TechED NZ is officially kicks off today. This is my Seventh year attending and my fourth year speaking! If you are looking for SharePoint content you will not be disappointed. Here is a list of all the SharePoint Sessions that’s on at TechED! Watch Darryl Burling’s blog for some great news for SharePoint training. OFC201 SharePoint and Business Intelligence Presenter: Steve Letford (MSFT NZ) Mon 9/14 | 12:05-13:20 | Ballroom 2 The front end of Business Intelligence - Office 2007. Excel, Excel Services, PerformancePoint Services, SharePoint and accessing SQL data in Office OFC202 The Value of SharePoint and Office in your Enterprise Presenter: Ian Morrish (MSFT NZ) Mon 9/14 | 10:40-11:55 | Ballroom 2 Are you getting the most out of your SharePoint investment? SharePoint products and Technologies is more than just a web server, ...[Read More]

Microsoft recently made available in New Zealand the following online services to all partners and clients under the BPOS banner (Business Productivity Online Services). This offering has some real value if your organisation is a small business who do not need to worry too much about managing your IT infrastructure on premise. MS has made available SharePoint, MS Exchange and Office Communications and Live Meeting which you can pay as you go for a fraction of the cost of hosting and managing your own infrastructure.   The registration process was very straightforward and I was able to get up and running within 10 minutes of going through the online sign on process. From a cost point of view a single mailbox for Exchange start at $17 or so. Check out the online calculator.   You can trial the “Business Productivity Online Standard S ...[Read More]

Via Andrew Coates and Paul Quirk The Tech•Ed 2009 season has kicked off in LA, and the show comes to Australia and New Zealand in mid-September. We’ve just opened the Call for Content tool so now’s the time to submit that great idea for a session. Details about how to submit are at the bottom of this post. Here are the rules for submitting content and what we’ll cover/not cover if the track owners select your session(s). All the way through the process you’ll be able to review your submission and track its status. This is the first time we’ve opened up the Call for Content publically like this and we’re likely to receive many more proposals than we’ve got slots to fill, so please don’t be disappointed if your submission isn’t selected. Tips for Successful Submissions Write a descriptive, fun and enticing title Target 300-400 ...[Read More]

We are extremely happy to announce that we have now finalised the dates and details for the first ever New Zealand SharePoint Conference. Dates: 2nd and 3rd July 2009 Venue: Duxton - Hotel, Wellington (New Zealand's beautiful capital city!) Registrations are now open via the main conference web site which is at http://www.sharepointconference.co.nz Speaker Lineup International Speakers The amount of interest shown by International speakers have been tremendous and we are very happy to announce the following International renowned speakers who are among the best of the best. Joel Oleson (Key Note Speaker) - http://www.sharepointjoel.com - In the year 2000, Joel Oleson, a Sr. Web Engineer was brought in to Microsoft IT design the first Microsoft global deployment of SharePoint. Later he would design the extranet, and hosted ...[Read More]

New Zealand seems to be attracting the best of SharePoint talent lately and in April we are going to hit the road with a series of sessions by Michael Noel (MVP) from the United States. Michael Noel (MVP) is an internationally recognized technology expert, best selling author, and well known public speaker on a broad range of IT topics. He has authored several major best-selling industry books that have been translated into over a dozen languages. Significant titles include SharePoint 2007 Unleashed, Teach Yourself SharePoint 2007 in 10 Minutes, Windows Server 2008 Unleashed, ISA Server 2006 Unleashed, Exchange Server 2007 Unleashed, and many more. Currently a partner at Convergent Computing in the San Francisco Bay Area, Michael's writings and extensive public speaking experience across six continents leverage his real-world expertis ...[Read More]

Yes! We are finally doing this. This will be the premier SharePoint Conference targeted specially towards a New Zealand audience. Currently we have tentatively set the dates to be 2nd and 3rd of July 2009. To make this event a success we need your help and participation. Please go to the New Zealand Community SharePoint Conference web site and register your interest for the event. This will help us to make sure that we can plan accordingly. Already we have had some great International Speakers register their interest and we will work with the community to give you the best ever conference relating to all things SharePoint. The New Zealand Community SharePoint Conference 2009 will be held in Wellington, New Zealand. Attendees register your interest for the event Register and Submit your sessions if you are a speaker If you want ...[Read More]

I finally got my copy of Michael Sampson's new book "Seamless Teamwork".   Seamless Teamwork helps people in collaborative teams envision how to accomplish their work using Microsoft SharePoint. The purpose of the book is to demonstrate how SharePoint can be used to support team collaboration, innovation and the carrying out of daily business activities.   I recommend this book if you are a project/program manager or a team member of an organisation who has a SharePoint deployment and want to understand the context of how and when to use SharePoint to help form a team and work towards achieving an outcome. Michael's way of writing brings home some very common scenarios that typical projects go through and outlines how SharePoint can actually help facilitate the process. It's purely from a perspective of using the out ...[Read More]

Thanks to everyone who came to the SharePoint sessions at TechED. This year we had some great speakers from overseas and some of the best local SharePoint speakers. You can now download the session slides that I co-presented with Ben and Joel via the below links. OFC 315 - Why Findability Should Be an Organising Principle for Your SharePoint Server 2007 Deployment (ZIP 1MB) OFC 375 - Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Governance: From Chaos to Success in Ten Steps (ZIP 4MB) For those of you who missed TechED and want to know more about these sessions I will be presenting these at the NZ SharePoint User Groups in the coming months. You can join one of the regional groups via the link. Be sure to check out Joel's and Ben's blog for more resources. If you are planning SharePoint check out my previous posts on SharePoint Planning ...[Read More]