How to Organize a SharePoint Saturday
Posted by Dave Greten on Wed, May 12, 2010 @ 08:43 AM
The forecasted big turnout at this
weekend's SharePoint Saturday event (over 1,100 registrants!) has got a lot of people asking "How do I organize a SharePoint Saturday?" Fortunately,
Mark Rackley has an instructive writeup of his experience as an organizer.
Rackley encourages organizers to first find speakers and a venue. The venue is critical because it determines how much the event will cost and how many people can attend. The venue also has a significant influence on how the event will be run. "Is wireless access available? Projectors? Space for sponsors?" are all important considerations.
The next step is getting in touch with the
SharePoint Saturday crew. In Rackley's case, he worked with
Michael Lotter,
Becky Isserman, and
Dux Raymond Sy. All of these organizers had documents, directions and templates that proved extraordinarily helpful. Contacting the SharePoint Saturday organizers also landed him a listing on the official SharePoint Saturday website.
After securing all of these things, the next step is finding sponsors to pay for lunch, drinks and the venue. Optionally, sponsors can be found to provide breakfast, raffles, goody bags, and speakers' dinners. All of these 'extras' help make the event more memorable for attendees and speakers. After sponsors have been obtained, Rackley encourages you to call local hotels to check for deals available to large groups.
With the event set to go, it's time to get the word out and drive up attendance. Rackley advises contacting your regional Microsoft sales office to leverage their network, twittering and blogging about it, updating your website, printing up flyers for local distribution, inviting companies that use SharePoint and users at local user group meetings, and asking friends to spread the word.
After all these things are done - prepare yourself to run like crazy on event day! If you are serious about organizing a SharePoint Saturday, Rackley's article is invaluable and you should read the
entire report in full.