I’m just back from a great SharePoint Saturday event in Chicago. It was a whirwind weekend–but so worth it! We had a fantastic group of speakers, including Robert Bogue, Cathy Dew, Paul Schaeflein, Virgil Carroll, Todd Klindt, Raymond Mitchell, Wes Preston, Richard Harbridge, Ruven Gotz, etc. I also had the chance to meet some new folks, including Jason Gallicchio and Jeff Shuey.
The highlight for me was the success of our 101 track. Wes led things off with his “What is this thing called SharePoint?” session. He did a great job setting the stage and explaining how SharePoint can do a wide variety of things, but that it needs to be implemented in a clear crawl, walk, run manner. Richard Harbridge came up next with his session on future-proofing SharePoint. He brings a tremendous amount of knowledge and energy to all his work, and I loved getting the chance to see him in action! After lunch, Ruven took over the track. He dived into requirements gathering, the information architecture process and mind mapping/taxonomy building–all in 75 minutes. I’ve seen Ruven present several times, but I felt like a newbie soaking up information in his session. Great stuff! My session on ROI and “real” business use cases wrapped up the track. Attendees had a lot of great questions, and the session ended quickly (but with 30 seconds to spare).
After the event, we had SharePint at Quigley’s, sponsored by Rackspace. We had 20-30 attendees make the afterparty–great fun! I also got to enjoy a slice of Chicago deep dish pizza with Virgil, Ruven, Richard and Jason afterwards. All in all, a fantastic weekend. Thanks to Chris et. al. for all their hard work organizing their event. You did a great job!
Sarah Haase 
