows. As always, there was great participation and ample questions from the attendees, inside and outside of the sessions – which will fuel blog posts here and on my personal blog for weeks to come. But as I was sitting on the flight home, I started thinking about my “Lessons Learned” from these events, and thought I’d share my takeaways:
- People need a personal connection.
Having managed people and teams remotely, you quickly learn that there is no replacement for face-time. One layer deeper is the value of spending time with partners and customers at these events, and building lasting relationships. These global events are hard work, and generally include working across 2 or 3 time zones, getting your regular work done while on the road. But the long-term value of building those personal connections can be invaluable.
- You can’t trump real world experience.
No amount of planning and quality assurance preparation can prepare you entirely for what your user community throws at you. There is no such thing as a homogenous SharePoint deployment – that’s why it makes sense to spend as much time as possible talking to customers and the end user community about that they are experiencing.
- Insert a little humor – people appreciate it.
I’ve attended dozens of SharePoint events over the past year, and the most memorable (whether business or technically-focused) were those where the presenter made an effort to entertain as well as inform the audience. My perception is that the SharePoint crowd is a pretty funny group, thankfully.
- My rear end is not built for long flights.
I am open to ideas on this one. Seriously.
As for my sessions, I gave a 100-level introduction to metadata and governance entitled ‘Looking Under the Hood: How Your Metadata Strategy Impacts Everything You Do’ and had over 100 participants at each location. Based on feedback from the events, I plan to add some additional examples around Lists and List Views, and am thinking about inserting a video with examples of taxonomy and folksonomy in a 2010 environment. I’ll be presenting this session again at SharePoint Saturday Boston on April 9th. Here are the slides:
What a great way to kick off the new year -- celebrating the 3rd birthday of SharePointSaturday.org with many of its founders and most active members! I left the Axceler End of Year party in Boston last Friday and made my way south to Virginia Beach, VA and the
SharePoint Saturday Virginia Beach speaker’s dinner. After a brief delay in Washington DC due to a massive snowstorm, I was able to join the celebration and enjoy one of my favorite aspects of participating in these events: hanging out with the SharePoint crowd. They are a fun and energetic group of people.
On Saturday, we kicked off the event with Mark Miller and I giving a keynote address on how to get the most out of SharePoint Saturday and the broader SharePoint community, handing out printed copies of my free community development eBook. While tailored for the SharePoint community, it contains ideas and guerilla marketing concepts that can be applied to just about any business -- and has been a popular download on NothingButSharePoint.com
I conducted two sessions at this event: my first presentation focused on the differences between centralized and decentralized SharePoint environments, and how to move between them. For those planning to attend, I'll be presenting this topic again at SPTechCon in San Francisco in February. You can find the presentation here:
My second presentation was the popular '11 Strategic Considerations for SharePoint Migrations,' which focuses on the many different technical and non-technical planning considerations for SharePoint migrations.
Between presentations, I tried to make myself available at the Axceler table to answer product questions and give some quick demos of our Davinci Migrator product, while also connecting with my fellow speakers and recording footage for several new entries in The One Thing You Need to Know About SharePoint 2010 video series. It was a full day, but was followed by the ever-popular SharePint with a chance for speakers and attendees to socialize. Following SharePint, some of us broke off for sushi, and then found ourselves playing Rock Band 3 until 2am or so.
Looking forward to helping celebrate SharePoint Saturday's 4th birthday!
As we start the new year, the Axceler team is looking forward to growth and expansion, starting the month with participation at the first SharePoint Saturday event of the season in Virginia Beach, VA. This is the site of the original SharePoint Saturday, and boasts an all-start cast of well-known names and deep expertise, including Dux Raymond Sy (newly minted MVP), Joel Oleson, Eric Harlan, Mark Miller, Mike Oryszak (MVP), and Linc Williams and Scott Singleton from our partners at i3 Solutions. I will be presenting twice, as well as joining Mark Miller, co-founder of NothingButSharePoint.com for the keynote address on building the SharePoint community. Here's a summary of my two sessions:
11 Strategic Considerations for SharePoint Migration
Migration is a roadblock to moving forward with your SharePoint strategy. Migration is phased, iterative, and error prone. But migration itself is not the goal – an optimized and user-friendly environment is your goal. Beyond the Microsoft-provided overview of how to plan for an upgrade and migration, there is a lot of room for error. This presentation outlines 11 critical strategies for migration planning that no project should move forward without (based on my article published in ECM Connection, available for download here). Attendees will walk away with a detailed action plan for their migrations to SharePoint 2010.
If you are unable to make the event, you can catch a live encore presentation on Monday, January 17th (11:45am to 1pm EST) as part of the SharePoint Saturday Boston Webinar series (Register here) or watch a recorded version from the Axceler on demand webinar library.
The Shift from Centralized to Decentralized
With the addition of new social computing features, better control over metadata and taxonomies, and stronger authentication and permissions management, many companies are thinking about making their 2007 environments more open, allowing for increased ad hoc collaboration across teams and organizations. This session will present a case for moving from a centrally-managed portal model to a more open, dispersed environment, and discuss strategies while moving from 2007 to 2010 to accomplish this vision. Attendees will learn more about some of the new social and collaborative features within 2010, and walk away with ideas for transforming their sites and content to meet this vision.
For the keynote, Mark Miller and I will be talking about what it takes to initiate a SharePoint community inside of your organizations, as well as provide guidance on building your personal brand within the external SharePoint community. Much of the content for these remarks come from my free ebook, "Strategies for Building Your Personal Brand" available on the Axceler site.
Hope to see you in Virginia Beach on Saturday!