SharePoint Saturday

SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities: We’re biggering, but in a good way.

I speak for men, and human opportunities! For your information, you Lorax, I’m figgering on biggering and biggering, and biggering, and BIGGERING, turning MORE truffula trees into thneeds! Which everyone, everyone, EVERYONE NEEDS! (quote from the Once-ler in Dr. Seuss’ famous book, “The Lorax”)

We’re not in the “thneed” market, but we have been dedicated to “biggering and biggering” SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities. Our goal was to expand the variety and number of our sessions, incorporate hands-on labs, include more sponsors and drive up attendee numbers so we can offer more networking and educational opportunities for the Twin Cities market.

When we launched our first SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities event back in March 2010, we were thrilled to have 175 attendees pre-register. It is truly amazing how far we’ve come in only two years. This week–for the first time ever–we have maxed out with 600 registrations for our spring SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities event! While we’re proud of how much we’ve grown, we feel an even stronger need to put on a top-quality event.

To ensure we have enough content (and enough space) to accommodate all our attendees, our April 14th event will include 30 sessions running in 8 different session rooms. We have tracks for Information Workers, IT Pros/Admins and Developers along with a hands-on lab, a SharePoint 101 track and general sessions. We also have almost 30 sponsors committed to answering your questions and providing product/consulting overviews.

We also have a fantastic collection of speakers. These people are incredible. They believe in the power of our SharePoint community and work tirelessly to build top-quality sessions. We have some familiar faces presenting, including Don Donais, Wes Preston, Jeff Willinger, Brian Caauwe, Virgil Carroll, Todd Bleeker, Sean McDonough, Zandy Garrard and Richard Harbridge. We also have some speakers that are new to the Twin Cities venue–including Matthew Ruderman, Mark Rackley, Tasha Scott, Megan Caauwe, Tennille Gruman, Kim Frehe, Tennille Gruman and many more. I’m honored to join this group of speakers, and will be delivering a user adoption session titled “No Miracle Required: Driving Successful User Adoption.” I’ll discuss how you can build a roadmap for user adoption and highlight real-life scenarios that have delivered great results!

I also want to give a shout out to Webtrends, who is sponsoring our Guidebook mobile app for this event. Go to http://guidebook.com/getit/?ref=email to download your guide so you can view the event’s sessions, build your personal schedule, see the list of speakers and sponsors, keep up with the event’s Twitter feed and look at maps of the venue.

And if you haven’t registered for SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities yet, get on the waitlist. It’s an event you don’t want to miss!

http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/twincities

P.S. Here’s a special treat for you Dr. Seuss fans. Enjoy!

Don’t miss ScarePoint Saturday!

Ghosts, ghouls, candy…and SharePoint? Clearly not the obvious choice. But who says IT folks can’t have a sense of humor?

ScarePoint Saturday is the fourth in our series of semi-annual Twin Cities SharePoint Saturday events. This fall’s event is scheduled for October 29, 2011 at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, MN.

SharePoint Saturdays are FREE training events designed to provide education and SharePoint-centered networking opportunities. SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities has been growing steadily over the past 2 years, growing from 100 attendees in March 2010 to nearly 300 attendees in April 2011. And while I’m not objective, I think ScarePoint Saturday might just be our best (and largest) event yet!

We still have sessions spanning 3 key tracks:

  • IT Pro/Admin
  • Developer
  • Information Worker

But we’ve also added in some new elements. The SharePoint 101 track will help new SharePoint-ers hit the ground running. From an overview of what SharePoint is and how it can be used to gathering requirements, understanding critical success factors and calculating return on investment (ROI), this track delivers SharePoint success.

The new hands-on lab provides an outstanding opportunity to learn from the best. Mindsharp will be on-site with two of their best trainers and a room full of laptops. If you’re interested in creating reusable workflows or using document set content types in SharePoint 2010, you won’t want to miss Tamara Bredemus’ sessions! And if you need a deep-dive on SharePoint’s Application Programming Interface, don’t miss the hands-on deep dive with Todd Bleeker.

But these are only a few of the 28 sessions we’ll be delivering during ScarePoint Saturday. From SharePoint governance to Office 365 and PowerShell, this event has you covered. For detailed session abstracts and registration information, visit our web site at http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/twincities/default.aspx

So who will you see there?

We’ve got an amazing speaker pool for this event, including Bill English, Todd Bleeker, Shai Petel, Virgil Carroll, Zandy Garrard and many more. I also want to thank some of our speakers that are traveling long distances to attend our event. Ruven Gotz, Richard Harbridge, Chris Geier and Becky Isserman–THANK YOU! We are honored to have you at the event.

We also have the usual suspects keeping things running smoothly. This event could not be held without heroic efforts by Wes Preston, Colleen Haviland, Tamara Bredemus, Don Donais and Raymond Mitchell. We are an eccentric bunch, though. And at Halloween we may start looking like a certain famous family:

So come check out ScarePoint Saturday. We’ll take your tricks, your treats and your SharePoint questions. Attendees will also score a limited-edition ScarePoint Saturday t-shirt (model not included).

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Helpful links:

SharePoint Saturday Chicago recap

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!

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On the horizon: SharePoint Saturday Chicago (6.11.2011)

I’m looking forward to a fantastic summer. We’ve got vacations to go on, parties to host/attend, a paver front walkway to rip out and redo (yuck) and time to sit out on the back porch with friends. With all that on tap, I’m still looking forward to attending SharePoint Saturday Chicago in early June. Here’s a few key reasons why:

  • It’s the *first* SharePoint Saturday I’ve had the chance to attend (outside of SPS Twin Cities)
  • It’s launching a new SharePoint 101 track I’m incredibly excited about! The track includes 4 building-block sessions that layer together to provide a complete roadmap for SharePoint. It’ll take you from the basics (aka what is SharePoint and what can I do with it?) through the requirements definition and future-proofing/governance processes and culminate with a look at real-world implementations and guidelines for calculating ROI on your implementation. An incredible track of sessions, all available for FREE just by attending. (Note: The final schedule has not been posted yet, but it looks like I’m the final leg of this 101-track, coming in at the end to present on ROI.)
  • It’s giving me the chance to catch up with some SharePoint friends I don’t get to see too often (Chris Geier, Ruven Gotz, Richard Harbridge, Cathy Dew, etc.) while also giving me the chance to hang out with local Twin Cities SharePoint gurus Wes Preston, Virgil Carroll and Raymond Mitchell.
  • It’s the first SharePoint event I get to bring my hubby to! Jason is usually holding down the home front while I get to wander about and talk about SharePoint. I’m looking forward to bringing him along for the ride. We’ll have to wait to see how much of a heckler he is… 

Want more information? Check out the SPS Chicago site. Here’s a marketing blurb from the event’s organizers:

This year’s suburban edition of SharePoint Saturday 2011 will feature 3 unique tracks in hopes to provide more value to the attendees.  These unique tracks will be

1. SharePoint 101 and will seek to walk users through the beginning of their SharePoint journey from the basics of what is SharePoint to planning your implementation.

2. Office365.  You have heard about it, but what is it really and how may it apply to your needs?

3. Advanced topics in SharePoint.  If you are one that typically does not go to user group or community events because there is not enough depth. This track is for you.  We will be showcasing some experts in the SharePoint community imparting their bits of wisdom. 

In short this year’s suburban edition will seek to provide something for everyone, and attract an audience from the entire spectrum.

SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities recap

Last Saturday (April 9th) was our third SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities event. It was fabulous! The event involved:

7 months of planning
16 sponsors
20 sessions; 2 half-day deep dives
260+ attendees
50 gallons of coffee served

We started off Friday afternoon with setup at Normandale Community College. We had an oustanding team, and managed to get everything ready in record time! Thanks to Colleen Haviland, Mary Neumann, Angela Spores, Cyndi & Irene Kesler, Wes Preston, Raymond Mitchell, Cheryl Lesser, Don Donais and Chaitanya Khaladkar for all your help.

Next up, speaker dinner at Tavern On France. Was great to get the chance to meet some new folks, including Troy Ronning, Sean McDonough, Jason Trent and Carlos Valcarcel. Had a great dinner, hilarious conversation with Wes Preston, Raymond Mitchell et. al. and a to-die-for piece of chocolate cake.

We stayed after the speaker dinner for SharePint. We’ve never had the SharePint on the night before the event, but attendance was great. We had 25-30 attendees drop by (including Johnny Harbieh, Becka Armagost, Fred Baer, Jennifer Devens & Nick Giuliano) to kick things off. By far, the best SharePint we’ve had at SPSTC. Look for us to continue the Friday night trend on that in the future.

Day-of event, the planning committee was on-site at 7 am. The vendor area was humming by 7:30, and by 8:15 attendees were streaming in. We had 6-7 people covering registration, but the people kept coming! We ran out of attendees t-shirts by 8:45 am and were thrilled to smash our earlier attendance records! In October 2010 we had 150 attendees. It’s amazing how quickly we’ve grown to the 300 attendee mark.

We kicked off the day with the Welcome session and the top 10 list why SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities rocks. Here it is:

10. We have a cool hashtag – #spstc

9. We have 30 hours of presentations by 20 speakers. Sorry, though, there’s no session on splitting yourself like an amoeba. You can only go to 1 session at a time.

8. We’ve doubled our previous record for attendees. (This means even more people for you to follow on Twitter!)

7. Fitness is no longer a part of SharePoint Saturday. You don’t have to walk miles from the parking lot to the sessions.

6. Free food! With healthy choices. But don’t panic, we still have unhealthy choices.

5. Sponsors! Sponsors! Sponsors! Stop by their booth and say, “Thanks for the free event.”

4. We’ll track down presentations for you and upload them to our SharePoint site.

3. You don’t have to go outside to get to any of the sessions. (Inside joke for any of you that attended SPSTC at the University of Minnesota.)

2. You don’t have to fight Gopher fans (or take out a second mortgage) to get a parking spot.

1. You can win a Kinect! And we’ll even give you the Xbox to go with it.

Once we kicked things off, the day flew by. Attendees flooded the session rooms and visited the vendor booths. Lunch included networking and a chance to play the Kinect. My session, “I need some ROI…but I have no idea where to begin!” provided a great opportunity to get to know attendees (and their organizations) a bit better.

We finished off the day with a wrap/giveaway party. We had a bunch of Best Buy gift cards, educational books/DVDs, SharePoint Saturday shirts, an iPod shuffle and the Xbox/Kinect. Congrats to all the winners!

After the event was over, a few of us went to Khan’s Mongolian Barbeque. A perfect way to sum up the weekend. Am looking forward to the next SharePoint Saturday–after a bit of rest.

A couple of final notes:

I want to thank my volunteer team for all their help in making this event a grand success. We couldn’t do it without you!

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I need some ROI…but I have no idea where to begin!

I’m creating/delivering a new presentation at SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities this weekend. It’s all about ROI. What it is, where companies go wrong in their quest to find it and how individuals can get a jump-start on quantifying it.

I’m passionate about ROI. It’s a game-changer. It’s the final step that many people forget to take after implementing a successful solution. But pulling together my thoughts on ROI and how to get started finding it in your SharePoint implementation has been tough. After spending a few frustrating hours trying to force the issue, I took a step back. That’s when I realized what I had missed. This focus on ROI has nothing to do with SharePoint. Rather, it has to do with successful product and project implementation–regardless of the platform you are using.

After resetting my context, I broke my session down into 3 basic parts–what is ROI, methodolgies/units of measure for tracking it and how to get started quantifying it. Once we have this base in place, we’ll look at how companies currently measure SharePoint ROI and compare that to how they could/should measure their ROI.  We’ll examine the costs of not focusing on ROI and take a look at industry trends around BPM and ROI.

Then we’ll move on to examining the types of ROI that can be tracked and look at real-world examples of each. Along the way, we’ll discuss calculation formulas, review minimum requirements for quantifying ROI and lay out a roadmap of how to get started on your ROI journey.

This could be a 2-day course. And I’m delivering an overview of it in 75 minutes. Strap yourselves in, folks!

Update (Sept. 7, 2011) – I’ve updated this presentation. Get a copy on SlideShare at http://www.slideshare.net/sarahhaase/i-need-some-roi-but-i-have-no-idea-where-to-begin-9169138

SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities is coming up!

Life is incredibly busy right now….not in small part because SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities is only 3.5 weeks away! This is the third SharePoint Saturday event I’ve helped organize, and I’m always amazed at how fulfilling the work is. Getting the opportunity to partner with GREAT team members to pull the event together, syncing up with sponsors and ensuring there’s enough donuts and Mt. Dew to go around…it’s all a learning experience.

While we had SharePoint Camps in place before we started holding SharePoint Saturdays, we’re really learning what it means to offer quality training to SharePoint end-users. Our last SharePoint Saturday event (held in October 2010) featured our first “Information Worker” track. It proved to be the most popular track of the day–garnering a whole new audience that hadn’t attended previous SharePoint Camp events. We’re continuing the trend with our April 9th SharePoint Saturday event. Look at the lineup of topics for Information Workers:

  • Social Team Sites – The Why and the How
  • Governance for the Enterprise
  • I need some ROI….but I have no idea where to begin!
  • Leveraging SharePoint for Social Media behind the Firewall

And we’re just getting started. We’re also featuring sessions on building solutions with BCS, “caching-in” for SharePoint performance, best practices for cloud deployments, data recovery and legal discovery w/SharePoint, mastering the master page, and using SilverLight and PowerShell. Add in a couple of half-day sessions on learning to crawl/walk/run with SharePoint and managing your upgrade and you have a fantastic day of learning!

It’s all kicking off at 8:30 AM on Saturday, April 9th at Normandale Community College. For more information, a copy of the day’s schedule and registration information, see our website – http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/twincities

Want to learn more about what a SharePoint Saturday event is like? Take a look at videos from our last event:

And remember….there’s still time to register for the April event!