idubbs.com

Saturday June 11th was the suburban edition of SharePoint Saturday Chicago.  Raymond (@iwkid), Phil (@pjirsa) and I made the trip with a handful of others from Minnesota.

The organizers did a wonderful job and the weather turned out great as well.  Lots of great sessions and speakers.  They also tried some new things, which was cool.  We had a 101 track and a deep dive room in addition to some of the more traditional IT Pro and Developer tracks.  Also in the mix, and well timed – was an Office 365 track.

I was lucky enough to kick off the 101 track.  We started the day aimed at folks who don’t know much, if anything, about SharePoint.  Hopefully this was useful and enough information to get folks started for the rest of the day.  The track was as follows:

• What is SharePoint? (Me)
• Future Proofing your SharePoint Success – Richard Harbridge (@rharbridge)
• Effective Requirements Gathering Workshops – How to organize and run them – Ruven Gotz (@ruveng)
• Ready, Set, ROI: A survey in SharePoint use cases and ROI Calculations – Sarah Haase (@sarahhaase)

Before getting started, my session was also dubbed “the SharePoint session you should send your mom to…”  and someone did. 

The track seemed to go over well.  We had 20-30 people in each session throughout the day.  The intro topic is a little tough for SharePoint Saturday’s because generally the only people that know about SPS events are those that are already in tune with the SharePoint community.  I think there is a LOT more potential for this track/area, but it might require different or additional marketing to get the audience that it’s really targeted at.  Hopefully we can repeat and expand on the 101 track in other events as well.

My slides are available on Slideshare HERE.

In case you don’t already have it on your schedule, the next MVP chat will be next week.  These are helpful and crazy events where folks pepper the MVP panel with questions for an hour with MVPs responding as quickly as they can.  Having seen both sides of the event, it’s crazy, impressive and helpful.  So, if you haven’t participated, give it a shot.  Transcripts are also made available after the event so you can take a breath and go back to see what you may have missed in the dialogue. 

Wednesday June 22nd at 9am PDT / 11am CDT. Visit the MSDN event page:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/events/aa497438.aspx

Twitter: #spmvpchat

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=218219718208348

Enjoy!

SharePoint Basics: I came across a few sites/links that I really like for explaining and demonstrating some of the basic SharePoint and SharePoint Online basics.  For the most part, much of the content will overlap with SharePoint Online as a part of Office365, though some of the site templates may be different:

Site and List Templates – Todd Baginski
http://www.toddbaginski.com/blog/archive/2009/11/20/which-sharepoint-2010-site-template-is-right-for-me.aspx

Managed Metadata – Myles Jeffery
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mvpawardprogram/archive/2011/03/07/mvps-for-office-365-organize-your-information-better-in-sharepoint-online-office-365-with-managed-metadata.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0

And then, just some other stuff:

XMind – Mind-mapping software that I’m looking at since I’m using a iPad based tool.  I’d like something to use on the laptop as well to edit, etc…  http://www.xmind.net/

Proper Sync – I ran into these guys at the St. Louis SharePoint Saturday event last weekend and need to dig into this product to see what it really offers.  http://www.propersync.com/default.aspx

CodePlex: Sandboxed Solutions – Came up in conversation as a potential tool for printing list content.  Could be interesting.  http://sandbox.codeplex.com/

MetaVis Migration tool – Everyone and their brother was tweeting about the free offer for migrating content to 365.  Check out the details here:  http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/metavis-announces-office-365-migration-program-moving-content-sharepoint-online-1507500.htm

Mark Rackley’s Wrap up from St. Louis: Presenting on jQuery
http://www.sharepointhillbilly.com/archive/2011/05/02/sharepoint-saturday-st.-louis-wrap-up.aspx

I recently attended a conference session about resources and tools available for new business owners.  While a lot of the conversation what about raising seed and venture money, one topic was about the tools and services that are essential to a new business. 

They listed a lot of the things that you would expect: A phone number, a good place to get business cards and a business address (see below). Being in the technology field, I was thinking along different lines. They didn’t mention a domain name, email and a website, though I hope it was just assumed.

I would argue that with the release of Office 365, this is also going to be a small business essential tool.  Office 365 is going to be a simple, inexpensive tool that can meet the core email and website needs while being chock full of so much more potential. 

1. Sign up for Office 365
2. Get yourself a domain name and configure your Office 365 account to use it for email and public-facing site. You may need some guidance or assistance with this, but it’s a lot less than setting up your own servers and there are a LOT of resources to help – online and other. 
3. Build your public-facing site.  This can be as simple or complex as you’d like to make it, but with the template and tools available, you can be up in minutes. 
4. Now, go about your business.
5. In the meantime, start to look at all the other capabilities you have:
1. Lync Online – Conduct your online meetings without needing another services like GoToMeeting, etc…
2. SharePoint Online – Store and share your documents and other content.  MUCH more later as you learn about SharePoint’s capabilities…
3. Exchange Online – Primarily your email, but so much more than the basic accounts you had in the past. Manage your calendar and resources and sync them from multiple devices. 
4. and so, much more…

To be fair, during the session they did also mentioned DropBox, and GoToMeeting. Dropbox may still be a useful tool, depending on the devices you’re using, though Office 365 is going to fill a lot of that capability as well.  GoToMeeting is fully surpassed by the Lync Online capabilities and integration that Office 365 offers. 

So, if you ask me – I wouldn’t start a business without spinning up a Office 365 site as one of the first things. 

Notes and References:

• The conference I was attending was the MHTA Spring Conference.  They did a fantastic job.  If you’re in the Minneapolis, MN area and can attend I highly recommend it.  MHTA is the Minnesota High Tech Association. 
• Grasshopper Virtual Phone System – This could be useful as an alternative to giving out your cell number to anyone.
• GotPrint.com – Yep, you need to have business cards and these are certainly inexpensive.
• A P.O. box – Don’t want to be using your home address, but I prefer the UPS box option that allows for a real address with no ‘P.O.’ and notification when stuff arrives.

There are a handful of things happening in the next day or so that might be interesting to folks in the SharePoint space:

• Wednesday 4/20 8:00 AM – Michael Gannotti’s Coffee Talk will be taking place. His talks include:
  • Microsoft Productivity News
  • Productivity Customer Onsite Experience
  • Special Guests
  • Tips and Tricks
  • Gadget of the week
  • Live Audience Q&A
• Wednesday 4/20 11:00 AM – Q&A with the SharePoint MVP Experts.  Access the event by checking out the MSDN Events and Webcasts page.
• Wednesday 4/20 6:00 PM – Microsoft Store at the Mall of America.  From 6:00 – 8;00 there is a Special Event for Business solutions.  They’ll be covering Microsoft Signature Pro and Microsoft Office 365 – Cloud versions of Microsoft’s communications and collaboration (yep – SharePoint) products.  Oh, and did I mention a 15% store discount during the event?
• Thursday 4/21 11:25 AM – SharePoint ShopTalk
  Register for this week’s event.

Hope to see you there!

Today the public beta for Office365 opened up.  (Happy Tax Day).  So, what does this mean?  And where do you get started? 

Well, there are a TON of resources out there for you to learn about Office365, how to get involved and what it can mean for your organization.  For starters:

• The Microsoft press release
• The official Microsoft site (go here to sign up for the Beta)
• The Office365 Community Site
• And yes, even the Office365 Facebook page
• And don’t forget Twitter: @Office365
• Office365 Marketplace

So, what is this and why should you care? Office 365 is the newest version of Microsoft’s online (aka ‘cloud’) application offerings. This includes (depending on the version and licensing):

• SharePoint Online
• Exchange Online
• Lync Online
• Microsoft Office Professional Plus

The big picture is that you can use these services without installing, configuring and managing the hardware and core software stuff – a big load off for many organizations.  You do still need someone that can configure and manage the service for your organization. But it’s a lot less work and hassle than managing an on-site set of servers.

More importantly, you need someone to define *how* your organization is going to use these services and how it fits with the organization’s goals and technology roadmaps – which is where people like me come in.   

The short story is that it’s a lot of bang for your buck.  The next batch of questions now become:

• Is Office365 a good fit for your organization?
• What is the best way to use Office365 in your organization?
• How will it work with your organization’s existing capabilities?

Office365 has a lot of potential to improve the productivity of users and organizations, but it also has the potential to add to the clutter of tools and systems that are out there – just as any platform used poorly can do. 

So, check it out, allow yourself to get excited by the potential, but then slow down and put some time into planning so you can be successful down the road. 

The latest SharePoint Saturday event in the Twin Cities was a huge success!  Some of the numbers:

• Registered to attend: 430+
• Actual attendees: 260+ (smashed the old record!)
• Vendors/sponsors: 16
• Speakers: 19
• Sessions: 22

The new location worked out very well – holding everyone without too much crowding (other than a few really popular sessions), with free parking and wireless access available.  A nice upgrade from our previous digs.  We also had a Kinect play area during the day.   

Presentations are now available on the site for download. 

Keep an eye on the official site for updates and news about the fall “ScarePoint Saturday” event – tentatively scheduled for October 29th.

A big thanks to Sarah Haase for overseeing the organization of the event, as well as to all the sponsors, volunteers, and attendees. 

See you in the fall!

Lookout SharePoint world – Sarah Haase (locally of Best Buy fame) has entered the blogosphere.  Sarah has been a presenter at the Minnesota SharePoint User Group, SharePoint Saturday – Twin Cities and the Best Practices Conferences and always has great information, especially when it comes to measuring the ROI of SharePoint solutions. 

Well, she finally started up a blog here:  http://sarahlhaase.wordpress.com/

Go check it out!

Raymond Mitchell is a co-worker of mine at Avtex and a co-author with me on the SharePoint 2010 Six-in-One book where he wrote two chapters on BCS. 

In addition to the book, Raymond also recently put together a webinar on BCS called: ‘Leveraging Business Connectivity Services’ for SharePoint-Videos.com.  This webinar / video is a lead-in to the rest of the videos on DVD:

• SharePoint 2010 Business Connectivity Services Training 2010

If you have an interest or need in the BCS area, check these out!

While attending the Best Practices Conference this week, Sarah Haase and I were interviewed by Brett Lonsdale for a SharePoint Pod Show on SharePoint lists.  Sounds like it might be about 2 weeks until ours is posted, but take a look at the site in the meantime – LOTS of great content out there. 

Our ‘episode’ was a result of the two sessions that Sarah and I are presenting this week:

• Sarah’s “You could need a list if…”
• My “SharePoint Lists: Used, Abused and Underappreciated”

Pretty fun – was only interrupted once by a screaming baby that was being carted by…   

I’ll update the post once our episode is online.