Only a few days back home from Best Practices 2011 conference in La Jolla. What a fabulous trip! The setting was perfect–even for a someone who doesn’t appreciate golf. The grounds were beautiful and the weather was gorgeous.

It’s hard to narrow down the conference into a highlights reel, but here are some of the important bits:

* Meeting some great new people, including Kevin Dorn, Eric from Ebsco Publishing and a couple of other corporate librarians!

* Getting to share SharePoint Saturday planning ideas with Joel Baglien, Virgil Carroll and Veronique Palmer.

* Having some girl time with the Minnesota contingent–including Angela Spores, Tamara Bredemus and the lovely ladies from Capella University!

* Catching up with a wide variety of folks, including Bill English, Ben Curry, Lori Gowin, Kay McClure, Veronique Palmer, Brett Lonsdale, Sara Windhorst, Mark Rackley, Jennifer Mason, Wes Preston, Cathy Dew, Richard Harbridge, Ruven Gotz and Joy Earles. Sorry if I forgot anyone!

* Getting to record a SharePoint Pod Show epidsode with Brett Lonsdale. Our focus was on SharePoint lists–how to use them, how to convince business users to give them a try and how they can help you be a SharePoint success story. Watch for this episode to be released sometime in the next few weeks.

* Attending some fabulous sessions!

I also had the opportunity to present 2 different sessions at the conference. Both went very well, with folks heavily engaged in talking about how to calculate and claim ROI from successful SharePoint implementations. I came away from these sessions with a ton of energy and new ideas!