SharePoint Community

Chicago Microsoft Business Strategies Group Sept Meeting Wrap Up

Darrin Bishop — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:31:46 GMT

It was long drive, Central Illinois to Chicago for the monthly Chicago Microsoft Sharepoint Strategies Group meeting and a longer drive home I might add thanks to the night-time construction traffic. After wandering around a few city blocks (felt lucky to find the car after it was all said and done) I finally made it to the meeting space. The Chicago Microsoft SharePoint Business Strategies Group is a fairly new group that focuses more on the business use of SharePoint and not the normal technical details of the product. Last night NewsGator presented a Social Computing demonstration to a room full of SharePoint business users. Next on the agenda was a basic presentation from eCopy which will scan and dump document images into a SharePoint library. Four of us adjourned to a nearby watering hole and continued the SharePoint discussion until I needed to start the hunt for my car. A four hour ride home thanks to the midnight construction and I am back to the daily SharePoint grind today.

If you are interested in SharePoint and live in the Chicago area you should meet up with this Chicago Microsoft Business Strategies Group. Their site is available at: http://web.meetup.com/69/

The Last Pint - Remembering a Friend

Darrin Bishop — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:53:07 GMT

I almost did not check my emails before I left the house today… One cannot explain the grief I felt when I checked the mail on the phone and realized the SharePoint community lost a dear friend. Wading though way too many eamils this morning to my disbelief I leaned that Patrick Tisseghem passed away.

Patrick was practically a SharePoint icon, not only in the European community but world-wide. Many of us have had the pleasure of meeting Patrick at one of his training sessions, SharePoint conference or by reading one of his many books, articles or posts.

For myself, I distinctly remember the first time I met Patrick. We were both speaking at an Advisor Summit in Phoenix, Az. As the speakers made their way across the hot pavement quiet and soft spoken Patrick and I introduced ourselves and made our way with the pack to dinner. It was during that time that Patrick made some SharePoint fame with his famous Beer database.

Over the years we connected primarily on the conference circuits, in and out of the speaker room and the after hour events. Patrick was always there, pint in hand, quiet and on the edge of the crowd. Always willing to talk and listen. Strange quality for an instructor, Patrick was more of a listener than a speaker after hours.

I can easily recount the events and parties that we happened to be together at, many now are all a blur over the years. I can say that my parting memory of Patrick will be TechEd 2008 in Orlando. Heading back to the speaker hotel from an event, my Matt and I happened upon Patrick taking a break on the bench outside the hotel. We sat an talked for a few minutes and as usual headed to the hotel bar. Over pints we discussed his current book, watched some sports and just kicked back. For me personally I will be left with a fond Patrick memory of TechEd, Pints, Books and Friends.

SharePoint Magazine Is Live

Darrin Bishop — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:08:38 GMT

SharePoint Magazine is a new online resource for your SharePoint information. Arno Nel from South Africa is the Magazine's editor. Check it out at www.sharepointmagazine.net

Announcing the International SharePoint Professionals Association

Darrin Bishop — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:05:43 GMT

SharePoint Professionals Association, also known as ‘ISPA’, is an independent, not-for-profit, community-driven organization dedicated to support SharePoint professionals and groups all around the world. The primary mission of ISPA is to promote the global adoption of SharePoint Technologies by providing support and guidance to the SharePoint community as a whole – by establishing connections between SharePoint professionals, groups, resources, education and information. ISPA is led and supported by volunteers across the world, and will focus on bringing the entire SharePoint community closer together.

ISPA’s first offering to the community is support to user groups around the world through free WSS v3 web sites for any group that becomes ISPA-affiliated. In addition, one of the goals of ISPA is to facilitate an exchange of ideas between user group leaders that helps increase the likelihood of their group’s success. Therefore, ISPA is providing leaders of user groups with access to collaborative spaces where they can interact with other user group leaders, sharing ideas, resources, best practices, guidance, and most importantly – support for one another.

ISPA has also established Regional Evangelists – existing community leaders who have previously exhibited a strong commitment to the promotion of the SharePoint community, and who have pledged to carry the ISPA message throughout their particular region. These evangelists are key local contacts who are available to work with local SharePoint professionals and user groups throughout their region to help promote the community and SharePoint. If you are interested in starting a user group, have an existing one, or need guidance – the ISPA Regional Evangelists are great resources who are available immediately to assist you.

Finally, as everyone knows, no community is complete without a web site, and ISPA is proud to announce the launch of its official site, www.sharepointpros.org. While the web site is still in the early stages of development, plans for multilingual support and exciting functionality that will assist anyone involved with SharePoint are on the horizon.

If you have ideas for ISPA, would like to start a user group, or are looking for assistance, visit the new ISPA web site or contact ISPA at contactus@sharepoint.net. Together, the community can achieve what was impossible as individuals – becomes a part of ISPA today!

Speaking at a Free Half Day SharePoint Seminar in Springfield, Il.

Darrin Bishop — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:53:05 GMT

For those of you located in or around Springfield, Illinois there will be a half day session on SharePoint at the Springfield Crowne Plaza on Tuesday, May 13, 2008.

Crowne Plaza Hotel
3000 S. Dirksen Parkway
Springfield Illinois 62703

There will be an opening session presented by Microsoft for everyone and followed by sessions in two tracks each with two break-out sessions.

Here is a breakdown of the sessions. I will be providing the content for the Technical Track breakouts.

8:30am - 9:15am Opening Session: Overview of Microsoft Office Capabilities and Solutions

9:30am – 10:30am: Breakout Session 1 (Business Track)

Learn why organizations are choosing the Microsoft platform to run their most critical business applications. This session will discuss how Microsoft solutions can provide innovative solutions to address business challenges around Collaboration and Enterprise Content Management. During this session we will look at several real world examples of using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the 2007 Office System to address real world business challenges and scenarios and we will be taking an in-depth look at one solution that exemplifies how Microsoft's Collaboration strategy within the context of a powerful strategic planning process created by the County of Los Angeles.

9:30am – 10:30am: Breakout Session 1 (Technical Track)

Looking at the SharePoint Development Landscape – An overview of WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 SDK. In this breakout we will take a high-level overview of the SDK and common SharePoint development tasks.

10:45am-11:45am: Breakout Session 2 (Business Track)

This session will address how the Microsoft platform can be leveraged to address Compliance, Enterprise Content Management and E Discovery business challenges within Government. This session will discuss how Microsoft solutions can provide innovative solutions to address Enterprise Content Management needs. During this session we will discuss Enterprise Content Management strategies. How to improve content controls and processes via while achieving regulatory, and operational standards with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the 2007 Office System.

10:45am-11:45am: Breakout Session 2 (Technical Track)

Setting the Stage for SharePoint Development – This session will discuss development environments. We will discuss common development environments including individual dev, integrated dev, test and production. Time permitting we will cover solution and feature deployment.

MVP Summit 2008 Photos

Darrin Bishop — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:23:59 GMT

MVP Summit was held last week in Seattle. Not much to talk about since it was all NDA but I can say that the SharePoint MVPs were seen at an all day PaintBall game, various dinners and various "ad-hoc" meetings at the local pubs and hotel bar. I All images can be seen at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24807252@N07/2432717510/

Bogue's Book Debuts at SharePoint Conference

Darrin Bishop — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:40:53 GMT

Just arrived at the Seattle Convention Center and ran into Robert Bogue of Thor Projects and got a chance to thumb though his new book "The SharePoint Shepherd's Guide for End Users". This book is targeted to end users and covers topics ranging from collaboration on projects, managing libraries and creating Web Part pages - just to name a few.

You can preview and order this book at http://www.lulu.com/content/2071084 and find the companion site at www.sharepointshepherd.com

Find Me at the Bloomington .Net User Group

Darrin Bishop — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 02:53:16 GMT

Find me in Bloomington, Illinois in January. I will be speaking at the Bloomington .NET User Group on January 8 2008. I will be covering SharePoint and PowerShell ( one of my favorite subjects ). For those of you in the Central Illinois area please stop by.

Get the details at: http://bloomingtondotnet.org/

SharePoint Pro Online Live

Darrin Bishop — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 12:02:20 GMT

I know this is last minute but I Daniel Larson passed this around last night….

SharePoint Pro Online Live

This is a free online event for those that can attend on October 17, 2007 starting at 11:00 EDT. If you register and listen in you can catch the following free sessions:

Melissa Fraser
Configuring Content and Document Management within SharePoint Portal Server

Andrew Connell
Introducing Features! A Deep Dive into the New "Feature" Infrastructure in Windows SharePoint Services

Daniel Larson
Programming Dynamic Applications with the SharePoint AJAX Toolkit

Dan Holme
Better Together: Microsoft Office Applications as SharePoint Clients

Find Me at the Saint Louis Visual Basic User Group

Darrin Bishop — Mon, 07 May 2007 12:43:22 GMT

I will be presenting a session on Visual Studio Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services for the Saint Louis Visual Basic User Group on Wednesday May 16. If you are in the area please stop by. The meeting is held at 3 CityPlace, St Louis in the "Microsoft" building. Directions are available from the Saint Louis Visual Basic User Group site. If you are not in the area visit the site for the Live Meeting information.