Month: August 2009

Categories
Events

SharePint DC – 11 August 2009

It’s been a couple of weeks since our last SharePint DC event held in Old Towne Alexandria and it’s time to switch things up a bit as we invade Washington DC.  Come kick back and catch up with your colleagues over a cold pint of your favorite ale or lager as we meet up just near Union Station at the Capital City Brewery.

What:  SharePint, an opportunity to get together with other SharePoint professionals, enthusiasts and folks in the community to chat about what’s going on – no pressure, no presentation, no phluff.  :-)  You’ve probably heard of SharePint before at events like TechEd, SPTechCon and SharePoint Saturday, with the term initially picked up and coined by the likes of Andrew Woodward across the pond.  More on this? Check out – http://www.21apps.com/sharepint/perchance.

Where:  Washington DC’s Capital City Brewery Capitol Hill Location located about a block away from Union Station.

The Capitol City Brewery is located at 2 Massachusetts Avenue, NE, Washington, DC 20001.

When:  6:15 PM is when I hope to be there, the more the merrier!!!

How:  Well, it’s quite easy, you show up, you bring your own beverage money, and enjoy the atmosphere and fun.

Any questions, pop me a note via twitter @usher and be sure to follow @sharepintdc.

Categories
Off Topic

It's all in the brand…

Most of the time, I try to keep posts related to either a SharePoint topic or an event or something that I’ve been pondering with regard to architecture, infrastructure or administration. This weekend however was a real treat to have Heather Waterman, one of the SharePoint Branding subject matter experts, pay a visit to the Washington DC metropolitan area.
For those of you that don’t know Heather, she’s been in the SharePoint field for several years and has designed and implemented several complex and alluring site layouts. She’s developed and designed themes and layouts that are sold commercially to give SharePoint that not so SharePoint out of the box look that we all work to keep our implementations not look like. But there’s definitely another side to Heather that we don’t always see.
So during Heather’s visit, I was fortunate enough to get to spend some time and pick her mind about several SharePoint things to include branding, end user interactions, usability, information workers, upcoming conferences, as well as how we can work better to foster the community.
But over a pint of Guinness at the Dubliner in DC I was fortunate to receive some advice and life lessons that I’ll definitely take to heart. Amazing how the community looks after it’s own through trials that we all face.
Heather was hoping to take a tour of the National Capitol while up here, but unfortunately things fell through. So instead, I decided to do the next best thing and introduce her to the President while here in DC. Now granted, it wasn’t the sitting current day president, but hey, meeting President Jefferson, who was very cordial mind you especially on such short notice. After our fine Irish dinner or corned beef and cabbage and Guinness we wandered around to Madame Tussaud’s in DC where TJ lives in a wax representation. It’s quite an interesting museum with several pop stars and American leaders, but I’m not quite certain that it measures up all the way to the wax museum in London.
Overall a fun time in DC, for any of you that make your way to Northern Virginia or DC, pop me a tweet @usher.

Categories
Events

SharePoint Saturday Baltimore – 25 July 2009

Yet another SharePoint Saturday Event has come and gone, this time in Baltimore, MD at the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Technology Incubator on 25 July 2009. The event was sponsored by a plethora of different groups which if mentioned could entail an entire blog post, with a team led up by a core group of Baltimore SharePoint User Group leadership it was an event to remember with speakers coming in from across the country. The weekend started off in the Inner Harbor at the Speaker’s dinner at the Meli Patisserie and Bistro followed by an evening out about, exploring the inner harbor in the pouring rain. I decided that my best option was to hit up dinner and then make my way back to Arundel Mills to rest of and polish up slides for the talk I was giving on Saturday afternoon. The dinner was terrific and it was great to see Joel Oleson, Mike Watson, Geoff Varosky, Paul Schaeflein, Dux Sy, Cathy Dew, Susan Lennon, Dan Lewis, Eric Harlan, Shadeed Eleazer, Linc Williams, Ken Lo, Mark Miller, and last but definitely not least Michael Noel.
Saturday went off without a hitch with the presentations well received and probably the largest group I’ve seen stay through the entire day for the Saturday evening wrap-up.
Post SharePoint Saturday Wrapup, it was off to Ruby Tuesday’s where the power went out due to some torrential downpours, so SharePint was effectively delayed.
All in all a great event and I’m excited to see the momentum pickup with the SharePoint Saturday events – a big thank you to the planning committee!

If you’re looking for my slide deck, feel free to download it in PowerPoint 2007 format, or to view it through SlideShare.net.

Categories
Events

MidAtlantic SharePoint Regional Users Conference 2009

Wrapping up a fantastic week of SharePoint goodness, I returned to Northern Virginia from Boston’s SharePoint Technology Conference and returned to the regular song and dance of being home. Friday afternoon however, I had the pleasure of presenting more Architectural Considerations goodness to the 2009 MidAtlantic SharePoint Regional Users Conference. The conference sported several SharePoint experts to include Bob Mixon, Sahil Malik and I even bumped into Paul Galvin in the hallways – thanks to the DC SUG for putting this event together!
Slides available at the following: PowerPoint 2007 Format