While Andrew will be doing his cool stuff at the International SharePoint Conference in London, I’ll be ‘across the pond’ at the awesome SharePoint Business focussed conference Share2012 Atlanta!

It is a huge honour to be accepted as a speaker for this great 2 day business focussed conference, and as a sneak-preview, this is what I’ll be adding to the mix in Atlanta next April:

I’ll be running a session on the Wednesday:
Hybrid Organisations: How SharePoint Online can deliver

AND!

On the Thursday I’ll be running an all-day exclusive workshop:
SharePoint Innovation Games(R) for Requirements Gathering

21apps are so very excited that we can support this event with the great guys at Eventful Group; we hope to see you there and there will be more details coming soon!

For me it was kinda poignant because last years SharePoint Saturday UK was my first day working at 21apps and what a year it’s been!

Anyway, this year we decided to go all out:

• 21apps having a stand for the first time!
• I did a session – ‘Measuring the Intangible, SharePoint Social ROI’
• Andrew & myself ran a SharePoint Innovation Games(R) workshop!

The 21apps stand 1st thing in the morning before we started 'playing'

The morning was manic with all of our sessions done by lunchtime, giving us all afternoon to play Innovation Games(R) on our stand and we had a stack of awesome conversations with the attendees and vendors.

We had some great feedback on our first ‘SharePoint Social ROI’ Session:

The slides are here if you missed the session:

Next session before lunch was our SharePoint Innovation Games(R) workshop. If you’ve not come across Innovation Games(R) (www.innovationgames.com) before, then here’s a great overview by Andrew:

It was really well attended, with over 30 people split into two groups.

1. The first with Andrew played the ‘Buy a Feature’ game
2. The second group with myself played the ‘Product Box’ game

Here’s some photo’s and feedback from the sessions:

Our SharePoint Innovation Games workshop was a huge success!

Who knew SharePoint people could have so much fun with boxes, glue, glitter and sticky-things!

Sample Product Boxes attendees created representing their perfect Social SharePoint Intranet

Serious concentration as attendees collaborate to buy their most needed blender features!

We’ll post some video’s of the sessions on the 21apps YouTube channel later this week.

If you want to find out more about our Innovation Game(R) services then follow the links below or get in touch with us:

http://www.21apps.com/what-we-do/innovation-games-training/

http://www.21apps.com/what-we-do/serious-games-facilitation/

If you want to find out more about our SharePoint services then follow the links below or get in touch with us:

http://www.21apps.com/what-we-do/governance-kickstart/

http://www.21apps.com/what-we-do/sharepoint-rescue-mission/

http://www.21apps.com/our-model/

The speaker dinner the evening before... What can I say?

To help with the pain we are running an “SUGUK Unconference” in Telford on Thursday 6th of October.

The format for this event will be slightly different to normal SUGUK events.

Start time is 6pm

6:00 – 6:30 Pitch presentation

Yes we want everyone who attends to have the opportunity of doing a 30 minute presentation on anything to do with SharePoint.

6:30 – 6:40 Pick the top 3  – we have 10 minutes to choose the 3 we as a group want to see

6:50 – 7:20 Presentation One

Pizza, drink and networking

8:00 – 8:30 Presentation Two

8:40 – 9:10 Presentation Three

Questions

Optional SharePint << no pub’s close by sadly but we will find one.

Sign up here, would be great to see some new faces and some old ones as well.   And please bring along some things you want to talk about.

Tomorrow myself and James (@draken) will be travelling to Berlin to attend Tech.Ed Europe 2010 for what I hope will be a great conferences.

One particular area that really excites us is the beta launch of Office365, with the upgrade of SharePoint Online to 2010 it opens up a great opportunity for people to use the apps we are building at 21apps.

Office 365 Includes:

21Scrum – Tech.Ed Special Edition

Listening

The SharePoint Conference 2009 (SPC09) in Vegas was, to put it simply,  AWESOME!  Seven thousand people in one place all buzzing with excitement about the new features in SharePoint 2010.   Although I had the privilege of playing with some of the bits before the event,  it really was at the event that you’re understanding as to the size of the investment,  the amount of improvements and the amount of information and knowledge that we are going to have to take in over the coming months and years became clear.  If you thought SharePoint 2007 was a big product – ‘you ain’t seen nothing yet!’  It was also great to be part of the Worlds Biggest SharePint at the Eye Candy Bar – Kudos to Andrew Connell for putting this on.

Speaking

One of the things that I find the most enjoyable about being part of the SharePoint community is the opportunity to share my passion and knowledge.   I do like to speak (not for some personal gratification) but to be able to share all of the cool things that I have discovered.  Having such a great platform to talk about just makes it so much easier. 

MVP Open Day

The week after SPC09 I attended the UK and Ireland MVP Open Day in Reading.   This is a great opportunity put on my Akim and Vicki (MVP Leads) to say thanks for the work we do,  but more importantly a way for people of different disciplines and social networks to get together and socialise.   Timing for this event was great,  I was able to demonstrate SharePoint 2010 to a fairly big audience and from the feedback I got I think people were impressed.

SUGUK Manchester

On Tuesday 10th November Mark Stokes has arranged the first official North West SUGUK event where we will be talking about all things SharePoint 2010 and also getting feedback on what the community wants from the user group – it’s your opportunity to really have a say on how the community works in your area.    Currently the event is full,  if you still want to attend please respond to the post on SUGUK but we may have to have bouncers on the door     – needless to say we will be continuing the conversation over a SharePint after the event.

SharePoint Conference Slovenia

The 27th November sees the second Slovenia SharePoint Conference, having never travelled to this part of the world I thought it would be a great way to visit, enjoy some local beers over the obligatory SharePint.   The timing of the event is great as it allows people to get hands on with the SharePoint 2010 bits (hopefully they will be out by then).

Training

Having guest taught a number of SharePoint training courses for Combined Knowledge over the past few years,  and having spent time helping review the 2010 courses I am going to be in Ullesthorpe for the week of the 30th of November for the first SharePoint 2010 Beta Developer Track.  If you are looking for an early insight and training in the latest platform get in touch with Zoe and see if she can fit you in. 

SharePint

Do I really need to say anymore?   At any event or during ant trip I will be looking to take part or organise a SharePint where we can talk about SharePoint over a Pint.   I’m preferring good local brewed ales lately so recommendations always welcome

Having authored this post I think I really need to offer an apology as it does seem like a little bit of self promotion,  it is not meant to be – more like I’m going to be here, would love to meet up.

The End of 2009 is going to be the start of things to come in 21apps,  I am really excited about the changes taking place and look forward telling you more.   Rest assured that I will be blogging more technical stuff and providing more information on how to improve the way you develop your SharePoint projects.  

2009 has been good 2010 is going to be awesome

• Was it well attended?  – Yes, considering the economy
• Were the sessions good?  – Yes,  exceptional as always
• Was the accommodation and organisation good?  – Yes, Mark did a great job again

If you read some of the other (definitely quicker off the mark posts) you will get a feel for the event.

Paul Culmsee – Segways Rock

Laura (@WondaLaura) Rogers – Part 1 – Brilliant Video Interviews

Laura Rogers – Part 2 – Who is that lucky guy – (and not as rumour has it founder of #SharePint)

Zlatan Dzinic – Loud and enthusiastic South African << need to talk to about World Cup Tickets

and many others

So why was BPC such a great success?

I think what really makes the event so successful is the way that everyone just gets on with each other,  there is none of the normal ITPro -v- Dev artificial separation, there is a great mix of people and skills – you could say a great diversity in the attendees and speakers,  to quote the BPC site

Top experts put you ahead of the curve

This Conference gathers the leading authorities to define, describe and set methods that will become industry standard – insights you can gain now to avoid pitfalls, cut costs and gain a competitive edge. Speakers include:

• Microsoft MVPs
• Microsoft Product Team Members
• Top industry executives and authors 
• Leading trainers, consultants and topic experts
• Industry colleagues

Valuable as the speakers are, a conference they do not make,  it is the mix of people that really stand out for me at these conferences, the depth of conversation and debate that take place before during and after the sessions, how people are engaged in delivering real world projects and faced with real world challenges. 

I think the reason the Best Practices Conferences are so successful is noted in a book I was told to read by Paul Culmsee,  The Practice of Adaptive Leadership by Ronald Heifetz.  Where Heifetz talks about how

it is specifically about change; builds on the past rather than repudiating it; achieves organizational adaptation through continuous experimentation; heavily relies on diversity (i.e. talents, skills, experience, and perspectives); ensures that new adaptations significantly displace, re-regulate, or rearrange whatever is defective, obsolete, or irrelevant; and usually requires both time, patience, and persistence

Although the book goes on into greater depth this statement sums up for me why the Best Practices Conferences are successful.

• Diversity of talents, skills, experiences and perspectives
• Willingness to displace or rearrange defectives processes
• Time, patience and persistence

All of the qualities needed to be successful in deploying SharePoint and all active participants in the conference.

And on a lighter note,  if there is one best practice I took away from BPC, one that you all can try at home today – Beer!

Yes that’s right Beer is THE best practice and I can safely say that there was a lot of this Best Practice undertaken during the conference.

What’s the reason for my delay you may ask?

In part because I have been busy, but the main reason is that I will be in the Reston area a whole week before SharePint will take place and thought what better opportunity than to do a bit of a local tour to see which venue really stood out as a great SharePint venue.

Here is what I do know:

SharePint will on Tuesday 25th August – starting around 7pm till late

Here is what I want from you:

Help me to find the ideal location for the SharePint – Best Practices DC 2009 Edition.
Mapping potential venues, please add your recommendations.

Perhaps we can make this a tradition,

The pre-SharePint tour – In Search of the Venue

If you want to keep up with what’s happening and want to join the search follow me @andrewwoody,  @sharepint or search for #sharepint on twitter.  To help us get a feel for the numbers and to warn the bar please add a +1 comment to this post,  include your twitter name if you want.

Have you implemented SharePoint? If you have, how did it go? How is it being adopted in your business?

How would you like to have four leading SharePoint thought leaders in
Organizational Change, Project Management, Requirements Development and Agile Methodology from around the world mentoring you to make sure you can deliver SharePoint success?

Not wishing to pass up on an opportunity to get together to talk SharePoint for a few days we, Andrew, Dux, Paul and Ruven, thought it would be an ideal opportunity to be a bit more productively and have set up a 3 day mentoring workshop running from August 19-21st in Reston, VA, so that we could share our experiences and knowledge in a small focused workshop.

Dux has posted full details of the workshop and why this one off event really should not be missed.

Abstract

Provide an introduction to Agile development using Scrum and discuss how the iterative approach to development helps the customer to get the solution they want. Look at how this approach works when applied to SharePoint projects, how it helps leverage more of the core platform and focuses effort on the biggest value areas. We will look at the challenges this brings to your development team by doing early integration, dealing with upgrades and changes and understand how addressing the hard things early is the right approach. We will also discuss how Scrum gives visibility of the project and brings both good and bad news. How getting customer engagement is the primary challenge and how the flexible approach is often at odds with the way work is contracted.

Agile SharePoint Development with Scrum

The session was spilt into two parts, an introduction to Scrum and a discussion about how this can be applied to SharePoint projects.  The audience was a good mix of Developers, Managers, ITPros, and business people with a range of exposure to Agile practices and Scrum.  The session provided everyone with an understanding of the terminology and process of doing Scrum.  There was a focus on ‘What is done’ and a good discussion around how you architect solutions.  For those that attended and anyone else interested I recommend you listen to Scott Hanselman’s podcast with Ken Schwaber where Ken covers these topics.  Also looking at the question ‘when do you architect solutions?’ I really like Kens take on how, using the waterfall approach, you have to spend time getting it right upfront. The ability to change later in the process is limited and the costs can be prohibitive.   Using agile techniques the architecture will emerge over time,  you know that you only have the architecture in place to support the business requirements developed.  He poses the question,  if you had defined the architecture up front what happens if it is changed mid way through the project?   With waterfall there is a lot of unpicking to be done and wasted effort.  With agile you don’t have to do the unpicking and the rigours of the process, ensuring things are done, means your code base is easier to change.

Being Agile with SharePoint

Here the focus was on facing the tough challenges early, understanding how to package your solutions, deployments to multiple environments, automation of processes and the eclectic mix of tasks you need to do to deal with the upgrade story.  There was a significant synergy with Ben Robb’s session on automated builds using Hyper-V and Robert Bogue’s coverage of the SharePoint Patterns and Practices coverage of upgrading.

I plan to do a screen cast of this session to provide some background to the slides and also the animations that really took me a long time to do.

in San Diego.  As expected a number were to be found in the hotel bar.   If you want to catch up will all of the buzz search for the twitter tag  #SPBPC.   For those travelling in the location is great,  Sun is just rising and from the hotel room i’m overlooking the 18th hole of the Torrey Pines course, with views out over the sea.  This really is going to be a great event,  Ben Curry has done a brilliant job of getting top speakers.  This is not an Introduction to SharePoint, this is for people who know it, have deployed and what to get the most from the platform.

On a less technical note it’s count down to the SharePoint by Day, SharePint by Night San Diego Best Practices Edition.  Haven’t signed up yet,  put your name down here so the La Jolla Brew House knows how much beer to get in