Category Archives: Training

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Community Events – Local Reach

Another BIG event going on this week in the M365 world: M365 Conference 2023 in Las Vegas. It’s a 3rd party conference, though heavily invested and involved with by Microsoft by way of speakers, keynotes, sponsorship and other content. Lots of big announcements.

But not everyone can attend.

Not everyone can get there. Not everyone *wants to* attend or go to Vegas. And with a looming recession and/or economic outlook for many organizations, it might not be a great time to send folks to out of state costly conferences.

Enter… local events.

Now, I’m not trying to poo-poo these big events. They’ve got a ton of value. I speak at some of them. They’re a fantastic opportunity to step away from your day-to-day responsibilities (if you can…) meet with community (topic-wise, not geographic community) folks, spend time chatting, building broader networks, or meet and connect with Microsoft and vendor contacts. The coverage that larger events offer is also extremely important in that you can see so many sessions, workshops, vendors, and more in one spot. In addition to this week’s event, there are events like 365 EduCon that offer options in more cities throughout the year.

What I am saying is that local – usually community-run – events have a place, an important one – for many folks.

Community events like our M365TwinCities event (working on a Fall date…), the upcoming MN M365 User Group Spring Workshop, or even frequent M365TC #CoffeeCrew events fill important gaps in our communities. In upcoming weeks here in Minnesota we’ll be reviewing this week’s big announcements from Microsoft, offering more in depth coverage with workshop sessions, or just having a coffee and connecting with others. Similar groups will be meeting all over the US and the world doing the same thing.

SO. Get familiar with your local community. Join it. Take part in it. Contribute to it with your time and experience. And if there’s not a community you’re looking for – consider building one!

Skill Gap Risks – SharePoint Site Administrators

The Minnesota SharePoint User Group (@MNSPUG) met last week to talk about governance of SharePoint Site Provisioning. Brian Caauwe did a wonderful job covering the material. Presentation slides and recording can be found HERE.

During the call, those of us participating remotely via Skype for Business (that’s not going to last too much longer… enter Teams…) had an interesting conversation via the chat regarding site administrators, governance and policies surrounding training, skills, and communication for them.

Question: What examples of risks to the organization have you seen when #SharePoint site admins are NOT kept up to date with skills and platform capabilities?

Respond in comments here or by tagging @idubbs in Twitter. 

Some organizations do a good job with initial ramping up of skills: “Do this training before getting a site”. Fewer, however, follow up after a site has been handed over – with refresher information, policy changes, platform changes, etc.

In an on-premises environment, the platform might stay fairly consistent over time – with updated training made available alongside platform updates.

In a SharePoint Online / O365 environment things are changing at a much faster rate (by Microsoft) and without waiting for updates to internal training materials or schedules.

From a governance perspective, it’s critical to keep your users – especially those managing permissions – up to date – at the very least, to make sure your content is managed appropriately. I’d love to hear from SharePoint users about risks you’ve seen or are concerned about regarding on going site management and how admin training and education impacts risks to security, or your organization. 

SharePoint Fest – Chicago 2012

Last week I presented a few sessions at the SharePoint Fest Chicago event. 

The first was the SharePoint Lists: Used, Abused and Underappreciated session that I’ve given a number of times. 

For those of you interested in the “List” content, I plan on updating this session soon with 2013 content as the platform get finalized and released.  I’m also putting together a session/workshop on the Request/Intake example that I frequently mention and use as examples during the presentation.  So, keep an eye out for that. 

The second session was a new one for me “Demystifying Governance and User Adoption”.  Yea, it’s another session with the ‘governance’ and ‘user adoption’ buzzwords, but my hope is to add some useful tips and thoughts to the conversation. 

SharePoint Saturday – Twin Cities – Fall 2012

Yep, it’s that time of year again.  We’re ramping up for the Fall 2012 SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities event.  We’ll be meeting on November 3rd this year, still at the Normandale campus down in Bloomington.  

We’re not planning on covering a lot for 2013 in our sessions just yet – too many folks are still interested in and using 2010 and the final 2013 version hasn’t been released yet. So, we’ll be focused on 2010 for one more round at least and then see where things are in the Spring.  You’ll likely hear a LOT of news about 2013 the following week with the big Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Vegas happening and most of it centered on the 2013 platform. 

Speakers and sessions have all been posted – take a look when you have a chance.  We’ve got great folks coming from all over and bringing a ton of great sessions, content and experience. 

We are also continuing with our 101 Track – so if you have folks that are new to SharePoint, the event has content for them as well.  We’ve got 4 sessions specifically in the track – starting with my ‘What is this thing called SharePoint’ session – but there are other sessions throughout the day not in the 101 Track that folks new to the platform can certainly benefit from as well. 

Keep an eye out for registration to open next Monday – Sept 10. We will be limiting registration to 600 people again this time as it seems to be getting us to about the level we can manage at the current location.  The Spring event had over 460 attendees…  Smile  We’re one of the largest SPS events in the country. 

There are lots of great sponsors again as well, we hope to fill up our space with 30 vendors – they’ll be added to the site as soon as they are validated. 

Finally, when putting the event in your calendar, don’t forget to set aside Friday night as we’ll be having our SharePint (the night BEFORE the SPS event).  More info to come on that…

If you have any questions about the event, let me know!!  I look forward to seeing you there. 

SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities – 4/9 Recap

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

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.  Smile 

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!

SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities–4/9

Yep, it’s here again.  This Saturday is the latest SharePoint Saturday – Twin Cities event.  This is a FREE one-day Microsoft SharePoint product seminar/conference event.  We’ve got over 400 people registered to attend at our new location – Normandale Community College in Bloomington.  So if you haven’t already registered, do it soon. 

See the list of sessions and speakers and register here. 

We also just launched a facebook page for the event and ongoing events.  

Also keep an eye on the Twitter hashtag #SPSTC

For those of you new to SharePoint, I’ll be doing a morning Intro to SharePoint session talking about the features and implementation efforts. 

Please let other folks new to the platform know about the event and my session as well – it’s a great (and free) opportunity to learn and share.    

See you Saturday!

Microsoft SharePoint and Office 2010 Launch Events

Most folks know about the May12th Launch event that Microsoft will be streaming “Live from New York!”.  We’ll be carrying the event live at our monthly MNSPUG meeting which just happened to coincide with it.  We’ll also be having a panel discussion about SharePoint 2007 and 2010 beforehand…

What doesn’t seem to be getting as much press are the IT Pro and Developer events that are also happening around the country.  Check out the following link and dig in a bit:

http://www.microsoft.com/business/2010events/ 

We’ll be having a local event in Minneapolis (Bloomington actually) on May 27th – so take a look at the agenda and see if you like to attend with us! 

SharePoint Saturday – Twin Cities

The event formerly known as Twin Cities SharePoint Camp is back for it’s 4th iteration and has reformed itself as a SharePoint Saturday event! 

Come join us on Saturday March 20th at a new location – the U of M (University of Minnesota!!) Twin Cities campus – on the East Bank in the Computer Science building.  More information about speakers, sessions, maps, etc is available at the SharePoint Saturday official site. 

Click here to register!

We’re also in the midst of moving, building and rolling out a new persistent site that will hold ongoing event schedules, session decks and information, be the main way to contact organizers, etc when all is said and done.  We’ll update this post and send another note out when that page is done. 

TrainSignal SharePoint 2007 Training

I hadn’t heard of these guys until yesterday.  Looks like an interesting offering for the SharePoint 2007 farm administrator though. 

TrainSignal: SharePoint Server 2007 Training

They’ve currently got a ‘sale’ on the package which looks like a decent price for an overview for IT Pros that need to install and configure SharePoint and get a high-level overview of the basic concepts. 

If I’m able to get a copy to test drive I’ll put together something more substantial for a review, but thought I’d at least let you know its another option that’s available.